Montessori Training...continued

So here I am, at the end of week 3 of my training. It is still blazingly hot in Cleveland, but I have almost been too busy to notice it!

Most days are lecture-filled...about 5-6 hours worth. The weekends are taken with a 5-10 page essay and 10 words of a lexicon to define and support with quotes. Not to mention a library of Montessori readings. Man, it has been intense.

There have been days of other, more active work and experience. We spent a day traveling out to Hudson, OH to visit a suburban school there with an adolescent program, and we viewed the farm that they use and the little village where the kids have built relationships with the local merchants, historians and governmental agencies.We had the choice of activities that day, and I chose to do photography in the town square (focusing on spirals and concentric circles :) The idea was to see ways to connect the students with the particular place in which there school (and life) is located. To root them in the culture of their particular place and time. Again I was struck by how the act of looking (from an artistic perspective) causes you to connect with a place in a deep and meaningful way that would not otherwise happen.

Another day we spent at the Montessori High School here in Cleveland, and visited some of the locations and institutions where the students can do practical work. I had the chance to go to the Natural History Museum on a behind-the-scenes tour. That was such a fun experience! Not only as an educator (gathering ideas for the future) but also just for me personally. We went to the paleontology department and got to see the huge casts, removed from all around the world, which contained dinosaur fossils. Such fun! We traveled all through the bowels of the museum, coming at one point to a freezer room, which held an enormous collection of stuffed animals (not the plush kind). There was everything from a tiny bird to a giant grizzly bear. I felt like a kid, just filled with amazement.

As it is with any intense period of time away from home, it seems like I have been here MUCH longer than 3 weeks. But the next 2 will be more focused on writing up my own prospectus for an Montessori adolescent program, using the proposed site in Switzerland as a model. This will be interesting and inspiring work, and I am sure the time will fly.

Then on to visit family and friends!