Montessori Essentials Course

Montessori Essentials Course for all Montessori adults! 
       Montessori Homeschoolers
       Montessori Classroom Assistants
       Catechesis of the Good Shepherd *assistants*
     
June 6 8a-5p
Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception
Lafayette, Indiana

Learn the basics of Montessori that apply to all environments, along with the following:

• History of Montessori
• Exercises of Practical Life - preliminary skills, care of the environment, care of self and more
• Grace and Courtesy lessons
• Walking on the Line
• Silence Game/Activity
• Basic art lessons

$50 for the day (evening-before lodging available only as space permits)

NB: This Montessori Essentials course is one-day of a full 10-day course on the religious potential of children aged 2.5 through their 6th year. While the focus of the whole course is on the religious potential of the child as seen through a Montessori whole-child perspective, this first day will primarily focus on the universal aspects of the Montessori approach to life; thus anyone of any faith background who wants to utilize or learn more about the Montessori approach will benefit.

If you are interested in the full Catechesis of the Good Shepherd course, please see the post 3, 2, 1, Atrium at Seeking the Plan of God.

Elementary Montessori Training - Reality Check

In a draft dated February 2, 2014, I had this:

Begin draft:

I had this to say in a previous post, then I deleted a portion of it to finish the post on the same topic with which it started:

I have to admit - I felt cheated. But that could be tied into the reality of the training center I was at and the treatment dished out there to anyone who is 1) Catholic 2) homeschool-friendly 3) uses Montessori principles in any form of faith formation 4) actually wanting to "get it" and not just regurgitate it - the list goes on, but that is a subject of another post.

This many years later, I am finally getting ready to truly write about that experience. 

End draft.

Now here it is June 20, 2015 - and I still haven't written about it. Yet the training center in question has chosen NOW to come forward to pronounce to the world I didn't finish my training there, thus I must be mis-representing myself.

Hm. Interesting. I have checked all SPAM filters - I have not yet received a private communication from them, or anyone for that matter, on this topic. All announcements have been public without any room for actual professionalism.

This is SAD. Truly SAD. Contact me first. I am happy to discuss the matter on a professional level. This training center has proven time and again a lack of capability of being professional. That does not mean there is NO HOPE! I hold out hope. Hope for peace; hope for the true work of Maria Montessori to blossom forth.

It can happen. It MUST happen.




Please note, I do not claim to have a certificate or a diploma from them - I did a majority of my training there and filled in with private AMI training elsewhere, without the benefit of a diploma or certificate. I did all my student teaching and observations; I am still awaiting receipt of my last few chunks of assignments (hand-made illustrations...).

Please also note, that I choose NOT to publicly bash the training center, ruin their reputation, or otherwise cause harm or pain to anyone. Perhaps by being silent I have allowed too many others (even one is too many) to continue to receive harm by this training center; I needed to look at the harm to my son if I took this to court. My family comes first.

And to explain all of this takes many words; words that cause confusion and dissension and a bad taste for this training cetner - then perhaps for others? I want to preserve what Montessori intended and share it with homeschoolers and with small schools who are working towards getting their teachers formally trained in a full training center. I currently work with several schools around the world who are sending one teacher at a time to full Montessori training while supplementing with the mentoring and support I provide in the meantime.

Want to create a strong adversary you'll regret? Attack me.
Want to control me and subdue me? Bring me in.

Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer. Isn't that what the non-Montessori world proclaims? Perhaps it is indeed good practice.
!?

Oddly enough, professionalism and civility might increase.

My prayers for peace!

The Real Cost of Montessori Training

Costs of Montessori Trainings --- Only my personal experience:

Primary Montessori Training - 1 academic year format - 1:00-5:30 every week day:

• $9000 - training center itself - in the form of a 1.76-3.8% variable rate loan
• $1000 - Rental truck to move across country, including gas
• $3000 - ultimate out-of-pocket cost for 9 months of full-day childcare after state assistance kicked in (Montessori school)
• $300 - incidentals (paper, ink, binders, etc.)
• can't measure - the cost of closing a profitable in-home childcare, working part-time (3-5 hours a morning as an aide with hours added as the year went on) only in the last 7 months (the original aide was a single woman, not a mother, responsible, also in the training with me - she continually called me to sub for her the morning that the weekly assignments were due since hers weren't done; when she finally put in two weeks notice because she couldn't work and do the training, the directress/guide wanted to hire me, but the school board wondered how a single MOTHER could manage to work and go to school if a single WOMAN couldn't; they ultimately hired me and more hours were slowly added because I COULD do it.)
• Not included: expenses we would have had anyway (food, etc.). Although food costs went up because I was purchasing bulk food and receiving money from the Federal Food Program for the daycare I had; now we were on our own and buying in smaller quantities - the prices goes up per person.

Elementary Montessori Training - 3 summer format - 8-hours each day:

• $9000 - training center itself - in the form of a graduate loan through Loyola in Maryland - 6.8%
• $20,000 - graduate credit at Loyola towards a Master's in Education-Montessori - in the form of same graduate loan - 6.8%
• $5,250 - housing for all summers combined
• $750 - materials available on-site at a steep discount (or unavailable elsewhere)
• $400 - incidentals (paper, ink, binders, etc.) - cost went up due to twice as much paper, and they wanted it re-printed a few more times.
• $900 - summer camp cost for the weeks my son was with me
  
• Not included: two weekend seminars (I did not attend); travel expenses between training center, where my son was a portion of each summer and where we live/d, other living expenses we would have had anyway.
• can't measure: time away from my son. With primary we were together every day, if not every hour of the day. With elementary, he went to family for weeks at a time. 
• also can't measure: the emotional impact of the severe discrimination faced as a practicing/believing Christian (and a Catholic to boot!), a homeschooler (egads) and a woman who can get things done without whining about everyone else in the room (about 1/3 the group was constantly picking on everyone else). The constant re-writes of album pages because I kept Christian statements in the stories where they said "you can modify this to suit your own beliefs" - well, I am a Christian, so I will "modify" by keeping the Christian statements, thank you. Nope, that was apparently the wrong thing to do. And the constant apologies for the Christianity of Montessori were beyond just rolling one's eyes and ignoring it - it was downright cruel to Maria Montessori. Another training center may have been more respectful. (all those re-writes, and they couldn't catch actual safety typos - like typing the wrong chemical name for a demonstration).
  

I ended up sick during both trainings. In primary, our heat was accidentally "swiffered up", drying out my lungs in those few hours before we figured out what was going on, ended up in a severe coughing spell for weeks that caused me to almost pass out, cough up blood, and the doctors couldn't do anything. A friend gave me an old-fashioned humidifier and voila! Two days later I was fine. No amounts of boiling water on the stove took care of it as well as that cold-water humidifier.
 

In elementary, I was bit by either a tic or a spider - severe bulls-eye rash that wrapped around my leg. The doctor gave me a strong antibiotic for it - that I ended up sensitive to. Unable to focus while on it, severely motion sick (threw up several times on the way to the training center from the place we were staying), and unable to eat well within the first few hours of taking the twice daily dose. I had tiny windows of opportunity to get something in that would stay down. Finished the 10-day run and am hoping it wasn't a tic, so I don't have to worry about Lyme's Disease (so far, so good!).