“Students often refer to themselves as “A” students, “B” students, or “C” students in conversations with each other and feel a sense of shame when they get failing grades.” I highlighted this sentence because it further dispels the current grading system as beneficial to students and rather that it creates harmful social perceptions.

“The result of this process is the development of competence, self-confidence, and mastery.” This sentence stuck out to me because it provides an explanation on the benefits of the Montessori structure and that it guides students in retaining the information rather than forgetting concepts once the class has ended. 

“From my experience in the classroom, our current paradigm based on grades creates an environment in which students fear the possibility of failure rather than focusing on the possibility of learning.” This sentence grabbed my attention because it highlighted the role fear of failure plays in students' education and how harmful that system is to meaningful learning.  

“I believe that if more educators used this grading structure, student cheating would be diminished, grade inflation would be eliminated, and students would be much more inclined to discuss what they are learning because the classroom would become more creative, self-directed, and meaningful to them.” This stuck out to me because it brought up a major point that learning can be meaningful and exciting to students when there’s no fear of failure and no risk of tanking their GPA’s. 

“There is so much trust in the messages conveyed by grades that they have gone without challenge and are resistant to change.” This stuck out to me because it highlights how the traditional grading system hasn’t truly been challenged and examined as an accurate way to assess academic success. 

“This kind of system only allows those students who can learn at the expected pace to be successful, which leads to persistent inequities in the classroom.” I found this helpful because it brought up the point that the traditional grading and teaching system often leaves behind students who aren’t made to learn that way which can cause them to experience lower self confidence and to feel academically inadequate in comparison with their peers. 

“This shift prioritizes learning, equity, and formative assessment to inform student improvements and teacher instruction (Guskey, 2011; Iamarino, 2014; Link & Guskey, 2022).” This stuck out to me because it explained the benefits of a non-traditional learning process and how it emphasizes true learning over the ability to memorize. 

“In Lewis’s (2022) re-analysis of his findings about secondary students’ math anxiety, he found that students experienced lower test anxiety in their SBG course than in their other courses, which used a traditional grading approach.” This sentence highlights the pros of implementing a nontraditional grading and teaching system and proves that this alternative learning style reduces students' school anxiety.

“Montessori was very concerned with the training of the teacher, and Montessori teacher training (at least in its traditional form) is said to require a spiritual transformation, creating a disposition of flexibility, restraint, and love of humanity (Whitescarver, 2007).” I highlighted this sentence because it emphasizes the different mindset that Montessori teachers adopt and explains that it’s not only about education, but about “love of humanity.”

“The practices also include philosophical elements like keeping the classroom beautiful and orderly, allowing children to choose freely as long as they are constructive, older children going out to explore the world and giving formal reports about their research activities to the class, and nothing beyond those specific Montessori practices (no grades, tests, or worksheets, no special outside teachers, and so on).” This sentence stuck out to me because it delves into the key differences Montessori education offers and sheds light on the importance of independence and exploration in and out of the classroom. 

“If conventional teachers could improve child outcomes by simply adapting certain elements of Montessori, that would be more practical than adopting the whole system, which requires retraining many thousands of teachers, purchasing vast amounts of new materials, and eliminating the textbook industry.” I appreciated how they brought up a practical approach to implementing Montessori practices into traditional education to allow students to reap the benefits this style of education has to offer. 

“Montessori is considered sufficiently superior to warrant widespread adoption, is to convert one school or district at a time to the full Montessori system, beginning in lower‐income districts where the need for improvement is greatest.” I highlighted this sentence because it brings up an additional point that lower-income districts should be the first to transition to Montessori education to ensure those who are in need of the most improvement receive it first. 

“Its virtues with respect to peace education have been extolled on numerous fronts, and its focus on "the individual child might be compared with existential ideas regarding personal journeys in education and in life.” This sentence stuck out to me because it highlights how Montessori schooling is not just focused on academic education, it’s focused on the individual and their life journey, which is much different than traditional schooling. 

“While many features of Montessori education seem attractive both to the educational community and to parents who are seeking the best school placement for their children, measurements of standardized achievement for Montessori have been in short supply.” This sentence highlights a key issue within the research regarding the comparison of Montessori and traditional education and explains that it's difficult to measure academic success in Montessori schooling because they don't offer grading or tests. 

“The apparent disjoint between typical Montessori assessment, which relies most often on anecdotal and portfolio-type evidence, and that employed in the public sector creates a challenge in comparison.” This sentence highlights another barrier when researching the differences in performance for Montessori and traditional schooling and explains why it’s difficult to accurately compare the two when Montessori schooling strays away from traditional testing. 

