Student self-directed scheduling causes work to cluster at month’s end, undermining educational seriousness

Evidence

The Dalton Method, a development of Montessori’s ideas, is described elsewhere by Gramsci (Int., p. 122): “the pupils are free to attend whichever lessons (whether practical or theoretical) they please, provided that by the end of each month they have completed the programme set for them; discipline is entrusted to the pupils themselves. The system has a serious defect: the pupils generally postpone doing their work until the last days of the month, and this detracts from the seriousness of the education and represents a major difficulty for the teachers who are supposed to help them but are overwhelmed with work— whereas in the first weeks of the month they have little or nothing to do. (The Dalton system is simply an extension to the secondary schools of the methods of study which obtain in the Italian universities, methods which leave the student complete freedom in his studies: in certain faculties the students sit twenty examinations and their final degree in the fourth and last year, and the lecturer never so much as knows the student.) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1844

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Dalton Method as a Montessori-derived self-directed system, allowing postponed work and teacher overload.