Professional Development

CAMT 2009 Annual Conference Friday, November 6, 2009 THE SPIRIT OF MONTESSORI The Old Mill 21 Old Mill Road, Toronto www.oldmilltoronto.com/location.html Featuring Keynote Presentation by Catherine McTamaney, author of The Tao of Montessori Workshop Presentations by: Wendy Agnew Sarah Enright Nicole O'Rourke Maureen Pesner Catherine McTamaney SCHEDULE Friday, November 6, 2009 8:00 – 8:30 am Registration and Coffee 8:30 – 9:00 am Introductions 9:00 – 10:00 am Keynote Presentation - Dr. Catherine McTamaney 10:00 – 10:30 am Annual General Meeting 10:30 am – 12:00 pm Workshops A-E 12:00 – 1:30 pm Luncheon 1:30 – 3:00 pm Workshops F-J 3:00 – 5:00 pm Displays/Tea NOTE: Displays will be open from 11:30 am to 5:00 pm REGISTRATION INFORMATION CAMT Members $170 Non-Members $230 Students $50 Registration Fee includes admission to the keynote presentation, luncheon, workshops, and access to the displays. REGISTRATION REMITTANCE Register online to pay with Visa/Mastercard at www.camt100.ca/register.html or send the completed registration form along with payment to: 312 Oakwood Court, Newmarket, ON L3Y 3C8 NOTES No refunds will be issued. A service charge of $20 will be levied on all cheques returned NSF. Program subject to change. All workshops have limited space. Register early to ensure you are accepted into the workshops of your choice! CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE CONFERENCE BROCHURE AND REGISTRATION FORM Keynote Speaker : QUESTS: The Spiritual Preparation of the Teacher Dr. Catherine McTamaney, Author, THE TAO OF MONTESSORI Faculty, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN Dr. McTamaney addresses our own endless quests to connect with spiritual selves in order to better serve the children in our classrooms. This presentation offers a practical perspective on the struggles of remaining mindful and the essential work Montessori teachers do when they acknowledge their own spiritual needs. Catherine McTamaney is the author of The Tao of Montessori, a collection of reflections on compassionate teaching that quickly became a favourite of Montessorians after its publication in 2005. Dr. McTamaney serves on the faculty at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, where she teaches coursework in education policy and advocacy. She is a former Montessori student, Montessori teacher, Montessori school director and the mother of two Montessori children. A recognized national speaker, Dr. McTamaney lives in Nashville with her family. Here’s what she had to say in a recent interview with Public School Montessorian editor Dennis Schapiro about her book: It is about the basic goodness of Montessori teachers. It's about sacred struggles the strength that Montessori teachers develop in admitting their uncertainties and finding ways to honor children and maintain their own sanity. There is something rebellious and idealistic and drenched in hope that we all carry. But ours can be an isolating and lonely practice. For all the joy of seeing children grow, we can get lost in the mundane and monotonous and malicious- and forget the idealism. It's not difficult to turn cynical. My hope is to help teachers reconnect with the hope and decency that brought them to Montessori in the first place, even when the day-to-day challenges seem overwhelming. I want to remind people that they are part of a larger community. But community or not, this is not easy work. The last thing I want to do is pretend there are no challenges. It's OK to acknowledge those challenges. It could be that struggling with them is the only way we can move past them and rediscover our roots. WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS: (Note: Workshops will be offered twice, unless indicated otherwise) A/F A Lens Inward: Self-Observation and the Montessori Teacher Dr. Catherine McTamaney The workshop session will focus on our obligation as Montessori teachers to observe our own practices as we try to perfect them for the children we serve. We are well trained in observing children and understand the importance of those observations toward creating the prepared environment. This workshop will focus on observing ourselves as teachers to be sure that the conclusions we draw as scientists in our classrooms are sound. (ALL)   B/G Learning to Follow Their Lead Wendy Agnew, Montessori guide, teacher educator, consultant, and nature-based performance artist What moves us? That question is the basis of education, romance, cognitive and creative exploration and most things that keep us alert, attentive, and engaged. How do we encourage the children we teach to be moved? As Montessorians, we know it’s not a process of instruction so much as one of inspired permission. This workshop begins with the concept of artful following, highlighting moments of excellence and grace in a variety of Montessori settings. It proceeds into a deconstruction and exploration of conceptual, environmental, and emotional movements in the living and learning symphony, and resolves with collective strategies as invaluable notations on the margins of future experience. *Please dress for comfort – we may venture out-of-doors . (Elementary)   C/H Montessori and the Ontario Curriculum Sarah Enright, Perspectives Montessori Consulting If you were asked to compare the Montessori curriculum to traditional public school, you would probably say that the Montessori curriculum is much stronger and the Montessori student would be much further ahead of their public school peers. This is true in some areas of the curriculum; however, we do fall behind in some key areas of learning. This workshop will examine and compare the Montessori curriculum to the Ontario standards from Kindergarten through Grade 6. Participants will leave the workshop with ideas on how to incorporate these standards in their classrooms and create meaningful, Montessori lessons in the areas not covered in the typical Montessori classroom. (Elementary)   D/I The Five Lessons: Things My Toddler Students Taught Me! Nicole O’Rourke, Montessori School of Cambridge What happens during a day in our classrooms can make or break the faint of heart. The toddler classroom is not for the weak: one must be strong and ready for the impossible and the very, very possible all the time. Amazing things are happening each moment of every day and without a keen eye and understanding heart, one can be easily blinded by the impulsive and unsociable behavior of toddlers and miss their powerful learning capabilities. Toddlers have an inherent desire for independence and exploration and these qualities are worth the chaos and upset that sometimes comes with their development. These little people have been my best teachers. Find out about the five lessons I have learned from my toddlers that have made my class a better learning environment for my students, their parents, my co-staff and my school. (Toddler)   E/J A Journey of Rediscovering the Sensorial Area Maureen Pesner, Toronto Montessori Institute Rekindling the Sensorial explorer within allows us to reach out to the children and take them on a journey filled with joy and discovery. As young children we were the eager learners that Montessori speaks about, naturally exploring the world through our senses. Now is the time to recapture some of that excitement and joy! With the refinement of the children’s sense perceptions through work with the Sensorial materials the possibility of enriched experiences opens to them within our environment. Our presentations need to call to the children to refine their senses. Our environment must live up to the title of “enriched” for the children to fully benefit from these newly developed perceptions. With our respect for how intelligent the materials are and how the children are naturally wired to learn we must remember to hold sacred the element of discovery. The Sensorial materials are significant as they represent keys to understanding the world of nature and of man’s accomplishments. Let their brilliance shine in your classroom. (Casa)   CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE CONFERENCE BROCHURE AND REGISTRATION FORM

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