Why is professional development so important at Greensboro Montessori School?

We talk about our students being lifelong learners.

We always want them to discover, to ask questions, to think new things, and to have new thoughts. Especially at a Montessori school, we believe the adults who help guide our students’ education also need to be lifelong learners. We, too, should ask questions and think and try new things, just as we ask our students.

As professional educators, we are always watching for chances to learn: observing students or other teachers, having that unexpected conversation with a colleague, or connecting with professionals and researchers and new theories through more organized professional development — conferences, workshops, speakers, or graduate classes. We spend a lot of resources on professional development because we believe our School is only as good as our professional educators are.

The Montessori Event

Our crew was quite fortunate to have an amazing professional experience recently. A trip up to Washington, D.C. was the setting …

For four days 26 faculty and staff from Greensboro Montessori School joined 4,400 other Montessori educators from around the world. We were all there for the American Montessori Society annual international conference. To have 26 of us together at the same place and same time at such a high-quality professional conference is truly spectacular. We thought together, asked questions, learned new things, built community amongst ourselves, and talked about how we further build community amongst our students and families. Being together with the 26 of us allowed for unprecedented synergy; for deep conversations about specific Greensboro Montessori School curricula or programs; for conversations about new ideas for which there's never time in the midst of our normal school days; and for space in our minds and hearts to dream about what we want our School to be. (Oh, yeah, we did laugh a little bit, too.)

A unique opportunity like this allows us, individually, to be better educators, and for us, collectively, to make our School stronger ... ultimately providing a better educational experience for our students. Every professional development workshop or seminar our faculty and staff attend is for the benefit of our students. Our professional development is for our students.

What did we Learn?

Since our time in Washington, D.C., we have already begun to put to use much of what we learned and thought. The turn-around practical value is very high at a conference which is so focused on our exact curriculum and pedagogy.  The 26 of us expressed our reflections in a shared space. Here are a few things we wrote:

Thank you for supporting our faculty and staff in our own professional development. It only makes us better educators, and our School a better one for our students.

Everything we do, professional development included, is for our students.

Brooke Juneau is a living legend at Greensboro Montessori School. Beloved by her students, families, and fellow members of the Tod Squad (the name our Toddler faculty have affectionately given themselves), Brooke is a servant leader and advocate for children and families.

Brooke is currently the lead teacher in our Academic-Day Toddler classroom, Toddler division chair, and co-chair of our dual reaccreditation with the American Montessori Society (AMS) and Southern Association of Independent Schools. In February, we announced that Brooke will spearhead our after-school and summer programming as our director of CASA beginning in the 2019-20 school year. While Brooke will deeply miss working with our Toddler students and teachers, she plans on visiting the Toddler classrooms often. Plus, as an AMS-credentialed educator in Infant and Toddler Montessori education, Brooke will remain a invaluable resource to our Toddler families and faculty.

As she transitions into the director of CASA role, Brooke is looking forward to expanding her relationships with Primary, Elementary, and Junior High families and reconnecting with many students who began with her in our Toddler program. She’s also patiently waiting (with open arms, of course) for her current Toddler students to grow, transition to Primary, and perhaps join our CASA program.

Professional and Personal Work

Last fall, Brooke presented at the North Carolina Association of Independent Schools annual conference. Her topic was entitled “In this Together: Navigating Difficult Conversations with Families.” The seminar focused on nurturing the positive parent-teacher relationships necessary to successfully guide students through their academic journey.

More recently, Brooke presented at the AMS annual conference, an international conference of over 4,000 Montessori educators. “Partnering with Parents of Children with Special Needs” was a 75-minute workshop, during which she led participants through activities designed to help them better understand the perspectives of parents who have children with developmental, behavioral, and/or learning challenges. She reviewed the distinct stages of grief families may experience after a child’s diagnosis, why communication may be difficult with those families, and ways to frame sensitive, fruitful conversations about children’s needs.

Brooke’s expertise in partnering with families and improving outcomes for children with exceptional needs stems from her personal experience. Brooke and her husband, Jason, have three children. Harper will be in Upper Elementary next year, and Hayden graduated from Greensboro Montessori School in 2017 and is currently a sophomore at Weaver Academy. Their oldest, Riley, is a young adult successfully living and navigating the world with dual diagnoses of autism and Joubert syndrome. Brooke and Jason have personally lived through the stages of grief she reviewed in her AMS presentation and the steadfast work of advocating for Riley and their family.

Education and Career

Brooke has also studied and worked in human development her entire life. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in education and human development and has completed graduate coursework in early childhood education at Wheelock College. She also completed a rigorous one-year, graduate-level program to earn her AMS teaching credential.

