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Download application forms here A Montessori Orientation
to Adolescent Studies (ages 12-18)
Click here for the event brochure in pdf format.
The participant realizes that, although the Orientation is a thorough and comprehensive Montessori-theory-into-practice approach, the burden of any school's program design is derived from the research and applications carried on within the constraints of local programs and specialists on site. Also, Montessori training at the early childhood and elementary level will be invaluable to successful leadership of any Montessori adolescent program. Why Take NAMTA's A Montessori Orientation to Adolescent Studies? NAMTA offers a Montessori Secondary Studies Certificate for those teachers who wish to know more about adolescents, their needs and psychological characteristics, as well as Montessori principles and authentic practices. The NAMTA Orientation provides a variety of implementation models unified through Montessori theory and presented by leading AMI practitioners and AMI trainers in the field. Therefore, this professional development experience forms the teacher as a reflective decision maker who is able to apply Montessori principles to a variety of practices and school conditions. The key practices presented are time-tested and have been refined by practitioners, many of whom have taught in Montessori-specific adolescent programs for fifteen years or more. Maximum opportunity for participant interaction will develop confidence and skills for those seeking to understand Montessori's third plane of development. Small faculty teams are especially successful in this format. 2008 Program Description and Schedule Week One (June 23-27):
Weeks One and Two take place on the farm, which brings to awareness the ebb and flow of community life around meaningful work. The needs and tendencies of the adolescent emerge along a full living out of various practical aspects: community meeting structure, problem solving techniques, decision making frameworks, knowledge as embodied in the environment, the role of the adult (both generalist and specialist), observation, record keeping, organizational systems, and work periods-all meeting the needs of the adolescent's true nature. Week Two (June 30-July 3; holiday July 4): This week focuses on the impact of place on community: How does one build a sense of belonging and usefulness, leading to an engaging plan of adolescent work and studies as suggested by the Erdkinder Appendices? Place has a human past and a geological-biological set of relationships in the present so that both science and history, which are intrinsic to an ecosystem, are naturally emergent studies. The farm is not only a learning laboratory but a microcosm of society. Participants perceive a social, economic, and natural mesh of systems that frames intimate knowledge of a local environment, including flora and fauna, the archives of a region, its historic architecture from its settlement period to the present, practical arts, creative expression, physical training, and the farm cycle throughout the year. In this holistic experience, learning flows through both community (boarding) and individual development. Week Three (July 7-11): New emphasis this year will clearly demonstrate how Montessori principles originally practiced in the farm setting (Erdkinder-inspired) can be transferred to other settings holistically so that participants can apply pedagogy of place to their own particular community settings. Every community site can be considered for its specific features, which evolve into a comprehensive curriculum coming from the dynamics of neighborhoods, cities, urban community gardens, commercial districts, or even the Montessori school campus itself. The universality of staging areas and the contrast of urban/rural settings is key to the balanced vision of Montessori education for ages 12-18. Place studies will be initiated in nearby neighborhoods, parks, and the home town of the Hershey Montessori School farm program. Also during this week, several school teams with strong place-based initiatives will present their case studies as the participants themselves begin to formulate their own plans as to how they can uniquely implement a community dynamic that constitutes the appropriate prepared environment for the adolescent given local conditions. Small groups will generate site maps, brainstorming together about how specific lessons can emerge from their respective places. Weeks Four and Five (July 14-25): Montessori divides the "Educational Syllabus" into three parts. The first, "opportunities for self-expression" encompasses artistic, linguistic, and imaginative activities-music, language, and art. Next is "the 'formative' education that will construct firm foundations for the character," consisting of moral education, mathematics, and languages. Finally, "general education" is presented as "the preparation for adult life," encompassing three divisions of history. "The study of the earth and of living things" pertains to natural history; "the study of human progress and the building up of civilization" refers to the history of human achievement and technology; and, finally, "the study of the history of mankind" encompasses the physical and intellectual range of human activities: migrations, exploration, human settlement, government, and civics. Closer examination of these divisions of history suggests a myriad of integrated intellectual and occupational studies. Integration refers to an overarching perspective throughout a course of study that knowledge will have unity and meaning from beginning to