We were fortunate to send a few Sun Grove Montessori School administrators, staff and our middle school students to a recent Montessori Foundation Conference in Sarasota.
There were workshops, keynote speakers and a documentary to inspire and educate. We all felt we experienced elements that will make us better leaders, guides and more effective in our work with children. It was also a nice opportunity to meet and share with others who have dedicated their lives to children and the best of Montessori education.
The conference organizers also offer a unique invitation to those who have secondary students. In the spirit of nurturing leadership and collaboration there is an open invitation for the these students to attend the conference at no cost. They help facilitate connections with other groups and they give suggestions for workshops the students may enjoy. Because of scheduling conflicts we were not able to join other students in a special showing and discussion for the documentary "A Race to Nowhere" but our students were able to view it during the Keynote presentation.
They were asked if they would share about their experience to be published in "Tomorrow's Child" and they graciously did. I thought it would be nice to share the experience from their collaborative prospective. It follows this introduction . . .
After being in the car for three
hours we finally arrived at the hotel. When we were walking towards the
entrance the first thing that caught our eye was the water wall. When we walked inside there was a big glass
window with a view of the amazing pool and the Sarasota Bay. We were even more excited when we got to our
rooms and saw the great view from the rooms.
After we unpacked and explored a little we went down stairs to our first
workshop, Action Socialization with Joel Wilkenson. This was our favorite workshop during the IMC
conference because the leader was really nice and we got to interact with other
Montessori Middle School students from Oklahoma.
When
our workshop was finished, we headed down to the pool with the Oklahomans for a
nice swim. It was amazing! The pool and
hot tub both had waterfalls pouring into them.
We had so much fun running back and forth between the hot tub and pool
that we lost track of time and swam for hours.
Once we had finished swimming we changed out of our bathing suits, and
walked to a nearby Italian café, where we had delicious pizza. When we got back to the hotel we said goodbye
to the Oklahomans and went up to our hotel rooms.
The
next and final day we were there we woke up fairly early and went to the lobby
where we met up with the Oklahoma students.
We also met some students and faculty from a nearby school, New Gate. The people from New Gate took us downtown and
gave us a short historical tour. We
walked through the farmer’s market, where we got some delicious lemonade and
watched a group of kids from a drum academy.
Before we knew it we ended up at the circus themed chalk festival. The artwork was incredible! Our favorite piece of chalk art was a 3D
optical illusion, where it looked like a man was coming out of the ground. Along the way a couple of magicians caught
our eye, we had actually stood there trying to figure out their tricks for
forty-five minutes. Before we left we
got to see some lions, white tigers, regular tigers, and ligers.
On the
way back we stopped by a park near the water.
We saw a really cool sculpture of “Olympic Wannabes”. In the park there was a tiki bar, where we
had lunch with the Oklahomans. Our day
was slowly coming to an end, and the only thing we had left was more of the IMC
conference. We went and saw a video
called “Race to Nowhere”. The last
workshop we went to was where we learned how to use the Weebly website. After that we reluctantly packed our bags and
headed to the car, and headed home.
“My favorite part was the pool, where we got to swim for
hours.” -Cristian (student)
“I thought it was cool to meet other middle school
Montessori students.” –Veronica (student)
“The downtown area was amazing!” –Kaylee (student)
“I absolutely loved the chalk festival.” –Emma (student)
“I think the movie portrayed a really good message.”
–Bradley (student)
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