Bittersweet Endings. Bright New Beginnings.
Big news everyone...
Me receiving my AMI Elementary teaching diploma.
It's official! I completed my AMI Elementary Teacher training!
At the graduation ceremony with the Director of Elementary Training at Montessori Northwest, the beloved Elise Huneke-Stone.
The past two months have been a complete blur, marked by bittersweet endings and bright new beginnings.
All in the month of May, I helped move my husband from Portland to San Francisco (knowing I wouldn't be joining him until mid-July) so that he could start his new job; I took my written exams at Montessori Northwest (three days of writing essays!); I celebrated my 2-year wedding anniversary; and I finally finished coloring/painting all of the timelines and charts that supplement the lessons given in the Elementary classroom--which felt like quite a feat!
Then suddenly and without warning, May turned to June. I survived the oral examination at MNW and graduated from the training center with my AMI Elementary teaching diploma; I packed all my belongings, and my darling husband moved them down to San Francisco; then I immediately flew to the opposite side of the country where I am currently taking three summer courses at Loyola University Maryland.
My time in the oh-so-lovely & dear-to-my-heart Portland, Oregon may have come to an end. And my time in the AMI Elementary teacher training may have passed. But my passion has multiplied, my knowledge has expanded, and my confidence as a Montessori teacher and guide has increased.
It was a truly memorable part of my life, and I couldn't have done it without the support of my husband, my family & friends, my trainer, and my awesome, inspiring cohort of elementary Montessorians who are all headed out into the world to do amazing work with children.
It's a blurry photo, but this is my husband celebrating with me after I received my diploma.
“If we wish to become successful teachers in this new educational method, we must reconsider our task and our personality as teachers. We must take upon ourselves the mission of bettering the condition of education. The main task is not to learn the method, but to open a new and better way of life for the child.”
-Dr. Maria Montessori
Now I am looking ahead at what is to come! I'll be moving to San Francisco in 3 weeks. I will have just enough time to settle into my new home, and hopefully, to do a bit of exploring around the area. In August, I will join the staff and community at a wonderful Montessori program in San Mateo. I couldn't be more excited to meet the children and families!
For now, I want to share with you an excerpt from a beautiful poem written by the late Dr. Maya Angelou and recently read aloud to our class at MNW by the Director of Elementary Training, Elise Huneke-Stone. I encourage you to track down and read this poem in its entirety. These words inspire me and fill me with hope for the future of our world. I hope they do the same for you.
A Brave and Startling Truth
“We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms...
...We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines...
...When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.”
- Dr. Maya Angelou