by Magdalena Guarda Munoz
Seattle , WA

Learning Montessori education has been much more useful than I ever expected. I am an English as a second language secondary school teacher, but I have been mostly working as a substitute teacher in the Seattle Public Schools. I am Chilean born and came to the US three years ago. I studied Montessori with Sharlet and Don at Montessori Teacher Preparation of WA. Then I did my internship in the Cinquegranelli Montessori School . I stayed another year there because it was so much fun.

I also longed for getting back to work with my favorite group of students: teenagers. I applied in the Seattle Public schools, and since then I have been working as a substitute teacher. In the public schools I work among ESL Elementary and Secondary schools, Spanish students, generalist and kindergartens. When I am a substitute teacher, I get to the classroom and am given a plan for the day's activities. The children are also of great help and tell me the routine of the class!

One day I was called for an emergency. I had no idea which class I was going to teach, so I was told the moment I got there. It turned out to be kindergarten, and the teacher had not left any instructions. When I got into the classroom, I saw that there were a lot of things piled in a closet, on shelves and tables: books, different types of paper, tempera, brushes, vases, plasticine, matching and sorting materials, a memory game, a construction game and musical instruments. Taking advantage that the children were in P.E., I had time to prepare the environment. When the children came to the classroom, I invited them to the circle. I introduced myself and asked them to introduce themselves with an introduction song. I then explained how the day was going to work. I showed them the different activities that were ready for them in the classroom and how each child could choose one. Some of the activities were to be done alone while other activities in groups. I gave them time to think about which activity to choose. When they were ready, they showed me by sitting straight with their hands on their laps. I called them, one by one, and each chose the work to do. They were quite excited about this “new” way of working in class. All of them were very concentrated on their work. Some wanted to do the same work that another student was doing, especially the tempera work, but they were willing to wait to do something else. The morning went very smoothly.

Five minutes before the morning was over I invited the children to clean up. Everything was put away and cleaned up. Then we said good bye. It was an awesome morning I will never forget!