Patricia Spinelli

Institut Supérieur Maria Montessori
Nogent Sur Marne, France

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: ORAL
Time: 90 min
Room: South Hall I

Title of presentation

Observation as a help for the child’s discovery of his own potential

Short description

Could the Montessori approach benefit ATD Fourth World in helping children develop the necessary self-confidence, self-esteem and independence needed to adapt in school? ATD supports the idea that it is possible for society to learn from the ones who are “farther away”. Montessori supports the idea that each human being has a potential within himself which needs to be developed and revealed. Both believe that Humanity cannot renounce to any still hidden potential. Our research and action have consistently been driven by observation and its analysis.

Author's biography

Patricia Spinelli (AMI Dip. 0-3, 3-6, 6-12, EsF) is founder and Director of the French AMI Training Center Instiut Supérieur Maria Montessori which today trains and guides future teachers for Infancy, Primary and Elementary level. She is AMI trainer for Birth to Three and Three to Six level. She is an international lecturer and examiner. Patricia is also an active member of the Training Group.

Kathy Minardi

Whole School Leadership LLC
Columbia, USA

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: SUPER BREAKOUT
Time: 90 min
Room: Meeting Hall IV

Title of presentation

Leadership: It’s in every one of us

Short description

Our work in Montessori requires each of us to possess the inner and interpersonal qualities of authentic leadership needed to do our best work for children, for multiple generations of families, and for our world.  We will explore what those essential qualities are and how we develop them within ourselves in whatever role we have in our Montessori work. Montessori emphasized preparation of the adult with children. Now, today, Montessori efforts cover the entire continuum of human life. Our adult task is to work on our own development as leaders as a pathway to peace in a world we profoundly want to transform.

Author's biography

Kathy Minardi has been a Montessori educator and leader for 40+ years. After retiring from Aidan Montessori School in Washington, DC, she went on to be a coach,consultant and facilitator for Montessori school leaders globally. She holds degrees in education and leadership. Her strong focus throughout her career has been on creating healthy school communities where adult interactions are congruent with Montessori principles. She is a founding board member of Montessori Administrators Association and a trainer for NAMTA's Whole School Management courses. She designed and teaches "Montessori Leadership: Transforming Self, Community & Society."

Mary Ellen Maunz

Age of Montessori
Bozeman, USA

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 90 min
Room: Room 2.4

Title of presentation

Exploring parallels in thought: John Amos Comenius and Maria Montessori

Short description

John Amos Comenius and Maria Montessori: Parallels in Thought explores the amazing similarities in thinking about the absorbent mind, the sensitive periods, stages of development and more between these two great educators, almost 400 years apart.

Author's biography

I hold AMI Primary credential, PAMS Elementary I-II credential, BS Child Development, University of LaVerne, M.Ed. Integrative Learning, Endicott College. I authored two books: Learning to Read is Child's Play (2000) and Nurturing Your Child's Inner Life (2011).I taught and administrated a large Montessori school for three decades. In 2010 I founded Age of Montessori, MACTE accredited teacher education program for Primary and Elementary I-II. I served as Commissioner and Board Member for MACTE for 10 years, Vice-President of IAME for 3 years, and board member for Middle Creek Montessori in Bozeman, MT for 6 years.

Video Invitation

Annie Stone

Near North Montessori
Chicago, USA

Target Audience: Teachers - Primary (3-6)
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 90 min
Room: Room 220

Title of presentation

The child as a natural designer and the painting easel as a Montessori aid to life

Short description

In this break-out session we will celebrate the child’s self-generative powers and inborn drive to create. We will consider the history and characteristics of Montessori materials and share what they have taught us about children.

Author's biography

Annie Stone is a Primary Montessori Guide at Near North Montessori in Chicago, Illinois, where she has been working for sixteen years.

Bill Conway

Montessori East
Bondi, Australia

Target Audience: Teachers - Elementary (6-12)
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 90 min
Room: Room 342

Title of presentation

Your Montessori school is the perfect place to create a culture of service

Short description

This session will assist teachers and school leaders to recognize the signs of a service culture already happening in their schools. This ideal setting is where a strong service attitude develops and carries on to later life. We will explore how this service in the classrooms leads to other service opportunities in our communities both near and far. You will hear inspirational stories and come away with practical ideas that are easy to implement in all schools.

