Our Guest: Andrew Faulstich
Show Notes
Andrew Faulstich joins the Voices in Montessori podcast to discuss resisting the push toward standardization in our current educational system. Andrew discusses how this trend emerged in the 1980’s and continues today. He contends that the question, “What works?” is not the right question to be asking. Andrew argues that standardized education is aimed at an imaginary child “in the middle,” which means it isn’t actually meeting the needs of anyone. And instead of asking, “Are students proficient at x, y, and z skills?”, he wonders why we aren’t instead asking, “What do we want for our students? What kind of society are we creating?”
So what is the alternative? Andrew makes a case for an alternative model (such as Montessori) that honors what students can do with real-world work. Andrew describes humanistic methods of assessment, such as student self-assessments and goal setting, student-led conferences, and portfolio-based evaluations. The focus of these methods, rather than a numeric score, is actually preparing students for life. In light of the current trends of anxiety and depression in teens, is it not our moral responsibility to better serve the needs of our students? Join us for this fascinating discussion!
About our Guest
Andrew Faulstich
High School Social Studies Teacher & High School Montessori Pedagogy Coordinator, Oneness Family School
Andrew Faulstich believes in the potential for education to be transformative and empowering for all students. He developed and led international and U.S. education programs and taught students from 7 different countries in person, virtually, and in a hybrid format. He also experienced the full breadth of public and private educational institutions, working with early childhood through undergraduate, graduate, and adult learners. All of his work is geared toward providing empowering, culturally sustaining, learner-centered, anti-bias, antiracist, and equitable education to students around the world.
Andrew attended a Montessori school himself through Upper Elementary, which is why he returned to the method as a teacher. He served as a founding lead teacher for a Montessori middle and high school in Hollywood, Florida and served as the Humanities Guide for a Montessori adolescent program in Baltimore, Maryland. Andrew is now the high school Social Studies teacher and High School Montessori Pedagogy Coordinator at Oneness Montessori School in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Andrew received his Master’s in International Educational Development from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, his Bachelor’s in Anthropology from the University of Rochester, a certificate in Montessori Adolescent Studies from the Association Montessori Internationale, and a certificate in the Harkness Method from the Exeter Humanities Institute at Phillips Exeter Academy.
Resources
Articles:
The Trouble with the Common Core by the editors of Rethinking Schools (Summer 2014)
Penn GSE center reveals broad impact of standards-based reform on student learning (September 15, 2022)
10 reasons why Finland’s education system is the best in the world by Big Think (September 10, 2018)
Books:
Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) by Alfie Kohn (Author), Susan D. Blum (Editor)
Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities by John Warner
Trust Kids: Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy by Carla Bergman (Editor)
Websites:
Human Restoration Project www.humanrestorationproject.org
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