AMI 6-12 Assistants’ Certificate Course – January 2017–Auckland!

Kia Ora Kotou Friends & Supporters of MMEF

We are thrilled to confirm that Alison Awes, Director of Elementary Training at the Montessori Center of Minnesota will be coming to Auckland in January to offer the first AMI 6-12 Assistant Course in the Southern hemisphere!

Thanks to the Montessori community who launched into action to tell us of your preferred location – the course will be offered at the Eastern Suburbs Montessori Unit at Glendowie Primary School, Auckland.

Who is the Course for?

This will interest anyone with a profound interest in the 6- to 12 age child…

• parents of 6-12 year-old children, or will have
• teachers working in a 6-12 environment who are not already Montessori trained
• assistants working in a 6-12 environment who would like to gain an AMI Certificate
• all parents, administrators and trustees who are interested in finding out more about the unique 6-12 Montessori programme.

When is it?

The dates are Monday 10 January – Friday 20 January, 2017 (10 days)

Course Objectives:

• To explore the Montessori philosophy with regard to child development
• To observe the primary child (during what Dr Montessori called the “second plane of development”)
• To discover how best to interact with the primary-age child
• To find out how to interact with the Montessori-trained teacher
• To support the development of the child by assisting the teacher

Requirements

• Course Readings
• 2 x 500 word papers to be completed during the course.
• 9 hours of observation after the course with notes submitted as part of the course work.
• Cost: $1200 (exc. GST)

Book the dates in your diaries now! Alison has an extremely busy schedule and needs to know by mid- August whether there will be sufficient registrations.

Given the responses to date, we feel sure there will be. We’re asking for registrations forms plus 50% deposit to be paid by Friday 19th August.

You can register on-line now! http://goo.gl/uxJKb0. The course brochure and registration details will be with you shortly.

AMI 0-3 Assistant Certificate Course

26 students attended the recently offered 0-3 Assistant Certificate Course with Julia Hilson AMI 0-3 Trainer from Australia. Here are the reflections of Susan Watson, one of the course attendees:-

“During the recent school holidays I was fortunate enough to join 26 kaiako from Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Sri Lanka, and New Zealand to complete the AMI Assistants to Infancy certificate course. As I sought to identify the most inspiring, most enjoyable, or most challenging thing to share about this course one word came to mind - community. Together we challenged our beliefs, gained new perspectives of the child and celebrated the acquisition of new knowledge. This was facilitated with grace and humility by our generous lecturer Julia Hilson, who joined us from Australia. I say generous because we all came away armed with both theoretical and practical knowledge to empower our practice as well as a whole new relationship with Dr. Montessori's writings.

The setting in which we had found ourselves was the perfect backdrop for the content of the course; beautiful, peaceful, and infused with nature and spirit, somewhat like a Montessori environment and ideal for the spiritual preparation of teachers for our most precious taonga - our tamariki.

As each day passed we became increasingly mindful of our critical role in preparing the environment to meet the unique needs of the child in the unconscious absorbent period and, most critically, of the need to fully prepare ourselves. Without thorough preparation we will become the greatest obstacle in the room. For those of us who were more familiar working within a 3-6 environment there was the huge lesson of slowing down to observe and collaborate with these little people. By doing so we aspire to enable every child to experience the joy, not only of receiving aroha (love and respect), but also of being able to do things independently contributing to their community with confidence and dignity.

As we made our final farewells during the whakawatea (a time for letting go) Julia implored that we remain focused on the big picture - working alongside tamariki and their whanau to create a more peaceful world. It's an enormous challenge but one that is well worth embracing. Thankfully we all have each other's email addresses in our kete enabling us to stay connected and learn from each other, as all communities do.

Wouldn't it be amazing if one of our next steps of growth within the 0-3 community was to have the Assistants to Infancy 0-3 training course here in New Zealand!”

Ahakoa he iti he pounamu. Although it is small it is a treasure

Noho ora mai,

Carol, Tia, Anna, Shirley – MMEF Trustees