Brooke began her teaching career managing early childhood programs in the Boston and Raleigh areas. Immediately prior to joining Greensboro Montessori School, Brooke worked for eight years as a parent liaison at the Family Support Network of Central Carolina, where she personally assisted families in finding and accessing services, support groups, school advocacy, and other needed resources for their children with special needs. She also trained and managed volunteers to serve as parent matches for families whose children were newly diagnosed.

Get to know Brooke

If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading a newsletter or progress report written by Brooke, you’re missing out on one of her other talents. Brooke is a prolific and exquisite writer, capturing the beauty of children, the prepared environment, and the everyday occurrences when the two interact — just as they should in a Montessori classroom.

While there is so much more to Brooke, we encourage you to form your own relationship with this master teacher and parent. Just like all our faculty and administrators, Brooke is available via email or by calling the Front Office at 336-668-0119.

“Layer it and layer it and layer and layer it, and layer it, and layer it, Compost Cake!”
“Turn it, and turn it, and turn it, and turn it, and turn it, and turn it, Compost Cake!”
“Pile it high, pile it high, pile it high, Compost Cake!”
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If you’ve heard this song about compost all around campus this fall and winter, it’s because we got new compost bins in the Primary and Lower Elementary gardens! Why did we get new bins, you might ask? Two reasons:

  1. We needed more space for the volume of organic waste we produce (a combination of garden waste and food scraps from the students' lunches and snack preparation)
  2. We wanted to try a more interactive, faster, and developmentally appropriate compost model for our younger students.

So what did we get? If you visit the Primary and Lower Elementary gardens, you’ll see some giant green cylinders sitting on a rotating axis. These compost bins are called tumblers. Tumbler compost models allow students of all ages to spin the compost (working those gross motor skills), in addition to speeding up the composting process. In our old bins, it took at least a year for our food waste and garden scraps to decompose fully, we'll make finished compost in as little as two weeks. Cheers to that!

What is Compost?

Compost is the product that’s left after organic matter has fully decomposed. It’s also called humus. Human-made compost comes from carefully mixing food and garden waste materials — ingredients high in either nitrogen or carbon — and placing them in an environment where they can decay. When the decaying process has gone well, we put the finished compost, or humus, back into the garden soil and grow healthier plants by improving soil fertility.

Why do we compost at Greensboro Montessori School?

For starters, compost has a longer ground-life than other fertilizers. It lasts longer in soil than crop residues or animal manures that degrade rapidly here in the humid Southeast. This longevity makes for healthier plants and food crops. Composting also reduces our waste throughout campus. By diverting organic matter from the landfill and into a closed-loop cycle, we transform our “waste” into a fertilizer for our gardens and food for the microorganisms that live in the soil beneath us. We also save money by eliminating the need and associated cost of additional soil fertility inputs. And let's not forget, composting is just plain fun!

Can you think of any other reasons to compost? Maybe, that by doing it, we are feeding the worms our Toddlers so adore? That it’s a responsible use of resources? That it's a project-based way to teach science? Share your thoughts with us! And, if you want to learn more, please join us at our next Community Garden Workday for more composting tips and tricks with our environmental education faculty. We’d love to have you.

If you're interested in learning more about the science of composting, read this article from Live Science.

Eliza HudsonAbout the Author

Eliza Hudson is Greensboro Montessori School's lead environmental educator. Eliza holds her bachelor's degree in biology from Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. She has built and tended school gardens, taught hands-on cooking lessons and connected local farms to school programs working for FoodCorps. Prior to joining Greensboro Montessori School in 2014, Eliza was a classroom and after-school assistant at the Richmond Friends School, a farm intern at a family-owned farm in Ohio, and served as assistant director at a summer day camp in an urban community garden in Durham.

Greensboro Montessori School has taught environmental education since 1995 and has been permaculture gardening on its campus since 1997.

Greensboro Montessori School's Junior High faculty and students recently partnered with North Carolina A&T State University on a research project involving shiitake mushrooms. Shiitakes are edible mushrooms high in vitamins and chock-full of other health benefits. They're native to Eastern Asia and sold in farmers markets throughout the U.S. for upwards of $16 per pound. Recently, our Junior High students wanted to learn more about these delicious fungi.

On Fridays, our Junior High students participate in their careers program. Careers is one of Greensboro Montessori School's differentiating aspects of our adolescent curriculum. It equips students with real-world management skills by charging them with running a micro-economy. Students research and participate in various career teams such as finance, management, farming, culinary arts, research, design, production, and publishing. These career teams buy and sell from each other.

