From Experience to Understanding: EMAS approach to adolescent learning

We asked Emma Rattigan, Founder and Principal at EMAS, how research demonstrates 'Experience' is the way in which adolescents learn best.

Why Adolescents Need “Research Through Experience”

At the start of the twentieth century, Maria Montessori fought to persuade society that young children were not miniature adults requiring control and discipline, but active, capable learners who needed movement, meaningful work and environments designed for their development. Long before neuroscience could validate her insights, she understood that children learn through doing far more readily than through listening alone.

A century later, we find ourselves engaged in an eerily similar struggle, this time for adolescents.

Despite astonishing advances in our understanding of the teenage brain, motivation, memory and human development, many schools still ask adolescents to learn in ways fundamentally misaligned with their neurological reality. They are expected to sit still, listen passively and absorb information delivered in short, disconnected bursts. Predictably, this results in disengagement, restlessness and misunderstandings about adolescent potential.

“Research through Experience” offers a necessary and powerful alternative. It is a foundational principle of adolescent learning that begins with the lived reality of meaningful work, real contexts and authentic challenges before moving toward abstraction, theory and synthesis. It is the adolescent expression of Montessori’s enduring principle: concrete to abstract, known to unknown.

What “Research Through Experience” Really Means

“Research through Experience” aligns naturally with inquiry-based learning, but it expands the concept by emphasising the essential role of prepared environments such as small farms, workshops, micro-economies and community projects. In these spaces, adolescents encounter real problems and real responsibilities. They begin not with abstract concepts but with life itself.

They engage in work that demands physical effort, collaboration, decision-making and ethical consideration. They plant, repair, calculate, negotiate and contribute to systems far larger than themselves. Out of this authentic work come real questions, questions not imposed by adults, but generated by adolescents as they grapple with complexity. They notice when something succeeds or fails, when systems function smoothly or break down, and when their contributions matter. They begin to wonder why. They discuss their observations with peers, record their reflections in journals or photos, and articulate their emotional responses as readily as their practical ones. Their lived experience becomes the first layer of inquiry.

As these experiences accumulate, adolescents develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding of their environment. They share discoveries, debate disagreements and support one another’s insights. Nothing is isolated or siloed; knowledge flows between individuals and across tasks. When adolescents work in this way, we observe their most authentic selves. Interests reveal themselves clearly. Strengths emerge. Curiosities deepen. A teenager who is disengaged in a classroom can suddenly spend hours investigating why the irrigation system failed overnight or calculating how to balance a micro-economy budget. Their enthusiasm becomes contagious, inspiring peers who might otherwise have remained passive. The environment becomes a catalyst for collective learning.

Only after this experiential foundation has been laid do adolescents turn toward formal study. They begin to analyse what they have observed, identify patterns, make comparisons and connect their lived experiences to wider concepts. History, science, philosophy, economics and youth rights frameworks suddenly have context and purpose. Theory is no longer abstract; it becomes a lens that brings clarity to questions they already carry.

Throughout this process, the guide plays a sophisticated and essential role. Adults observe closely, stepping in at just the right moment with a question, a tool, a challenge or a piece of knowledge that deepens the adolescent’s thinking. They provide gentle provocations that ignite curiosity and prevent stagnation. Crucially, they also introduce the micro-structures adolescents need in order to formalise their learning: how to write essays that express grounded arguments, how to create reports based on observational or collected data, how to analyse and present findings, how to synthesise information across disciplines, and how to collaborate effectively on joint projects. These academic structures strengthen intellectual discipline without severing learning from its lived origins.

Finally, adolescents synthesise what they have learned through real work with what they have come to understand through research. The results take many forms: scientific investigations, reflective essays, community proposals, business plans, design projects, performances or joint presentations. Whatever the output, the knowledge is genuine, rooted in experience, enriched by analysis and shaped through intellectual collaboration.

This is research with integrity. Experience gives rise to curiosity. Curiosity leads to analysis. Analysis leads to understanding. Understanding leads to synthesis. And all of it unfolds in an environment where work is purposeful and learning is alive.

Why Adolescents Need This Approach: What Science Makes Clear

Modern neuroscience paints a clear picture of adolescence as a period of extraordinary brain plasticity. The prefrontal cortex, the brain’s centre for planning, decision-making and self-regulation is still under construction, while the reward and emotional systems are intensely active. Teenagers are neurologically primed for engagement that is socially meaningful, emotionally resonant and connected to real-world consequences.

They learn best when they are moving, collaborating, contributing and solving problems that matter. They learn least well when they sit passively at desks, disconnected from purpose.

Research consistently supports this. High-quality inquiry-based learning increases academic achievement, deepens conceptual understanding and strengthens problem-solving skills. Project-based learning improves higher-order thinking, motivation and collaboration. The most successful models share two characteristics: experiences are meaningful, and adolescents are guided rather than left entirely on their own. In other words, “Research through Experience” is not anti-academic. It is profoundly academic but in the right order.

Why Traditional Timetables Fail Adolescents

One of the hidden barriers to adolescent learning is the structure of time. Most schools chop the day into short fragments where subjects are siloed and learning is constantly interrupted. A teenager cannot meaningfully investigate a problem, collaborate with peers, hit a dead end, reset their approach and reach insight, all within 40 or 50 minutes.

Deep inquiry requires long, uninterrupted blocks of time. Real thinking needs continuity. Adolescents need hours in which their minds, hands and emotions can remain engaged with a problem long enough to reach genuine understanding. Traditional timetables, relics of industrial-era schooling, simply cannot provide this.

Observing Adolescents in Authentic Environments

When adolescents engage in meaningful work within prepared environments, we witness something rarely seen in traditional classrooms: sustained concentration, self-direction, genuine curiosity and social cohesion. They take pride in their contributions. They delight in sharing knowledge with peers. They inspire each other. They ask for challenges rather than resisting them.

Crucially, nothing festers or stagnates in such environments. Guides observe, prompt, support and extend thinking in tune with the adolescents’ discoveries. Learning flows naturally across disciplines because life itself is interdisciplinary. Every moment becomes a chance to refine questions, deepen understanding and build collective insight.

This is education that honours adolescent potential rather than constraining it.

A New Mission for Our Time

Maria Montessori revolutionised early childhood education by insisting that children deserved environments designed around their developmental needs, not adult convenience. Today, we must bring that revolution to adolescence.

Adolescents are not “older children” who need stronger discipline. They are complex, creative, socially driven learners undergoing profound neurological transformation. They need work that is meaningful, environments that challenge and support them, and guides who understand their developmental landscape.

If we are serious about helping young people fulfil their potential, “Research through Experience” must be widely implemented, deeply studied and structurally supported. It should not be a specialised programme at the margins, but a central pillar of how we conceive adolescent education.

Science supports it. Montessori foresaw it. Adolescents themselves demonstrate it every time they are given the chance.

All that remains is for our education systems to follow.

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Author: Emma Rattigan, Founder and Principal at EMAS.

Complete Montessori education for 1 - 18 years in Edinburgh.