end, that the disciplines will "hang together" throughout adolescence using an overarching theme. Fundamentally the studies emerge around one theme, the whole of nature and civilization, and every subject is incorporated into a central view of society and the natural world. This allows the cultivation of a universal intelligence that can be applied to any specialized subject; a student can explore any aspect of human social experience with "sureness of footing and certainty of touch." Participants will not only explore a framework for studies for ages 12-18 but also generate their own program prospectus for either 12-15 or 15-18, outlining principles that support their teaching of specific details, always in the context of the whole child and the universe of knowledge. Small group work will be based on the kind of adolescent program participants intend to practice: 1) urban classroom-based, 2) urban place-based, 3) urban transitioning to rural, 4) purely land-based, or 5) high school. Seminar Choices for Weeks Four and Five (July 14-25) Current Orientation participants will choose one of the following three workshops during the final two weeks (included with Orientation tuition). In addition, all three workshops will be open to past Orientation certificate holders. Look for additional information in another mailing. 1. A National Meeting of Montessori High Schools will work on consolidation of what defines a Montessori high school, including a developmental approach to the disciplines, community engagement through staging areas, the focus of an integrated general education, the role of individual and separate specialties, collaboration, and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. This will be a retreat for all high school developers who have participated in Project 2012, open to past Orientation certificate holders for a fee of $200. 2. The Montessori Math Council National Workshop (led by John McNamara, Chris Kjaer, and Mike Waski) will look at mathematics approaches in keeping with Montessori mathematics methodology for both 12-15 and 15-18 levels. Topics include a comprehensive history and philosophy of mathematics, the relationships of math and science, and some materializations of algebra, trigonometry, and calculus. Open to past Orientation certificate holders for a fee of $200. 3. Language Arts, Humanities, and Occupations Workshop will be presented by experienced adolescent teachers Laurie Ewert-Krocker and Jacqui Miller. Full explication of underlying teaching principles will be followed by specific lesson planning. Language arts topics include literary responses, writing groups, poetry, seminar techniques, writing mechanics, and essay writing. Humanities and occupations planning will cover project flow, research, key lessons, and student inquiry methods such as maps, timelines, charts, experiments, debates, and third-period presentations. This workshop is open to past Orientation certificate holders for a fee of $200. This seminar portion of the course is open to past Orientation certificate holders at a cost of $200. Housing is an additional fee. The November Seminar and Graduation A Community of Program Speakers
Under the direction of Laurie Ewert-Krocker, the summer staff of Hershey Montessori School adolescent program on the farm will assist participants during the first and second weeks. Staff includes a biologist, a naturalist, a wood shop director, a farmer, a bioshelter manager, a cook, a fine arts specialist, humanities leaders, and AMI-trained Montessorians. NAMTA’s Role in the History of Montessori Adolescent Programming Since 1976, NAMTA has provided both documentation and international leadership in bringing the efforts of Montessori adolescent education into focus and providing Montessori guidance for teachers in newly formed or existing adolescent programs. NAMTA's seminars, conferences, and summer intensives have established a strong heritage of best practices through evolving school programs. The work has included baseline research, school consultation, publications, and three colloquia that were attended by AMI trainers and practitioners, including Renilde Montessori and Camillo Grazzini. In addition, NAMTA established a national resource coordinator, Pat Ludick, for onsite consultation and documentation of ongoing projects. The NAMTA Center for Montessori Adolescent Studies (NCMAS), opened in June 2004, represents the culmination of NAMTA's more than thirty years of Montessori adolescent leadership. The work of the NCMAS is to establish program design and validity based directly on the educational syllabus or framework suggested by the writings of Maria Montessori found in the Appendices of From Childhood to Adolescence. Already having set in motion a prototype Erdkinder-inspired model for ages 12-15 (Hershey Montessori School adolescent program on the farm), NCMAS, under the direction of David Kahn, will endeavor to match the Farm School's innovative success with the corresponding authentic extension of the Montessori adolescent program through age 18. Subsequent to establishing its own working model, NCMAS will share design elements with a variety of other implementers, documenting a diversity of models to be studied with enough common ground for Montessorians to share experimental results on a universal basis. In 2003, NAMTA began a summer professional development program titled A Montessori Orientation to Adolescent Studies. The Orientation is based on the practices of hand-picked programs (approximately 10 selected to date, including the Farm School). In addition to its professional-development offering for Montessori adolescent teachers, the Orientation provides the following services:
