Where the myths come from
The Montessori method has been in Poland for more than thirty years, and around the world for more than a hundred — but it is still surrounded by a thick layer of myths, misunderstandings and half-truths. Some of them are born from a lack of information — the first Polish translations of Maria Montessori contained translation mistakes that are still in circulation. Some come from experience in facilities that use the name “Montessori” as marketing without actually applying the method (the name is not legally protected in Poland — anyone can put it on a sign). And some are fuelled by polished social-media posts by bloggers and influencers who write up “a cheerful day at Montessori” in a way that has little to do with the authentic method.
This article deals with ten of the most common myths that a parent encounters when starting to consider Montessori for their child. It is written factually — not to convince you that Montessori is the best method in the world (it isn’t; it is one of several very good methods), but so that when you decide, you have a clear picture rather than one distorted by hearsay.
Myth 1: “Montessori is only for the wealthy”
Historically this is absurd. The first Casa dei Bambini that Maria Montessori opened in 1907 was in San Lorenzo — the poorest district of Rome. She worked with the children of factory workers, of large families, of the urban poor. The method itself was created as an answer to the question: how can you organise the education of children whose parents have no time, energy or money to school them individually. Montessori was, by design, for everyone.
In contemporary Poland, Montessori is in fact often more expensive than a public preschool — because Polish Montessori facilities are private, not subsidised by the state, and have to cover rent, equipment, certified staff and full sets of materials (a complete set of Montessori materials in a single classroom is an investment of tens of thousands of zlotys). Rates in Warsaw currently start at around 2,200 to 2,500 PLN per month. This is a real expense for a family.
But: there are subsidies that bring this figure down. The Aktywny Rodzic programme (a state subsidy of up to 1,500 PLN per month for working parents whose child attends a registered nursery, children’s club or daily caregiver) brings the cost of the nursery part down to around 1,300 PLN at MOC. For preschool age, the available levers are the child-tax-credit on the parent’s annual return (if you settle taxes in Poland) and some district-level Warsaw programmes. Real monthly cost is often half of the headline price.
For international families one detail matters: the Aktywny Rodzic subsidy does not require Polish citizenship. A child legally resident in Poland with a PESEL number qualifies whether the parents are Polish, German, Ukrainian, American or British. We help families apply during enrolment.
Montessori is not “only for the wealthy” — it is more expensive than a state preschool, but accessible to middle-income families, especially with the subsidies.
Myth 2: “There is no discipline in Montessori”
You walk into a Montessori classroom and see a dozen or so children working independently, each with their own material. Nobody is shouting “everyone sit in the circle”. The teacher sits at a small table with one child while the rest do their own thing. A parent on a first visit often reacts: “good grief, they can do whatever they like here”.
This impression is misleading. Discipline in Montessori exists, but it has a different nature from the discipline that conventional schooling has accustomed us to. It does not rest on fear of punishment or on rewards for good behaviour. It rests on three things.
First, on clear rules that the child knows and understands. “The material goes back where it came from.” “We work quietly so as not to disturb others.” “We wait for someone to finish with a material before we take it.” “We do not run in the room.” These rules are short, consistent and the same for everyone (including the teacher). The child does not have to remember twenty rules — they remember three to five key ones and they know these are reliable.
Second, on self-discipline that flows from choice. When the child has chosen for themselves that today they will work with the pink tower — rather than being dragged into this work by a teacher — their engagement is qualitatively different. A three-year-old can work with a material for forty minutes if they chose it. The same three-year-old, after five minutes of “art class” led by a teacher, starts to fidget and become restless — because it is not theirs.
Third, on a limit set calmly but firmly. In Montessori there is no “naughty chair”, but there is no permissiveness either. If a child hits another child, the teacher comes over, physically stops them if needed, names what happened (“you hit Antek, that hurts him”), and helps them find an alternative. She does not dramatise, does not shout, does not shame — but she does not ignore either. This is a difficult skill for a teacher to learn. A useful question to ask during a visit: “What do you do when a child hits another child?” The answer will show whether discipline in this facility has a real shape.
