it's nearing the end of my summer training and i will admit that it has been as intense as everyone had told me; thankfully, it was mostly due to having so much information given to me in such a condensed period of time (
granted, there was some regular homework stress thrown in every once and while).
The summer journey has been amazing, to say the least.
To say the most, well, i'll tell you.
The last eight weeks have been filled with arithmetic, botany, zoology, language arts, music, history, geography, and the Great Lessons. The vast majority of those content areas are commonly taught in the traditional school system. However, the Montessori method utilizes materials that take children from the concrete concept to the abstract. A lot of it is even foundational work for what they'll be learning down the road in middle and high school. These materials (
like the golden beads, nomenclature cards, and puzzle maps) have helped me and my colleagues to even understand these contents to a greater degree.
it's kind of humbling to see just how much even we, as teachers, still have to learn in life. We certainly don't know everything because we are lifelong learners; yet, the amounts of extra knowledge (
some of it review and some of it new) is essential to be able to provide those same experiences for my students.
it's also astounding to see how close i've come to my new colleagues. Eight weeks is a short amount of time, but spend eight hours a day with them and they've become great friends. Everyone comes from a different background and has been drawn to a Montessori school for a different reason. But we all ended up here in this training program together and i've come to appreciate everything that they have to offer. We've all come to work together as a team over this short period of time and i am sad to say that i won't be seeing them everyday after this week. However, i am happy to say that they are all going to be amazing Montessori teachers in their new classrooms (
plus, we still have our Tuesday night classes to look forward to).
This week has also brought with it the great reality of becoming a teacher. Emailing parents, putting together testing schedules, checking curriculum maps, updating my planner with all of the school dates...it's all coming together. i just about panicked Monday morning when i wasn't exactly sure what i needed to be sending to my class parents and how do i word the email and how much do i say about myself just yet? Thankfully, i have an amazing staff and director to work with who were able to answer all of my questions and the emails were sent without fear (
well, without MUCH fear). i have received some fantastic responses and i can honestly say from those replies that i could not have asked for a better group of parents and students to work with this next year. it's helped to begin calming my own nerves as a first-year teacher.
The nerves will come and go (
as they always do) but i'm confident that i'll be able to make it through. it's all a part of the journey to becoming a Montessorian and i am still very near the beginning of that.