Author's biography

BILL CONWAY has been in the field of education for over 30 years. His career path within education has included roles in teaching, counselling, and administration within schools in the US, Colombia, New Zealand and Australia. His work in South America led to a focus on the importance of responding to the unique needsof children from varied cultural backgrounds. Finding Montessori education symbolised for him the most significant discovery and most precious regard for children’s education and development. He has been the head of school at Montessori East in Bondi since 2007.

Raniero Regni

Lumsa University- Rome
Gubbio, Italy

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: SUPER BREAKOUT
Time: 90 min
Room: Chamber Hall

Title of presentation

The polarization of attention and the mass distraction weapons

Short description

Montessori’s discovery of childhood started from the polarization of attention in young children. The powers of the absorbent mind are behind attention, as stated today by neurosciences, with irrefutable empirical evidence. We can speak about a “pedagogy of attention”: attention to the child, to the details, focus on the child’ attention. Nowadays studies on attention and on the relationship between attention and memory confirm that it is necessary to give children the opportunity to focus on a specific activity for a long time, using suitable materials, without interruptions. Today several technologies distract children’s and young people’s attention. That’s why Montessori education and teaching is becoming more relevant today than it was at the beginning of the last century. Through a concentrated work child’s personality normalizes, opening his mind and hearth not only to self-development, but to contemplation and elevation too.

Author's biography

Graduation in Philosophy (Perugia University, 1980), Ph.D in Science of Education (Roma University, 1988), Social Pedagogy, Adult Education, Intercultural Pedagogy Full Professor at the Human Sciences Department, LUMSA University, Rome. AMI course for Casa dei Bambini teacher (Perugia). R. Regni wrote six publications as Childhood and society in Maria Montessori (2007),The educational message of Albert Camus (2012) and others.

Erica Moretti

Fashion Institute of Technology
New York , USA

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: ORAL
Time: 45 mn
Room: Room 221

Title of presentation

Montessori’s early writing on rehabilitation for displaced and refugee children

Short description

Since the early stages of her career, Montessori advocated for children suffering from poor health, poor education, and poor economic circumstances. Within this broad category of “children in need,” she worked to exceptionalize certain groups of particularly endangered children: the children who had endured human-made and natural disasters. This contribution analyzes Montessori’s early writings on children as agent of societal change.

Author's biography

Erica Moretti received a Ph.D. in Italian Studies from Brown University and a diploma in American Studies from Smith College. With Sharon Wood, she published a collection of essays on British-Italian writer Annie Chartres Vivanti. She has published essays on assimilation policies in the United States in the Progressive era, the Italian feminist movement (Italian Culture), and Italian colonialism and biopolitics, among other topics. She is currently working on a book project that explores changes in pacifist thought in the first half of twentieth century in Europe through the work of the Italian educator Maria Montessori.

Christian Grune

Montessori Stiftung Berlin
Berlin, Germany

Target Audience: School Administrators
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 45 min
Room: Room 221

Title of presentation

Reinventing Montessori organisations

Short description

Challenges facing us today are determined by high complexity, global networking and high availability of information. The current way we run organizations has stretched its limits. Could we invent a more powerful, soulful and meaningful way of working together implementing the core principles in Montessori education into our organizations? Inspired by Fredric Laloux’ “Reinventing organisations” we will explore alternative models for modern organisations and discuss opportunities to implement those principles in Montessori institutions. The workshop will be an open space to share and develop ideas based on short inputs.

Author's biography

Christian Grune works as chairman of the Montessori Foundation in Berlin and introduces change management processes for six schools and children's houses in Berlin. He is a board member of Montessori Europe and active in national Montessori networks in Germany. He studied educational science and sociology and worked in various management positions as well in commercial and non-profit-organisations.

