After two years worth of planning, design, collaboration, development and fabrication, our Junior High students will be hosting a grand opening of their newest venture, Maria's Market Farm Cart, including a special ribbon cutting ceremony with the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce. (The ceremony is being planned for early 2018. It was originally scheduled for December but was postponed due to inclement weather.)  This project has been a near perfect example of how our students work together to bring an idea to life while engaging in real, purposeful work that not only stimulates their intellect but also teaches them valuable, lifelong skills in entrepreneurship and economics.

Maria’s Market Farm Cart was developed through an aspect of the Junior High Curriculum known as the Micro Economy Program. The 2017-18 school year marks the fifth year running the program as an integrated "Farm to Fork” business. At the beginning of each school year, students apply for jobs in the program based on their interests, talents, and abilities. Branches of the business include Research and Development, Design and Fabrication, Finance, Tribal Council, an on-site Restaurant, and a Farm Team. Click here to read more about the Micro Economy Program.

At the beginning of the 2016-17 school year, the Farm Team submitted a proposal to the Design and Fabrication Team to build a mobile market stand where produce from the School's gardens, eggs from the School’s chickens, and original student art could be sold. The Design Team jumped at the project, pledging to retrofit an old trailer bed generously donated by the School’s garden manager, Aubrey Cupit.

3D SketchUp of the farm cart design

As the team envisioned a functional design for the mobile market stand, the team members, guided by Upper School Performance and Visual Arts Teacher Jonathan McLean, used an application called Sketchup to create the first 2D images of a mobile cart.

Student designer, Lily Wagoner, studied images, took real time measurements, and made a cut and materials list. After this thorough research phase, students began the process of building the cart. Bit by bit, the project came together with the final stages including staining and painting the cart.

Maria’s Market Farm Cart officially debuted at the 2017 Fall Festival on October 15 and has been open for business several times since then. Every Friday afternoon that Junior High has a Micro Economy day the farm cart will be open from 3:00-4:00 PM during the afternoon carline. All of the produce for sale is harvested by the students from the School's gardens. Students also make crafts and original artwork to contribute to the market, including items made by the Research and Development Team in the metal forge.

Junior High students work together to fabricate the farm cart applying principles of geometry and physics.

The Farm Cart and all of the integrated work throughout the student-run Micro Economy Program is a wonderful example of how these entrepreneurs are able to use their intellectual abilities to produce viable work that relates to real life, while simultaneously teaching them to be leaders and entrepreneurs. It also addresses the complexities of doing ethical work that benefits the community and ultimately the world. In the process, they learn the meaning and pleasure that can be derived from such work. It is what Maria Montessori envisioned for the adolescent and we couldn’t be more excited about encouraging this vital work.

 

“The shop would also necessitate a genuine study of commerce and exchange, of the art of ascertaining the demand and being ready to meet it, of the strict and rigid rules of bookkeeping. But the thing that is important above everything else is that the adolescent should have a life of activity and variety and that one occupation should act a “holiday” from another occupation. The shop would be in respect to the studies of economics and politics an educational object, similar to the aquarium or terrarium in the case of the study of biology.”   - Maria Montessori (From Childhood to Adolescence, 70)

“Their spirit will dry up if the grandeur of the practical reality of our days is completely shut away from them, as if it did not exist. Men with hands and no head, and men with head and no hands are equally out of place in the modern community."  - Maria Montessori (From Childhood to Adolescence p. 61)

Every Friday, Junior High students at the Greensboro Montessori School participate in a hands-on experiential education program in which they work together in teams simulating different aspects of a micro economy that is based on a Farm to Fork concept. One of the outcomes of the program is the preparation of a weekly meal for 40+ people in our certified kitchen. This self-run lunch business is known as Maria’s Cafe. Another outcome of the micro economy program is the operation of a mobile farmer’s market stand that enables students to sell produce from the School’s gardens and student artwork. Keep reading to learn more about the structure of micro economy program and how students are acquiring skills that will serve them long after graduation.

Each student cycles through a “career” in their participation in the micro economy program. There are a total of six career choices – research and development, design and fabrication, tribal council, finance, farm, and restaurant. Each career has a specialized focus and functions as its own entrepreneurial enterprise. Students apply for management positions within these careers and have a chance to hone in on particular interests and skills while serving the community. While each career has its own focus, all together, they operate under one umbrella known as Irossetnom Micro Economies Incorporated, also known by its acronym, IMI. (If you’re wondering about the name Irossetnom, that’s Montessori spelled backwards!)

On the Research and Development Team students specialize in scientific research and product development. Their current projects include managing the GMS chicken chickens, which they bought in 2016, and selling eggs, as well as making products in the forge that can be sold at Maria’s Market. Management positions include Director of Scientific Inquiry, Sustainability Coordinator, and Science Writer.