The farm team harvests produce from the School's permaculture gardens and sells it through their business, Maria's Market. Merging their science and careers curricula, the students decided that growing shiitake mushrooms to sell at Maria’s Market would be a worthwhile endeavor. They would be able to learn about the fungi kingdom, saprophytic organisms, mycelial networks, the medicinal value of mushrooms, and the details of producing and selling a high-value commodity item.

To help guide our students, Junior High science faculty, Tim Goetz, reached out to faculty at N.C. A&T. He asked if they would be willing to provide expert advice to our students, and they welcomed the opportunity to partner with us. This project-based science project began with a visit from Felicia Anike, a research specialist at N.C. A&T studying mushroom science and fungal biotechnology. She was joined by Melvin Mensah-Bonsu, a graduate research assistant, and Janelle Robinson, a graduate fellowship student. Felicia, Melvin, and Janelle gave a presentation to our Junior High students on the history, growing, and uses of shiitake mushrooms. They also demonstrated the proper drilling, inoculation, and waxing of the white oak logs on which these mushrooms grow.

The week following the presentation, all of our Junior High students cycled through the shiitake inoculation project. They drilled holes into freshly cut white oak logs sustainably harvested from Greensboro Montessori School's campus. Then, they plugged each hole with the spawn. Finally, they covered the holes with wax to keep the spawn safely in place and protected from other opportunistic fungi species.

The inoculated logs will sit for around six months as they become fully inhabited by the shiitake mycelial network. Students will then stack the logs and wait for fruiting to begin. It will take around eight to 12 months for the logs to begin producing shiitake mushrooms, but then, we can expect them to fruit for five to six years.

N.C. A&T gave us several different varieties of shiitake mushrooms, and students will be tracking how each performs, in what seasons they fruit, and other specific data points, which we will relay back to the team at N.C. A&T. Our students are excited to track the progress of the logs, and because the logs will fruit for so long, the logs will benefit future students as well. Mostly, we are excited to participate in project-based learning that has purpose and real-world benefits to the community. As our students research, manage, and harvest shiitake mushrooms from the logs, they will also provide a unique and healthy consumable product to the community.

Project-based learning ... this is how we teach science at Greensboro Montessori School!

Junior High science project at Greensboro Montessori School

A Junior High student collects a sustainably harvested white oak log to be inoculated with shiitake mushroom spawn.

Junior High science at Greensboro Montessori School.

Using best practices they learned from researchers at N.C. A&T, students drill holes into the white oak logs.

Junior Hish science at Greensboro Montessori School.

Students inoculate logs by transferring shiitake mushroom spawn into the holes.

Junior Hish science at Greensboro Montessori School.

Students use wax to seal the holes, keeping the spawn firmly in place and protecting the spawn from other opportunistic fungi species.

Junior High science at Greensboro Montessori School.

Students label each log, so they can report accurate data points about each mushroom varietal back to N.C. A&T.

Project-based learning at Greensboro Montessori School.

The inoculated logs will sit for around six months as they become fully inhabited by the shiitake mycelial network.

Dr. Omoanghe Samuel Isikhuemhen works in the department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design and is a professor of family and consumer sciences at N.C. A&T. Dr. Isikhuemhen's work centers around mushroom science and fungal biotechnology,  and he leads research on mushroom science, production, and use in food and supplements for humans and farm animals. The members of his team have trained farmers to become mushroom growers, authored journal articles, and supervised student research in exotic mushrooms, truffles, and other related fungal biotechnologies. Greensboro Montessori School's Junior High students are the first group of adolescent-age students his team has trained in shiitake mushroom production.

If you were lucky enough to be at Greensboro Montessori School last Thursday night, or with us via the livestream, you were treated to quite a show! Simply put: our fourth, fifth, and sixth graders' 17th annual Fare Faire production, “Back to Families Feudal,” was fantastic: high-quality, well-researched, technically sound, aesthetically powerful, and laugh-out-loud funny.

Fare Faire is a rite of passage for Upper Elementary students at Greensboro Montessori School. This annual theatrical production integrates students’ language arts, history, and performing arts curriculum. As students learn about the medieval historical period, they also read related literature and work together to bring a story to life on stage. The name, “Fare Faire,” is a creative play on words which highlights the communal meal Upper Elementary students and their families enjoy before the student-led performance - this year the potluck dinner of years' past gave way for a sweeter dessert feast.