Barbara Luborsky

Way to Grow- LLC
Frederick, USA

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: ORAL
Time: 90 min
Room: Meeting Hall I.B

Title of presentation

Empowering Montessori teachers to create inclusive environments - part 2

Short description

Medical professionals who learn about Montessori philosophy, methods, and materials can integrate clinical knowledge and skills into the Montessori framework within an inclusive Montessori classroom. Observing and working as a team, OT and Montessori teacher, create an individualized educational program that is both diagnostic and therapeutic. This presentation describes how the OT can harmoniously and effectively collaborate with the Montessori teacher. Multiple case studies will be used to clearly illustrate a variety of methods of fostering a truly collaborative working relationship between the OT and the classroom teacher in the primary and elementary years in order to successfully meet the needs of children with disabilities or learning differences.

Author's biography

Barbara Luborsky, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist with over 25 years of experience treating children with various diagnoses. Following her OT training, she earned an Infant Toddler Specialization certificate as a Research Fellow at the Georgetown University Hospital Child Development Center. She is the owner of Way to Grow, LLC a private practice in Frederick, MD, USA. Barbara has been involved with Montessori, first as a parent since 1996, and in the past 15 years, as a consultant to Montessori schools, teacher trainer, and speaker at two NAMTA conferences, in 2014 and 2016. She has a deep appreciation for Montessori’s methods and materials and for the affinity of the method with OT methods and principles.

Video Invitation

Michael Waski

Cleveland, USA

Target Audience: Teachers - Adolescent (12-18)
Style of Presentation: SUPER BREAKOUT
Time: 90 min
Room: Meeting Hall V

Title of presentation

The needs of a Montessori high school

Short description

As more and more Montessori schools strive to complete the educational model from birth to 18 years, the high school (or older adolescent program) becomes a capstone for all the work that has come before. The Montessori high school has two main functions in preparing the adolescent for the adult world; it must prepare them socially as well as academically. We will explore what Dr. Montessori had to say about this age group, and examine current models, best practices, and program and curricular elements in order to help to define what this program is and should be.

Author's biography

Michael Waski is a math teacher at the Montessori High School at University Circle (Cleveland, OH). He holds the AMI elementary diploma from Bergamo, Italy, a BS from Kent State University (OH), and an MA in educational administration from California State University, San Bernardino. Michael has been teaching for fifteen years, eleven of which have been at the adolescent level.

Kira Donnelly

The Montessori School of Tokyo
3-5-13 Minami-Azabu, Japan

Target Audience: Teachers - Adolescent (12-18)
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 40 min
Room: Room 344

Title of presentation

Math seminars: Teaching problem solving to educate the human potential

Short description

Strong problem solving ability is a key outcome for many educational programs, not just Montessori. How do we nurture and support problem solving through math seminars? What structure creates an environment where students become confident problem solvers and reach their full potential? What does the latest research say about supporting student problem solving skills? All of this and some excellent math jokes await you at this workshop.

Author's biography

Kira Donnelly is an AMI certified Elementary teacher and has worked in public, charter, and private Montessori schools for the last 13 years. An educator since 1991, she has taught students from Elementary through College focusing on adolescents. Kira is currently the Middle School Coordinator at The Montessori School of Tokyo.

Kannekar Butt

Montessori Association of Thailand
Bangkok, Thailand

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 90 min
Room: Small Theatre

Title of presentation

The king and us and the social change

Short description

Montessori in Thailand has evolved through grass roots efforts involving the government. Participants will learn about the challenges, opportunities and successes of creating a national public education Montessori system. Be inspired by storytelling the life and works of King Rama 9 influence upon Montessori movement in Thailand, “The King and Us and the Social Change” will enchanting with cultural dance and music for celebration life of the Soul of a Nation in a great Montessori movement from the Land of Smile.

Author's biography

Kannekar Butt, President of Montessori Association of Thailand, used her previous experience in government system by support of the Australian - Thai Montessori supporters created a path way working with Thai government and opened wider opportunity for children to access Montessori Education in both private and government system.

Aicha Sajid

Ecole Montessori Casablanca
Casablanca, Morocco

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: ORAL
Time: 30 min
Room: Room 344

Title of presentation

Sowing the Montessori passion in the cradle of life, Africa

Short description

Launching the Montessori movement in Morocco has been a journey strewn with challenges and tangled with obstacles. I dared, I failed, and yet I persevered. I have created a genuine AMI community built upon the understanding of Montessori as a powerful transcultural and multigenerational transforming agent of society.

