I chose MTCNE due to the ease of working with my school district. The AMI Montessori training worked seamlessly with my employing district and helped ensure I was trained properly to the standards of my school and leadership.

The atmosphere is one that is very calm, understanding, and engaging no matter how challenging. This type of atmosphere is what I try to model in my classroom as well, albeit with children instead of adults.

There were a few lessons I did not fully understand, which is fine. Being challenged by my students who needed these lessons (Sentence Analysis, Deriving a Numbers’ Square Root on Paper, Color Theory/Wheel), It was wonderful to have struggled with the lessons once more and better understand them once I had to teach them.

There were times I just did not understand how to derive the square root of a number but I know I needed to thrive to teach my students who were at that level and were hungry to learn even more! Succeeding on teaching lessons I hoped I never had to teach to set up my students for success, this has been the most meaningful daily experience for me.

I would highlight the great amount of work that lies ahead of them but sandwich that with the even greater satisfaction of relearning everything and helping so many students to come in bettering their education one step at a time.

Many of my classmates had some prior Montessori experience and I use this to help further develop my perspective on teaching as I transition away from traditional. Montessori is extremely different, that is given, but how one heads or guides the classroom and children also needs to be taken into account.

I feel as though my training has changed me in allowing me to be much more open-minded, calmer, methodical, and more of a tactician with how I teach my students. Going from whole-class instruction with my prior traditional education to more small group and working with each child on a more personal level, I am able to better fine-tune their education.

My most fun MTCNE memory is that of graduation. After a yearlong endeavor of working with my hand and mind, trying to understand how a 2nd plane child will see and work in my environment, struggling and failing, never giving up, graduating was a sense of sweet relief that I could not wait for but relished once it occurred. Seeing others in my cohort go through similar, survive years worth of Montessori materials in one year, and end up at the finish line together, this was a speechless moment.

How have your interests grown and changed?
First and foremost, cursive and calligraphy! I never thought I would consider writing a peaceful and calming exercise but I now almost exclusively write in cursive and use this to help my students find their peace in times of distress. I am also very engaged in the little intricacies of math and grammar that go ignored with traditional education. Everything must be done methodically, in isolation, and in a way that leaves the students (and myself) feeling accomplished after every piece of work.