On the Design and Fabrication Team students work with 2D and 3D Design. They take photographs and design the GMS yearbook annually. They also take orders from the community on 3D products ranging from new classroom tables, to toddler picnic tables, to wooden recycling center bins on casters, to the GMS Farm Cart. Students work with design products like SketchUp to create 2D templates for products before they engage in the real life building process. Once made, these beautiful items are sold. Management positions include 2D Creative Director, Media Coordinator and Director of Technology, Media Assistant, and 3D Creative Director.

The Finance Team oversees finances for all of IMI. They process receipts for ingredients and materials, analyze operation costs, and present findings on net profits to the community on a weekly basis. They also conduct some marketing activities, like creating order forms to reserve food on Fridays, conducting surveys to find out how “customers” find the dining experience, and managing credit card sales and pre-orders. Management positions on this team include Chief Financial Officer, Assistant Bookkeeper, and Marketing Director. The Finance Team also runs a concessions stand.

The Tribal Council Team is the governing body of IMI. They host special events like dances, the Evening in the Pumpkin Patch (a Halloween-themed event for younger GMS students), Rock-a-thon (an all-night movie watching marathon to raise money for charities), a holiday toy drive, talent shows, and other special events benefiting the whole by bringing everyone together to celebrate community and raise money for charities and IMI. Management positions include equal representatives within the council.

On the Farm Team, students participate in all aspects of growing the food and getting it to the Table (Maria’s Cafe), and to the Farm Cart (Maria’s Market). They plant seeds, build greenhouse platforms, harvest and wash vegetables and deliver them fresh to the kitchen (very, very fresh,) take inventory on garden produce and plan for future crops, maintain the bee hives, cut flowers and make bouquets to sell to local vendors, and learn about local agriculture, different methods of growing food and how each affects our planet, and help to plan future menus based on what is growing seasonally. They also decorate our tables with nature inspired settings. Many of the ingredients in our Maria's Cafe recipes come directly from the GMS gardens, especially whole unprocessed foods like garlic, onions, salad greens, eggplant, bell peppers, sweet potatoes, persimmons, apples, figs, crab apples, butternut squash, tomatoes, and much more. We use no genetically modified ingredients (GMO’s) and part of our mission is to understand what is happening to our food system and how we can play our part to fix it. What better way to learn to be a global responsible citizen? Management positions on this team include Market Manager, Produce Manager(s), and Tea House Manager.

On the Restaurant Team (Maria’s Cafe), students chop, julienne, emulsify, grate, and learn new skills every week as they prepare the meal, and clean up afterwards. They gain much culinary expertise and are held to professional restaurant rules. They are learning about industrial equipment and processes and are inspected by the Health Department three times per year. They learn knife and food safety as well as quick methods for peeling and chopping garlic and onions and how to work with the best and freshest ingredients to make a delicious meal. Management positions include Head Chef, Sous Chef, Pastry Chef, and Pantry Manager.

In 1997, Greensboro Montessori School held its very first graduation ceremony honoring three eighth grade students. In the fall of 2017, exactly twenty years after that defining moment in the school’s history, we welcomed our inaugural 9th grade class, interestingly enough, also composed of three remarkable students: Theo Fenske, Owen Jacobs and Alex Kotis.  It has been affirming to watch these boys step up to be the leaders of the student body of our school.  They have each taken on the position with confidence and grace.

To support these students in their new leadership position, this year they have been meeting and interviewing local leaders in the greater Greensboro community. So far the students met with Abu Zaeem, the principal of The Newcomers School and our very own leader, Kevin Navarro, whose dissertation was written about what it means to be a vulnerable leader. Next they meet with Kevin H. Gray, the president of the Weaver Foundation.

Another important element built into our 9th grade curriculum is the completion of a year-long capstone project that challenges each student to apply his or her skills to an area of personal interest that will improve and enhance their world. Similar to a thesis or senior project, the capstone project provides a framework for demonstrating leadership and advanced application of critical thinking skills. The project is comprised of three main components: documented service learning, a written research paper, and an oral presentation, in the style of a TED talk, to the greater school community.

To further extend their learning, the students were challenged to custom design an end-of-year 9th grade field trip that would incorporate research opportunities for each of their individual capstone projects. They have been collaborating with a faculty advisor to explore a range of possibilities, and have settled on an itinerary that involves traveling throughout the Pacific Northwest. Their route will take them to explore tidal pools, tour museums in Seattle, visit a military base in Tacoma and interview refugees in Vancouver.

The three projects are as diverse as the students who developed them and include topics of refugee resettlement, marine ecology and military engineering.

In addition to making steady progress on their capstone projects, the students are taking a full academic course load which fulfills and surpasses the North Carolina state requirements for 9th grade.  Their course load includes an honors level English class, an honors level biology class, an online Economics and Civics class, Math 1 or Math 2, and either Spanish 1 or Spanish 2.

So far this has been a productive, busy year for our three inaugural students. As they look ahead at matriculation into 10th grade in fall 2018, they will be well poised for any high school of their choosing whether public, private, charter or otherwise.

Their experience has paved the way for others to follow and their leadership in the realignment of the Upper School (4th-5th-6th and 7th-8th-9th) has reinforced the validity and tremendous benefits of the three-year developmental cycle.