Myth 3: “Children in Montessori do whatever they want”
This is a variant of the previous myth, but worth treating separately, because misunderstood freedom is one of the biggest sources of confusion about Montessori.
Freedom in Montessori does not mean chaos. It means something very specific: the child has the freedom to choose work — from the materials that are in the room, during the planned three-hour work cycle. There is no freedom to run around with materials in hand. There is no freedom to take a material that has not yet been presented by a teacher. There is no freedom to scatter a material and walk away. There is no freedom to disturb classmates’ work.
Maria Montessori wrote: “The freedom of the child ends where the freedom of another child begins.” In practice this means an environment that has a great deal of structure (shelves, materials in their places, clear rules, rituals of starting and ending work), but within that structure offers the child the possibility of choice. This matters: Montessori does not believe that a small child placed in a chaotic space will, on their own, find a meaningful structure. It believes that a child placed in a clear and calm structure will, on their own, find their own path within it.
For the parent this means: if you walk into a Montessori room and see “children doing whatever they want”, with high probability it is NOT a good Montessori facility. It may be a facility called Montessori that has implemented neither the structure nor the methodology. An authentic Montessori room is calm, orderly, full of work — not chaotic.
Myth 4: “It is a strange cult-like thing”
This myth most often appears after a first contact with the Montessori environment — neutral colours, a teacher speaking in a low voice, no television and no plastic, a small group, the words “prepared environment” and “sensitive periods”. For a parent raised in the loud world of mainstream Polish preschools with Mickey Mouse on the walls, this can look strange and closed in on itself. Hence the association with a cult.
In fact, Montessori is one of the most widespread educational methods in the world. It operates in more than a hundred countries, in tens of thousands of facilities. It is secular — it requires no particular faith, religion or worldview. It is scientific — Maria Montessori was a physician, she built her conclusions on systematic observation of hundreds of children, and contemporary research in developmental psychology and neuroscience largely confirms her intuitions.
What is more, Montessori has produced a long list of names we know from other fields. Larry Page and Sergey Brin (founders of Google), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), George Clooney, Prince William, Anne Frank, Gabriel García Márquez — all attended Montessori schools. In one well-known interview, Larry Page said that it was the habit of independently choosing his work, learned in Montessori, that prepared him not to wait for someone to tell him what to work on but simply to do it.
Montessori is not a cult — it is a standard, scientifically documented pedagogy that asks one difficult thing of adults: to step back and observe, rather than organising and controlling. This can feel counter-intuitive — but “counter-intuitive” is not the same as “strange”.
Myth 5: “After Montessori, my child will not fit into a normal school”
This is the most common fear of parents considering Montessori enrolment. “Since there are no desks, no grades, no bells and no classes of twenty-five — how will my child cope in the first grade?” The fear is natural, but in practice it is not confirmed by experience or by research.
From the perspective of an experienced first-grade teacher, a child after a Montessori preschool usually stands out in three ways. First, independence — they pack their own backpack, dress themselves, go to ask the teacher about anything they do not understand. First-grade teachers often say these are their “least demanding” pupils in terms of supervision. Second, concentration — because for three years in Montessori preschool they practised choosing their own work and persevering at a task. Third, an academic head start — most Montessori children read at six and have the basics of mathematics, so first grade starts from a position of “going well” rather than “just starting”.
What can be hard? Adapting to longer periods of sitting at a desk and listening to the teacher. In Montessori a child is used to the fact that if something interests them, they ask about it; if they do not understand, they stop and ask the adult; if they have an idea, they pursue it. In a conventional classroom a different contract applies — we sit quietly, listen, ask at the designated time. Adaptation usually takes 2 to 4 weeks, the first semester can be bumpy, but after that the child usually does very well.
It is worth helping the child through the transition: talking before September about how school is different from preschool, that there are bells and breaks, that the teacher leads the whole day. And it is worth talking to the future first-grade teacher — many teachers in Poland already know this profile and can integrate it.
Myth 6: “Montessori does not teach cooperation”
If you see children in a Montessori classroom, each working at their own mat, you may think: “where is the group work here? where is cooperation? my child will become a loner”. This misunderstanding comes from looking at a single moment, not at the whole of daily life in the group.
