I think the key points you’re missing are that:
1) this is directed at young children.
2) “what they want” is really “what they want [in the context of the environment you’ve created for them]”. So the kids can’t do whatever they want.
1) this is directed at young children.
2) “what they want” is really “what they want [in the context of the environment you’ve created for them]”. So the kids can’t do whatever they want.
Note that while today Montessori is most commonly used in preschools, there are Montessori schools for much older children, and that was the original vision.
> In 1936, all the Montessori schools in Italy were forced to shut. With the help of one of her students, Ada Pierson, Montessori settled in the Netherlands, where she lived until her death in 1952. Pierson gave her a big house in Laren, near Amsterdam, where she dreamed of expanding her method from young children to adolescents, ‘a delicate age, full of surprises’.
Most of the anecdotes in the article are about children younger than 6.