Origins: Montessori Adolescent Theory into Practice In 1996, the Montessori Teacher Education Collaborative (MTEC) sponsored a seminal event, The Adolescent Colloquium, in Cleveland, Ohio, bringing together eminent teacher trainers and adolescent practitioners of the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI, based in Amsterdam). One outcome of this first Colloquium was the founding of a Montessori farm school in northeast Ohio in 2000 by David Kahn, Debra Hershey Guren, and the Hershey Montessori School. The Hershey Montessori School adolescent program on the farm answers the need for a new kind of experiment, a need articulated at the 1996 Colloquium by both Camillo Grazzini (Director of Training at the prestigious AMI teacher training center in Bergamo, Italy) and Renilde Montessori (General Secretary of AMI and granddaughter of Maria Montessori): The funds and resources . . . could . . . be used for setting up an actual Erdkinder community. This could then serve as a model and point of reference for the whole country, as a sort of national Erdkinder which would be open to adolescents from all parts of the country and which could provide a physical base for all further initiatives.. (Camillo Grazzini) The Farm School was assisted by considerable outside philanthropy, including four major donors: The Hershey Foundation, Mrs. Orcillia Oppenheimer (capital), The Dekko Foundation (capital and research), and the O'Shaughnessy Foundation (research). From its inception until November 2003, this farm school experiment received the pedagogical review of Camillo Grazzini, who collaborated directly with its founding Program Director, David Kahn. Mr. Grazzini passed away in January, 2004. He will be followed by two lead AMI trainermentors, Baiba Krumins Grazzini and Annette M. Haines. The Hershey Montessori School adolescent program on the farm is the only Montessori adolescent program in the world that has developed a complete prepared environment as described in Maria Montessori's writings (the Appendices to her book From Childhood to Adolescence ), with a full boarding component. The Farm School is the only existing Montessori adolescent project with an Erdkinder-inspired prepared environment, including a youth "hostel" (dorm), a bed-and-breakfast, an operating farm, and a functioning microeconomy with a community farm market (shop). The Farm School model proved that the Montessori Syllabus is workable and able to provide structure that is comprehensive and uniquely connected to the psychological characteristics of the adolescent. The focus of NCMAS is also to work with other willing experiments in order to find a universal Montessori approach to working with the adolescent. Once a clarifying model has been set up in Cleveland, the most central focus for consolidation and definition of adolescent program design is the restructuring of third-plane studies to follow a universal syllabus or framework as suggested by Dr. Montessori.
Mr. Grazzini mandated this approach in the paper he presented at the 1996 Colloquium: Therefore, what needs to be set up is not an Erdkinder teacher training center, but a single permanent organizing committee for the whole country, a committee made up of Montessorians.. The task of this committee would be to coordinate all the experiments already existing in the country and to oversee new initiatives in such a way that a reform of the secondary school is gradually brought about, a reform which reflects ever more faithfully Dr. Montessori's ideas. In its efforts to universalize the needs of Montessori adolescent programs and their teachers, the NAMTA Montessori Orientation to Adolescent Studies continues to be subject to scholarly review by university specialists as well as AMI teacher trainers and AMI-trained adolescent practitioners, in order to develop specific requirements for what constitutes Montessori adolescent education for ages 12-18. Thus, the NCMAS will develop a heritage base, working toward a consolidated, if not definitive, Montessori adolescent program for ages 12-18, derived from Montessori writings, AMI trainers, and AMI practitioners working collectively in relation to good adolescent experiments. The NCMAS Project 2012: Careful Derivation from the AMI Montessori Heritage NCMAS is dedicated to the furtherance of the AMI effort as it considers the Third Plane of Development (ages 12-18). The AMI tradition refers to the evolving planes of education “from conception to maturity both at home and in society” (AMI article 4b). Project 2012 is linked to the International Centre for Montessori Studies (Bergamo, Italy), which originated the Montessori elementary movement in the development of the Second Plane of Education; Washington Montessori Institute (Washington, DC); and the Maria Montessori Institute (formerly MMTO, London, England). The solidity of the adolescent theory model for Project 2012 was established by Camillo Grazzini, Director of the Bergamo training center. Subsequently, David Kahn was appointed to the Bergamo staff as part of the adolescent studies arising out of Mr. Grazzini’s devotion to the cause. The work therefore remains in the context of the AMI heritage “to maintain, propagate, and further the ideas of Dr. Maria Montessori for the full development of the human being” (AMI Objectives). In 2004, The Hershey Foundation, Mrs. Orcillia Oppenheimer, and the Dekko Foundation committed to the funding of Project 2012 over the next eight years for the sake of Montessori secondary experimentation and consolidation. We are now at the halfway point. In its first two years of development (2005-06), Project 2012 accomplished the following: 1) the connecting of eight high school projects, 2) the formation of the Cleveland Montessori High School experiment, 3) significant progress toward realization of the Montessori/International Baccalaureate high school curriculum, 4) the expansion of the Montessori Orientation to include high school, 5) the implementation of a third Adolescent Colloquium, and 6) the formation of history and math “councils” or curriculum initiatives. In October, 2005, sixty participants from all over the world attended the third Adolescent Colloquium, which endeavored to generate a framework for authentic theory into practice for ages 12-18, with both AMI trainers and practitioners envisioning a universal picture of the whole of adolescence and the breadth of Montessori education. In April, 2008, the Fourth Adolescent Colloquium will convene in Chicago, putting forward a specific profile of rural-urban programming from 12-18, including the full frameworks for algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus; chemistry, biology, and physics; literature and writing; environmental systems and geography; visual arts, drama, and music; psychology and human development; and theory of knowledge. The NAMTA Center for Montessori Adolescent Studies is taking the last steps to complete its mission by establishing the Montessori High School in University Circle, Cleveland, Ohio (MHS). MHS offers students an interdisciplinary experience focusing on change, nature, and society in keeping with the themes found in cosmic education and in Maria Montessori’s book Education and Peace. Taking on the academic challenge of the International Baccalaureate Programme, the curriculum weaves academic subjects evolved from within the high school with diverse specialized environments including in-depth connections with many of the cultural institutions located in Cleveland’s University Circle neighborhood. These include The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Botanical Garden, the Western Reserve Historical Society, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Institute of Art, Case Western Reserve University, One to One Fitness Center, The Cleveland Clinic, and The Cleveland Play House. This place-based approach within the one-square-mile cultural center of University Circle will fully integrate the scope and sequence of the International Baccalaureate Programme with the neighborhood’s institutions and residents, an arrangement augmented by the school’s boarding approach. MHS opens in the fall of 2008. In addition to its cultural immersion in the Cleveland community and institutions, MHS is also devoted to providing a model for export for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, with full documentation of its curriculum program and experiential process. Finally, Project 2012 is working with Baiba Krumins Grazzini, AMI Elementary Director of Training at the International Centre for Montessori Studies (Bergamo, Italy), to develop a linkage between the AMI Elementary training and the NAMTA adolescent Orientation. This Orientation will be held on the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Application Procedure: click here to download the application packet in pdf format. Paper applications can also be obtained by calling the NAMTA office. Forms should be mailed with application fee to the NAMTA office.
Room and Board: Different packages available on the CWRU campus; package prices can be found in the Orientation application packet. Attendance at all five weeks and the Fall Seminar is required. No partial enrollment will be considered. Participation is limited; applications considered on a first-come, first-served basis. Please direct inquiries to: Readings for Seminars and Discussions These readings are required for all Orientation participants. They may all be purchased online: click here for order form. All Orientation participants must have these readings before the start of the program because they will be used during the sessions on the first day.
For more information on this or any other NAMTA conference, contact NAMTA. |
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© 1996-2008
North American Montessori Teachers' Association. All rights reserved. in
affiliation with Association Montessori Internationale (AMI), Amsterdam, Netherlands |
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A Montessori Orientation to Adolescent Studies builds an integrated and holistic view of the Montessori adolescent in relation to Montessori psychology, methodology, and philosophy. Content is presented within the context of the Montessori planes of development. Participants can express their respective specialization as part of a total Montessori vision, allowing them to develop an adolescent program that is uniquely Montessori, using Montessori principles to address the needs and characteristics of early adolescence. 
The Adolescent Orientation finds its roots in Montessori history, theory, and practice. The first week looks at the context of Montessori's developmental stages, including the intrinsic psychological characteristics of early childhood through adulthood and the concept of successive optimal environments in response to each "plane of development," with a specific introduction to the prepared environment for the adolescent's maximum growth. From the outset, participants will experience the art of the seminar, journal writing, and applications of three-period lesson design (didactic presentation, exploration, and student presentation). Analysis of Montessori primary readings will emphasize the key concepts of Montessori philosophy. 