Groups in Montessori are mixed-age (in the preschool, the standard is 2.5 to 6 years in one room). This means that every day a five-year-old explains to a three-year-old how to pour water from a pitcher. Every day a four-year-old shows a two-year-old where to put the broom after sweeping. Every day a six-year-old takes a new three-year-old by the hand and leads them to the sink. These are not occasional “good-deed days” — they are the daily reality that flows from the structure of the group.
Beyond that: many materials in Montessori are naturally collaborative. Two girls assemble the continent map together. Three boys build the pink tower together. The whole group sets the table for lunch, tidies up after the meal, looks after the plants and sometimes an animal. Shared meals with each child telling what they learned that day. Shared time outside.
It is true that authentic Montessori does not organise artificial “group activities” of the kind “and now we all paint a leaf green together”. That is a different absence of “group work”. But the daily collaboration in a mixed-age group is usually stronger than in a single-year group, where all the children are at a similar level and have nothing to teach each other.
Myth 7: “It is a method for ‘special’ children”
This myth has a historical root. Maria Montessori did indeed begin her career working with children with intellectual disabilities and developmental delays in the psychiatric clinics of Rome. She found that many of them developed well when given a suitable environment and materials — concluding that the problem was not in the children but in what was offered to them. From that experience came the idea of checking what the same method would give to typically developing children.
The first Casa dei Bambini in 1907 was already for typically developing children — and it was there that Montessori observed the phenomena that became the foundation of her whole method (deep concentration in three-year-olds, independent choice of work, interest in order). All of Montessori’s later work (she lived until 1952, nearly fifty years after opening the first Casa) concerned the general population of children.
Today the Montessori method is used for all children — typically developing children, children with disabilities, children on the autism spectrum (where structure and a clear environment often help), children with sensory sensitivities, children with ADHD. For children of different temperaments and different needs. The myth that “it is for special children” comes from a flawed historical shortcut — in reality, the method is universal.
Myth 8: “Children do not play in Montessori”
You walk into the room and see materials organised on shelves, children working with specific implements, a teacher saying “you are working with the pink tower”. The first reflex: “the children have no play here. This is some sort of laboratory school for toddlers”.
In fact Montessori consciously used the word “work” rather than “play” — but not because she was taking the right to play away from children. She did this because she noticed that what adults call “play” (scattered, brief, without purpose) does not match what really absorbs a small child when they are doing something that interests them. A small child transfers beans from bowl to bowl for hours. A small child tries again and again to put a ring on a peg, even though it does not succeed. A small child sorts chestnuts by size with absolute focus. For the child this is not “play” — it is work, in the full sense of the word, full of deep engagement. Adults call it “play” because from an adult perspective it looks like leisure — but for the child it is serious life business.
In Montessori the child plays in the classical sense as well — on the playground they run, kick a ball, ride a balance bike, climb. There is time for free play with other children. There are shared songs, stories, laughter. But in the classroom, during work cycle, the child is invited into focused work with a material — and that is fascinating for them, even if it does not look like “play” from an adult perspective.
You could say that Montessori takes children more seriously than many traditional pedagogies — it notices that a small child sorting beads is doing something as serious as an adult doing their job, and it gives that activity the same weight.
Myth 9: “Montessori is only for children who plan to stay in Poland”
This myth specifically concerns international families and is worth addressing directly. Some families worry that enrolling their child in a Polish Montessori preschool is somehow “investing in Poland” and will not be transferable if they move on to London, Berlin, Singapore or New York in three years.
The opposite is true. Montessori is one of the most internationally portable educational systems in existence. The Association Montessori Internationale (AMI), founded by Maria Montessori herself in 1929, sets a single global standard for materials, training and classroom practice. A child who has spent two years in our classroom in Białołęka and then moves to an AMI Montessori school in London, Vancouver or Sydney will recognise the materials, the work cycle, the rhythm of the day. In our experience the adjustment takes a week or two — sometimes a single morning.