And with all this work, all this project-based learning, all this technical and logistical demand of putting on a 31-person theatrical production, I have to ask: where were the teachers? I barely saw them all night.

I heard Cathy Moses and Tessa Kirkpatrick may have been backstage to reassure a few worried students or help with a tricky transition; and I saw Jonathan McLean and John Archambault lingering over at the light and sound board, and even once saw them each use the spotlight, but I think it was only because the sixth grader running the sound board told them what to do. The rest of the time, I saw the teachers pretty much relaxing and enjoying the show, sometimes just leaning against the bleachers or even sitting in the audience. When I complimented them on the show, they said, “Yes, the students did a great job.” While I cannot underscore the intense, long, and passionate hard work the faculty have put in over the past three weeks, one thing was crystal clear Thursday night: the teachers were not in charge of this show. The students were.

In my 20 years of independent school education, I’ve seen plenty of wonderful “student-led” productions. But not until our very own Fare Faire, have I seen a show so incredibly run by the students. When we walked into the Gym, it was a student decorations manager who had transformed the space into a medieval stage; where there was a line forgotten, it was a student director who whispered a line; when there was a costume glitch, it was the student costume manager who responded; whenever someone missed a cue to come on stage, there was a student stage manager giving them a gentle shove onto the stage; or when one of the mics crackled, it was the student sound manager who adjusted the board settings.

Sixth graders have the opportunity to step into leadership roles for the production. Stella and Mahinda were the directors. Leila the stage and decorations manager. Whitley was in charge of costumes, while she and Stella also worked with Jillian Crone to spearhead marketing for the show. Andrew was in charge of sound and lights, while Mohamed was in charge of microphones. Dalia was in charge of props, and Kylee in charge of photography. Leading their fourth and fifth grade peers in producing Fare Faire is a capstone experience for these students. They had been preparing for that responsibility and honor all throughout the first two years of their three-year cycle.

Our three-year Upper Elementary program has always delivered a strong and unique learning experience for our students. Building on the Montessori skills and foundations that have been developed throughout the Primary and Lower Elementary divisions, our fourth through sixth graders are empowered to come into their own as they transition to the Upper School. They take responsibility for their learning in real-life applications; they develop all the academic and social-emotional skills they need to thrive in life; and they learn who they are and how they will step into the world. It is a critical time in the students’ development. And it is big work.

And that big work is guided by a group of inspired and hard-working “teacher-guide-people,” as the faculty sometimes call themselves. Each subject matter experts themselves, they know that so much of the Montessori approach is correctly and carefully setting up the prepared learning environment to guide the students to their own success. With most traditional schools, and even some great schools that try to be more innovative, the model is teachers as the "sage on the stage," filling students with facts and information; not at our school. It is teachers as guides, teachers as inspirers, teachers as coaches, and teachers as expert listeners, researchers, and observers to see what each and every student uniquely needs.

So, where are the teachers?

They are there, every single step of the way, knowing how to both nurture and challenge, knowing how to inspire and empower students to do the work themselves, and knowing when to step back and let the students take ownership and responsibility for their own work, for their own success, and for their own theatrical production, as was the case during the simply fantastic Fare Faire production on a recent and chilly Thursday night in January.

Dear Friends,

A very Happy 2019 to you all! I wanted to send a personal note of thanks to each and every one of you for your contributions to our School. Whether you donate your time, your talent, or your treasure, every gesture is appreciated and celebrated.

As our children are busy doing their important work in their classes, the GMSCA is also doing our important work cultivating and supporting a vibrant and engaged parent community. Looking ahead, we will have many opportunities to get together to support our children, our faculty, and each other. Keep a look out for these upcoming events - we hope you'll find there's something for everyone!

See you in our community, whether we're enjoying a student performance at school or breaking bread together at a local restaurant!

Karen Kelly,
GMSCA Lead Coordinator

To have Greensboro Montessori School's academic calendar (and other school events) automatically sync with your personal calendar, subscribe to our school calendar. To ensure you the most relevant events to your family get pushed to your calendar, we encourage you to customize your subscription based your child's division.

  1. Visit our online calendar.
  2. Find the "Categories" filter sitting on the left side, just above the calendar.
  3. Use the drop-down menu to select your child's division.
    1. For Toddler, please find and select your child's specific classroom.
    2. If your have children enrolled in more than one division, please select all applicable divisions.
    3. Select "GMS Athletics" to also subscribe to the Panthers' game schedule.
  4. Scroll down to the bottom right corner and click "Subscribe to filtered calendar."
  5. Select your desired calendar app, and follow the remaining prompts to complete your subscription to the GMS calendar.