Author's biography

I am Aicha Sajid, born in 1983 in Morocco where I was raised. I got my bachelor’s degree in computer science from Brown University, USA. As I was having my first child in 2007, I became passionate about Montessori and started the first Montessori school in Morocco. Ecole Montessori Casablanca opened in 2011. In 2015, I became a member of CRISC (Center for Research in Cognitive Sciences), a think tank founded by the minister of education to innovate education in Morocco. In 2016, I co-founded and act as president of Association Montessori Morocco, an affiliate of AMI.

James Webster

Hollis Montessori School
Jaffrey, USA

Target Audience: Teachers - Adolescent (12-18)
Style of Presentation: ORAL
Time: 85 min
Room: South Hall II

Title of presentation

When seeking the “intimate vocation of Humanity,” ask the adolescent questions whose answers are not yet known

Short description

“The intimate vocation of man is the secret of the adolescent.” - Maria Montessori. Is this a secret our students truly possess? If so, is it a secret they might reveal? And do we, once adolescents ourselves, yet hold an understanding of this innermost calling? And why does such knowledge matter? A meditation on the value of questions, followed by participant seminars.

Author's biography

James Webster is a faculty emeritus and consultant at Hollis Montessori School (New Hampshire, USA). He holds a BA in English literature from Dartmouth College. He completed his AMI elementary training at the Washington Montessori Institute under Margaret Stephenson. James recently retired from the classroom after a long and happy career teaching elementary and adolescent Montessori students in order to work with his wife on their farm in Southern New Hampshire. He continues to write and give presentations concerning the refinement of Montessori practice.

Margaret Broz

Near North Montessori School
Chicago, USA

Target Audience: Teachers - Adolescent (12-18)
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 90 min
Room: Room 224

Title of presentation

The city as the prepared environment for the adolescent

Short description

As adolescents work to find their place in society, they can use their community as a place to study, work, and explore. By becoming a true citizen of their city, adolescents begin to understand how their society works, and how they can become involved in positive social change. For adolescent Montessori schools that are not based on the farm, using the city and surrounding community as the Prepared Environment is challenging, dynamic, and always engaging. Attendees will learn the philosophy and logistics behind City Trips, and have the opportunity to plan and troubleshoot their own trips.

Author's biography

Margaret (Meg) Broz has been an adolescent educator at Near North Montessori in Chicago for 8 years; she is also an alumna and parent. Meg holds a degree in Environmental Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a certificate in Adolescent Education from AMI-NAMTA. She is the Programming Director for the Montessori and the City Adolescent Conference, and a member of NNM’s Diversity Advocacy Team.

Video Invitation

Peter Hesse

Peter-Hesse-Stiftung-Foundation
Düsseldorf, Germany

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 45 min
Room: Room 3.2

Title of presentation

Montessori for the most deprived: Lessons learned from thirty years in Haiti

Short description

Montessori started her method with children from a poor community. Today children in poor communities in Haiti benefit from Dr. Montessori’s work just as children in the first Casa de Bambini did. This secession will show how Montessori’s legacy is helping children build a foundation for a better life.

Author's biography

Peter Hesse, Hon. Consul of Iceland, born 1937 in the USA. In 1983 he created the "Peter-Hesse-Foundation SOLIDARITY in partnership for ONE world in diversity", is engaged in development politics and in networking for a peaceful fair balanced world. He will present together with Carol Guy-James Barratt born in Trinidad, she has been working with the Peter Hesse Foundation to train teachers and to open Montessori preschools for children in economically depressed rural and urban areas.

Kathleen Taylor

St. Mary's College of California
Berkeley, USA

Target Audience: Researchers
Style of Presentation: ORAL
Time: 90 min
Room: Meeting Hall I.A

Title of presentation

We feel, therefore we learn

Short description

A learning brain is an embodied brain having sensorial experiences. Montessori practitioners work with this reality every day, including the sandpaper letters, the trinomial cube, or Erdkinder. The burgeoning field of Cognitive Science supports what Montessori observed in developing children over a hundred years ago--that learning through the senses supports the fullest potentialities for learning and development by educating the whole of the child. For this workshop, which includes embodied activities, a Montessori secondary teacher teams up with the author of a book on how the brain learns.  