The same is true in reverse. Families who came to us from Montessori schools in Brussels, Lyon, Berlin and São Paulo settled quickly because the environment was familiar. The Polish language is a bonus that the child picks up naturally; it is not the foundation of the experience.
If anything, Montessori is more transferable than the Polish state pedagogy or a Polish private mainstream preschool, because the latter do not have direct equivalents abroad.
Myth 10: “Polish Montessori is different from American or British Montessori”
Related to the previous myth and worth a separate note. Some parents assume that because the country is different, the method must be different in practice. In an authentic Montessori classroom, this is simply not the case.
The materials are the same. The pink tower, the brown stairs, the moveable alphabet, the sandpaper letters, the golden bead material, the geometric solids — they look identical in our classroom in Białołęka, in a Bay Area Montessori in California, in a London AMI school, in Tokyo. They are made by the same handful of certified manufacturers worldwide (Nienhuis, Gonzagarredi and a small number of others) to the same specifications.
The presentations are the same. The way a teacher shows the child how to pour water, how to fold a cloth, how to introduce the moveable alphabet — these were codified by Maria Montessori a hundred years ago and are taught the same way at AMI training centres in Amsterdam, Bergamo, Washington DC and Warsaw.
The daily rhythm is the same. The three-hour work cycle, the mixed-age group, the role of the teacher as guide rather than activity leader — these elements look almost identical anywhere in the world.
What differs is the surrounding language and a few cultural details. In our classroom the children speak Polish and English; in a Lyon classroom they speak French; in a São Paulo classroom they speak Portuguese. The food at lunch differs by country. The walls outside the building look different. But the inside of an authentic Montessori room is recognisable in any country.
Common questions from MOC parents
My child is very lively — will Montessori work for them?
Yes. The room is designed with movement in mind — the child carries materials, stands up, walks to the sink, takes out trays, waters plants, goes outside to the garden. A lively child in an authentic Montessori room usually channels their energy into work after the first few weeks and is less scattered than they would be in a 25-child group sitting at desks.
What does the teacher do when my child does not want to approach the materials at all and only walks around the room?
She observes. She does not force. A child who has come from another system sometimes tests for 2 to 3 weeks whether the freedom is “real”, or whether someone will soon start telling them what to do. When they notice that nobody is going to direct them, they usually start approaching the shelves on their own — out of curiosity. The teacher offers the first materials when the child is ready.
Is MOC Montessori good for an only child who has not had much group experience?
Yes. Mixed-age groups are especially helpful for children who have had few peers — both younger and older classmates in the room provide natural support. The first weeks can be difficult (any change of environment is difficult), but after adaptation the child usually settles well into a stable group of 16 to 18.
What if both parents work full time in demanding jobs — can the child still adapt?
Yes, with one note. Adaptation in the first two to three weeks is shorter and smoother if at least one parent can be flexible in the mornings. After that, your normal working hours pose no problem — our day runs from 7:30 to 18:00, and the after-school care from 16:00 to 18:00 is included in the standard tuition.
Does the language of the home matter?
No, the home language can be anything. We have children at MOC whose home language is Polish, English, German, Ukrainian, French, Russian, Portuguese. The child grows up bilingual: the home language at home, Polish (and some English) at preschool. Keep speaking your home language consistently and it will not be lost.
What next
The best way to deal with the myths is to see Montessori in person. Not to read about it, not to watch videos on Instagram, but to walk into a room and sit in it for fifteen minutes. Only then can you see what a day in an authentic facility really looks like.
At MOC Montessori in Warsaw’s Białołęka, you can book such an open day or an individual visit. We will show you the nursery and the preschool rooms (separately), introduce the teachers, sit you on cushions on the floor, and leave you alone for a moment with your child. No marketing presentation — we show you a normal day.
We have been operating since September 2022 at ulica Małej Brzozy 12. We have a 4.7 rating from 40 Google reviews. We are registered as a daily caregiver in the City of Warsaw (the nursery part) and as a preschool in RSPO under number 478997. Our founder Katarzyna Lis completed the CEM 0–3 course and the PIM 6–9 course. Book through the form or call +48 668 555 124 — we will answer any question, including the one you are not yet sure you should ask.