On Friday, October 26, 2018, Greensboro Montessori's head of school, Dr. Kevin Navarro, received a formal notice of retirement from the School's bus. Seeing as the bus is a valued member of the team with over 19 years of service to the School, we felt it appropriate to share its retirement letter with the entire community. The letter is reprinted below (with the bus' permission, of course).

Dear Dr. Navarro,

I love everything about Greensboro Montessori School. The way every child is empowered to have a real voice and real agency. The way students learn how to apply their academic skills in intentional and authentic ways. And the way students learn to work and wrestle with, understand, and clearly articulate complex ideas.

However, I think we both know, it’s time for a change. I humbly request you accept this letter as my formal notice of retirement effective December 31, 2018.

Words will never fully express the gratitude I feel for the purpose-filled career Greensboro Montessori School has given me. During my 19 years at the School, I've been on many adventures throughout the state, including the Wright Brothers National Memorial, the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, and Roanoke Island Festival Park. Many years ago I took the faculty to Florida for an American Montessori Society (AMS) Conference. I know the way to the School’s Land campus in Oak Ridge by heart, and I've been to hundreds of Panther sporting events.

What I treasure most is the miles I've logged with over 500 different students. I know them each by name. I've laughed at their jokes, been in on their secrets, and love their playlists! My greatest honor has been watching them grow from toddlers (when they didn't even know I existed) to teens (when they sometimes treated me as if I didn't exist). No matter what, it has been a journey of love.

I hope you know I am proud of what I've achieved. I wish I could work forever, but truth be told, I'm getting a bit tired:

It’s time. We both know it is, and I’m sure you will find a great replacement to honor the incredible work you do with our students. I look forward to fulfilling my duties through the end of the year and will gladly help you and the team find my replacement. Depending on the expediency of your search, I may also be available for some consulting in the spring. In the meantime, if there's anything else you need, please let me know. When not working, I'm usually resting in the grassy lot on campus.

All my best and all my love,

The GMS School Bus

To my fellow GMS Families,

Welcome to the 2018-19 school year!

The Greensboro Montessori School Community Association (GMSCA) is excited and honored to welcome families joining our school community for the first time.  We’re also proud to welcome back our returning families for another wonderful year at GMS!

Our hope is that every family will find value in the GMSCA.  Our mission is focused on building and sustaining community. More specifically, "the GMSCA is a dynamic, inclusive organization that strives to enrich the school experience for all. We foster a vibrant school community, and serve to bridge and connect home and school while supporting the mission and goals of Greensboro Montessori School."

Unlike many public and private schools, membership in the GMSCA is automatic and free! We don't ask for or require dues. Nor do we ask you or your children to sell anything. Instead, our activities are funded through other ways, with our primary source of income being the School's fall and spring Scholastic Book Fairs. We also raise funds through initiatives like Harris Teeter's Together in Education (link your VIC card to #1849), General Mills' Box Tops for Education, and AmazonSmile.

The most visible way you will see the GMSCA in action is through GMSCA-sponsored events, teacher appreciation initiatives, and community volunteering.

We invite you to connect with us. Whether you join our private Facebook group, volunteer at the Fall Festival (details coming later this month), or contribute in your own way, we appreciate every gesture of kindness and community-building. Most importantly, know you don’t need to attend a meeting, host an event, or take a day off work to volunteer to be an essential member of our school community.

We’re looking forward to an amazing 2018-19 for our School, our families and, most of all, our children.

See you at school!

Cordially,

Karen Kelly

GMSCA Lead Coordinator

2017-18 has been a fantastic year at Greensboro Montessori School, and we very much appreciate the students, families, and teammates who have been part of our community. Looking back on our year together, we have accomplished much, grown together, and discovered new things, ideas, and places. This year, our community came together in new and vibrant ways to build a new foundation that will launch our School into the future.

Looking back on any given school year, there are many ways to articulate or quantify success. For me, knowing that every single one of our students, and every single one of our teammates, joyfully worked hard is satisfaction enough. But that is just the beginning of the story. Our team recently reflected on why we each think this year was such a success. Here are a few of our answers:

Yes, we had a fantastic year.

With the last day of the 2017-18 year upon us, our final week is an opportunity to joyfully celebrate our graduates, sadly say goodbye to departing friends, and congratulate each other on all we've accomplished and learned. We should also humbly remember how fortunate we each are to be part of such a loving, empowering, and grounded learning community like Greensboro Montessori School.

Whether you’re a student, parent, teammate, alumni, or friend of the School, we’re glad you are part of our crew.