The Montessori Event Series: An Adult Learner's Perspective
“It’s exciting to be in a space full of people who love what you love—caring about kids and helping children grow to their full potential. That energy is always reinvigorating.”
—Stacie Schultz
Adult Learner and Educator
Magnolia Montessori for All, Austin, TX
The Montessori Event Series gives you an inside look on the world's largest Montessori conference. Hear from Montessori educators who attend The Event and secure your registration today.
Meet Stacie Schultz
Growing up in the Montessori school system and going on to become an Early Childhood educator and then an Adult Learner, Stacie Schultz exudes great love, passion, and admiration for The Montessori Method and the pursuit of lifelong learning.
In her early adult life, she was reluctant to enter the teaching profession, but her success and evident passion for Montessori schools brought her back to the classroom, and she’s not looking away any time soon. Now, she continues her training and education to transition into a new classroom environment—Lower Elementary.
The Adult Learner’s Perspective
Previously attending The Montessori Event in Washington D.C. in 2019 through the lens of an Early Childhood educator, Stacie is now attending The Event as an Adult Learner branching into teaching Lower Elementary students.
The amazing thing about Montessori is the pursuit of purposeful lifelong learning. Stacie is an excellent model of continued education, exploration, and The Montessori Method in action. Attending The Event in active learning mode as an Adult Learner this year, Stacie is looking forward to blending her current training with new insights that she can adopt into her daily practices. Knowing from experience that she will leave with tangible tips, techniques, and resources, attending the conference as an Adult Learner creates a lot of room for new information that will directly help her students.
Stacie left The Montessori Event with a wealth of tips on meaningful movement, teacher self-care, and incorporating music into the everyday curriculum. With a smile on her face, she recalled the feelings of passion, joy, and community that buzzed through each session and back to her school after the conference.
Exciting Reading News in the Exhibit Hall
For those unfamiliar, the Exhibit Hall is a space full of passionate educators offering activities, resources, research, and techniques to help other educators. This year Stacie is thrilled to present the culmination of 1.5 years of hard work on her leveled phonics books.
What started as a resource to help her own students, turned into her first published book in less than two years. Recognizing reading difficulties among her students, she formed a meaningful partnership with a local illustrator to create leveled phonetic readers. These scaffolded books have a beautiful mix of letter sounds, word blends, and sight words to create a reading recipe for success. These books are accessible, familiar, and designed for students to read independently as they progress through each level. Coupled with beautifully diverse illustrations that serve as mirrors and windows to her own student populations, these books will truly help young readers.
Aligned with the curriculum and carefully leveled, levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 have six books each, and level 1 has three books in total. Stay tuned for an article on Stacie’s excellent resource for developing readers!
The Montessori Experience
Encouraging those who are on the fence about attending, Stacie explains, “It’s exciting to be in a space full of people who love what you love—caring about kids and helping children grow to their full potential. That energy is always reinvigorating.” There is no better feeling than helping children reach their fullest potential while impressing outsiders who end up saying, “Wow, kids are so much more capable than we think they are” when observing her classroom. These aha moments keep her going.
Montessori is magic, and so is The Montessori Event. Stacie exemplifies the beauty of continued education, not only for her own personal growth but also to encourage and inspire her students to reach for their goals.
About the Author
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Kat St.Pierre (she/her) is a former 8th grade English teacher turned freelance content/copywriter. Passionate about being kind to others, the planet, and herself, she loves using her voice to amplify important conversations and educate with empathy. Contact her at copykatstpierre@gmail.com or www.katstpierre.com. |
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The opinions expressed in Montessori Life are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of AMS.
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