A Pattern Language

"A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander and his collaborators is one of the most influential architecture and design books of the late 20th century. It might seem an odd place to find a kindred Montessori spirit. But in the chapter called "Teen-Age Society," it mirrors Maria Montessori's philosophy of adolescent education to an uncanny degree.

Maria Montessori believed that adolescence is a distinct stage of development in which young people need greater independence, meaningful work, social belonging, and opportunities to contribute to the real world. She envisioned adolescent education as a bridge to adulthood, where students develop confidence and capability through participation in the economic and social life of their community, such as by running a farm, a hotel, or another business.

Alexander and his collaborators arrive at a remarkably similar vision in A Pattern Language:

"We believe that the teenagers in a town, boys and girls from the ages about 12 to 18, should be encouraged to form a miniature society, in which they are as differentiated, and as responsible mutually, as the adults in the full scale adult society. It is necessary that they are responsible to one another, that they are able to play a useful role with respect to one another, that they have different degrees of power and authority according to their age in their maturity. It is necessary, in short, that their society is a microcosm of adult society, not an artificial society where people play at being adult, but the real thing, with real rewards, real work, real friendship, real achievements, real responsibility. For this to happen it is necessary that each town have one or more actual teenage societies, partly enclosed, watched over, helped by adults, but run, essentially, by adults and the teenagers together.

Therefore: replace the high school with an institution which is actually a model of adult society, in which the students take on most of the responsibility for learning and social life, with clearly defined rules and forms of discipline. Provide adult guidance, both for the learning, and the social structure of the society; but keep them as far as feasible, in the hands of the students."

It is often said that no good idea in history was discovered only once, and this seems a particularly good example. Writing decades apart and from very different perspectives, Montessori and Alexander arrived at much the same insight: adolescents prepare for adulthood not by being sequestered away from the adult world, but by being given scaffolded, meaningful opportunities to participate in it.