Networking

Public Montessorians Share in Waco, Texas

 By Robin McDurham

On Nov. 13 administrators and conference planners at Lake Waco Montessori Magnet opened their email to find the following message from an educator in Houston:

Thank you for the gift of coordinating the first Texas Public Montessori Conference! It was truly an inspirational weekend. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to talk with colleagues who understand the unique joys and challenges we share as public Montessori educators. [My colleague] and I came home bubbling over with new commitment and enthusiasm for what we do and with pages full of ideas to make our Montessori program even better. We have both already e-mailed our administrators to share our excitement, and we spent our three-hour drive home planning the conference sessions we might be able to help offer next year.

This encouraging response has been shared on our campus and with district administrators because it acknowledges the achievement of the goals the conference planning committee set in early fall.

For over a year, educators at Lake Waco had been dreaming about pulling the state’s Montessori educators together for collaboration on the important issues facing our schools. Surveying the crowd at our Mentoring and Advocacy presentation at the 2006 AMS conference in Houston confirmed that we were not the only ones desiring the opportunity to sort through our challenges together. A statewide public school Montessori educator’s conference seemed to be the next natural step.

In order to meet the fall publication deadline, we put the word out in the Public School Montessorian before the conference even had feet. Once it was in writing, it had to happen. Success at recruiting Marta Donahoe as our keynote speaker was all we needed to begin visualizing the event. It was the committee’s hope to offer wise words from an experienced public Montessori school educator, an opportunity to learn something new from colleagues, a chance for collaboration on challenging issues and to engage in group problem solving.

The conference was planned and executed with 12 committee-planning hours by a committed group of seven people, and roughly 30 cumulative hours of individual work outside of planning meetings. Several of our local staff members shared the load by leading workshops and taking volunteer roles at the conference with responsibilities such as food set-up and staffing the registration table. While preparing for and hosting the conference was a significant commitment, it was not an overwhelming task, and the benefits far out-weigh the cost.

Thirteen of the 22 Public Montessori schools in Texas were represented at the conference with 65 people in attendance. The attendees represented a balanced mix of educators from each grade level and administrators.

Marta started the conference off with a bang by delivering a powerful reminder, via stories of students, of what is most important to public Montessori educators and providing suggestions for strengthening our efforts. She addressed the many pressures that arise with state and national mandates and how they affect children, families and educators. Her inspiration set the tone for a focused and purposeful day.

We have heard several stories about moments in the conference where our hopes were realized, but perhaps one of the most significant came from the administrator’s workshop.

Daggett Montessori Magnet had completed a major part of the correlation of Texas mathematics standards to the Montessori curriculum and was beginning the same time-consuming process in the other subject areas. Thanks to connections made at this conference, the load will be shared among the educators of seven public Montessori schools. A project of this multitude will be a huge benefit to public Montessori in Texas, and how appropriate that it is to be completed through a statewide collaboration.

Next door to the administrator’s workshop, Marta and three experienced middle school teachers were working with an administrative team that is in the planning stages of adding a middle school program. The honest discussion about what must be in place and what pitfalls to avoid was helpful and affirming to all of the conversation participants.

The conference ended with a panel discussion comprised of teacher trainers, educators, administrators and parents. Questions about how to keep teachers and how to strengthen communication among educators statewide were addressed. Other discussion centered on next steps for a more formal network.

There was a common acknowledgment that the group would be stronger if we work to share our efforts, and a strong consensus that we should not be “re-creating the wheel” in isolation all over the state.

We agreed that since the AMS website provides a forum for public school educators through web posting opportunities that we should use that for a means of communication and collaboration.

The conference provided a sense of accomplishment to the planners and Lake Waco staff, but the true feeling of success came from simply getting it off the ground. We knew that there had to be others in the state like us who wanted to collaborate. In fact we are certain that there are several in the nation looking for support from a larger network. We just needed to start making it happen.

The task seemed too big to embrace when we began discussing it over a year ago, but the need for collaboration was bigger than any concerns about the project. It was by no means perfect. We had helpful feedback from conference evaluations and plan to improve in many ways.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the evaluation process was the overwhelming response of participants who are willing to contribute to the effort. Several educators volunteered to lead workshops at the next conference, a few volunteered to host, and several said they would help in any way possible. The desire to continue meeting was unanimous, and that was the biggest hope of our committee.

Our program advertised (and provided) warm cookies and hugs for dismissal, an image completely fitting for saying good-bye to newfound colleagues. We were all in a better place for having come together.

It is our hope to post pictures and other post-conference information on our website, but for now the conference brochure and contact information is available at: http://www.txpublicmontessori.org

Robin McDurham was the conference coordinator and is a Montessori educator at Lake Waco School.