The Greenspring Center for Lifelong Learning has created year-long, virtual mentoring communities for new Montessori educators and school leaders that provide high-quality education and practical help in real-time. Montessori Guides in their first years of teaching and new school leaders are invited to join with others at their level for weekly online meetings.
Each cohort will be led by highly experienced Montessorians who will share expertise and practical advice, facilitate discussion, and support self-reflection and goal setting. We’ve got an all-star line-up of mentors, including:
Here’s what to expect in this evidence-based mentoring program:
- Welcoming and sharing positivity from the previous week
- Discussing issues that matter to you
- Mining the knowledge of the mentors and the community to find solutions for your specific challenges
- Setting individual SMART goals
- Being supported and inspired (not required) towards realizing these goals
- Presentations by experienced Montessorians sharing practical advice gained over years of classroom experience
- No homework, just support!
Our mentoring groups will be participating in a clinical research study in partnership with Ann Epstein at the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse and Suba Jagannathan, a computational biologist and Montessori mom. They will be studying the efficacy of the model used in this evidence-based mentoring program. (As with all ethical research, people in our mentoring communities can choose to opt-out of participating in the research study; the mentoring program will remain the same either way.)
Although these communities are geared towards new educators and school leaders, we welcome any Montessori practitioner looking for a space to rejuvenate, reflect, and reconnect to our higher purpose.
Our goal is that this experience is a powerful support that helps Montessori guides and school leaders gain confidence, agency, and practical skills that ultimately leads to greater longevity in the field. As Dr. Montessori wrote, “An education capable of saving humanity is no small undertaking.” We agree and we’re here to help!