Author's biography

Kathleen Taylor, Ph.D., who has for over thirty years worked in both graduate and undergraduate programs, currently mentors doctoral students in educational leadership at Saint Mary’s College of California. Kathleen also facilitates professional development workshops on adult learning and development, transformative learning, and learning and the adult brain, areas in which she consults internationally and is widely published. She is co-author of Facilitating Learning with the Adult Brain in Mind: A Conceptual and Practical Guide (2016), and the award winning Developing Adult Learners: Strategies for Teacher and Trainers (2000), and was a Fulbright Scholar in 2013, in Athens Greece. Co-presenter Alissa Stolz is an AMS credentialed guide for Secondary I&II.

Video Invitation

Ingrid Stange

Norsk Montessori Forbund
Oslo, Norway

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 90 min
Room: Room 222

Title of presentation

Montessori2030 - Being part of the solution - a holistic approach

Short description

A centennial before the UN and the entire world agreed on the Global Goals to save humanity, Maria Montessori built her pedagogical principals and philosophy on the same vision – A world were we all can live well within the limits of our planet. This workshop will look into how Montessori schools can include the philosophy and vision and build a strategy to become an active part of the solution.

Author's biography

Ingrid is founder and chair of Partnership for Change. A Norwegian NGO investing in Women and Youth to empower them to become leaders in business and society. She is also co-founder of the International Center for Dialogue and Peace building. An impact investor, and she serves at the board of a number of national and global organizations promoting social innovation, developing sustainable business in challenged countries, and meeting climate challenges. With a MSc (Siviløkonom) from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)and an MBA from UC Berkeley, a background from strategic management consulting and venture capital, she has focused entirely on social business and venture philanthropy for the past 25 years. Ingrid has established a number of successful social enterprises.

Hillary Korir

Corner of Hope
Nakuru, Kenya

Target Audience: General Audience
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 45 min
Room: Room 3.1

Title of presentation

Corner of Hope and beyond

Short description

The Corner of Hope is a pilot project to show how Montessori Teacher Training and Schools can be delivered to the most vulnerable communities such as those in refugee, transit and IDP Camps. Its aim is self-reliance not dependence, community not school. Self ownership and control, dignity and self worth which all play an important role in overcoming the effects of trauma experienced by the inhabitants of the camps. It has the added advantage of building for the future and creating transferable skills that will accompany both adults and children wherever their final destination may be.

Author's biography

Hillary Korir is Caritas Director at the Catholic Diocese of Nakuru (CDN), where he is charged with the responsibility of coordinating all diocesan pastoral and community development projects. He holds a BSc. and MSc. in Natural Resources Management from Egerton University, Kenya. Through the partnership between Association Montessori Internationale and the Catholic Diocese of Nakuru, he has been involved in the on-ground coordination for the Corner of Hope project in the Pipeline IDP Camp in Nakuru. Hillary has previously worked as Assistant Research Coordinator for a World Bank sponsored project on HIV/Aids in the Rift Valley Province that was run under the auspices of the Kenyan Ministry of Health. He has also taught on several undergraduate courses in the department of Environmental Science at Egerton University.

Angela Murray

American Montessori Society
New York, USA

Target Audience: Researchers
Style of Presentation: WORKSHOP
Time: 90 min
Room: Room 343

Title of presentation

Montessori researcher panel discussion

Short description

The purpose of this panel discussion is to provide Montessori researchers from around the world an opportunity to learn from one another about research being done in other countries in order to inform their own work, particularly in the area of leveraging research to serve as the foundation for advocating for social change. Interested researchers will be asked to provide a brief bio of themselves and an overview of their current work. Allotted time for each speaker will be determined by the number of participants.

Author's biography

Dr. Murray is Senior Researcher and Coordinator for the American Montessori Society as well as Assistant Research Professor at the University of Kansas. She presents regularly at professional conferences including the AMS Annual Conference, Critical Questions in Education Conference and NAEYC Annual Conference. Her publications include articles related to Montessori education as well as the transition of young adults with special needs from high school into adulthood. She is the founding editor of the Journal of Montessori Research.