“These costs are high, and though many districts are willing to bear them, they want assurances that their investments will reap desired outcomes in the form of appropriate academic achievement for learners in those classrooms.” This sentence leaps off the idea that Montessori schooling is an expensive investment and there must be substantial evidence that this type of schooling provides long lasting and transformative benefits to students and faculty.

“The classroom is organized into specific areas- Practical Life, Sensorial, Art, Math, Language, Cultural Studies, Science- from which the children can choose activities.” This stuck out to me because it examines the practical and soft skills students learn from a Montessori education and highlights how different that system is from traditional schooling where the focus is primarily on academic education. 

“Throughout the process, teachers are taking careful observations of each child to discover what new lessons the child may be ready to learn.” I highlighted this sentence because it emphasizes how Montessori schooling focuses on the individual and strays away from the narrative of one size fits all that is prevalent in traditional schooling. 

“Montessori classrooms are mixed-age, multi-sensory and maintain a sense of order and beauty.” This stuck out to me because I feel like the negative connotations surrounding Montessori schooling often implies a disorganized and chaotic environment, but in reality the classroom remains orderly while still allowing students to explore. 

“Children learn responsibility, patience, and kindness as they explore friendships and materials.” This stuck out to me because it further pushes the narrative that Montessori learning is geared towards preparing students for the challenges of life rather than teaching them how to be academically acceptable.

“Emphasis on competition.” I chose to highlight this section because it identifies a prevalent flaw in traditional schooling that promotes competition amongst students rather than the collaboration that’s embedded into the Montessori system. 

“Students have the opportunity to advance academically at their own pace, without limits.” This stuck out to me because it explains that Montessori education not only allows exceptional students to grow, it gives space to those students who may need more time understanding concepts. 

“Adult-centered: teacher controls the classroom and enforces discipline.” I highlighted this section because it sheds light on the ongoing norm of traditional classrooms being focused on the teacher rather than allowing students to be involved in discussion and guide exploration of different topics. 

“Uninterrupted work cycles, students choose when and for how long to work on each activity, many subjects are integrated.” I chose to highlight this section because it highlights how radically different Montessori classrooms are from traditional classrooms and how it allows students to learn and grow at their own pace which fosters curiosity at a young age.

“In fact, Feldman says, grades have become “the main criteria in nearly every decision that schools make about students,” from whether they get promoted to the next class or held back, to which course level a student should be taking, such as college prep, honors, or AP.” This stuck out to me because it highlights how intertwined grades are with the traditional schooling system and how they are a deciding factor in much of a student's current and future academic success. 

“A student who writes an A-quality essay but hands it in late gets her writing downgraded to a B, and the student who writes a B-quality essay turned in by the deadline receives a B.” I highlighted this because it shows the inconsistency in the traditional grading system and that often grading varies teacher to teacher depending on their grading philosophy.

“Students also learn at their own pace and the school’s standards are broken into kid friendly “I can” statements so parents and students know exactly what skills a student “can” do and which skills they are working on.” I highlighted this because it addresses an alternative option for measuring students' progress and it revolves around the student’s ability to retain and grasp information rather than an easy A or D for teachers to keep record of.

“Knowing that there’s a learning opportunity that can engage them more directly with why they went into teaching in the first place, and gets them more excited about teaching, I think is really important.” This stuck out to me because it demonstrates that alternative ways of measuring student understanding is not only beneficial for students, it’s valuable to the teachers as well. 

“Given that the time and stress associated with grading has the potential to distract instructors from other, more meaningful aspects of teaching and learning, it is perhaps time to begin scrutinizing our tacit assumptions surrounding grading.” I highlighted this because it demonstrates how grading can often take up valuable time that teachers could spend teaching and helping students better grasp foundational concepts.

“A number of colleges have abandoned numerical and categorical grading altogether, opting instead for creating contracts with students to define success or employing student self-reflection in combination with written evaluations by faculty.” This stuck out to me because it demonstrates that many schools are searching for new ways to measure student understanding and that they’re looking to opt out of the traditional A to F grading scale.

“In some cases, the demands of grading require so much instructor attention, little time remains for reflection on the structure of a course or for aspirations of pedagogical improvement.” I highlighted this because it speaks to the numerous hours spent grading that take away from teachers ability to be creative and employ meaningful assignments and learning opportunities. 

“In fact, we have presented evidence that accuracy-based grading may, in fact, demotivate students and impede learning.” This stuck out to me because it contributes to the idea that traditional grading is not a motivator for many students and can oftentimes be a hindrance in the learning and retaining process.