CO-LEAD EDUCATOR, ELEMENTARY II

Nearly 15 years ago, Amelia followed her daughter into her first Montessori primary classroom as a parent volunteer and found the path to her second career. Amelia’s first career as book editor in New York City evolved after she earned a BA in English from SUNY Stony Brook, where she was editor of the student newspaper and a stringer for Newsday. The research, writing, editing, and communication skills she acquired in journalism and publishing have been invaluable to Amelia as she stepped into the classroom. With an AMS Elementary II Credential, three years as an assistant, and 10 years as a lead teacher in upper elementary classrooms in Arizona and New York, Amelia has been delighted to observe students explore their own passions, find authors they love, cultivate their own writer’s voice, grow their confidence in public speaking and become highly involved leaders and community members. Providing a classroom environment, lessons and follow-up materials that draw and set students’ interest aglow, sparking future study and discoveries that boost the spirit and curiosity is Amelia’s goal. Normalization of the student to work and overcome obstacles and self-actualization of each individual’s internally-motivated goals are her aims as a teacher. Maria Montessori’s words are a touchstone that Amelia returns to repeatedly, “We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being...The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.” (Montessor, M., The Absorbent Mind, pg.7)