The Observer
Over several Observer issues, we have been featuring stories about our Alumni in our “Where Are They Now” series. In Part Three, we talked to Elena Longan, who is pursuing an AMI 3-6 diploma (Children’s House) in Portugal. Elena feels that her Montessori background has completely influenced her current life in the most positive of ways.
In conjunction with our article about alumna Vanessa Longan training to be an AMI Guide (Association Montessori Internationale), we thought it would be helpful to explain what AMI is, and how our school came to embrace it. Our founders were seeking a method of Montessori education that was truly authentic, and when they came across an AMI affiliated school they realized they had found what they were looking for.
Elementary-aged children need a feeling of responsibility, and the need to be active contributors to their community; whether that community is their family, a group of children they are working with at school, all of the people in their classroom, another group like Scouts or a sports team, or even humanity as a whole. Learning how to care for their environment is one way that Elementary children practice responsibility to themselves and others.
If you have been on campus at Hollis Montessori School at the end of the day lately, you may have noticed Adolescent Program (AP) students and guides hiking up from the pond looking wet, tired, and happy. They have been studying Dunklee Pond in the Hollis Town Forest. This fall they are doing a water quality assessment of Dunklee Pond to submit to the NH Department of Environmental Services. The Adolescent Community has taken on a water quality study every few years so they have now begun to accumulate long term data and can begin to look at the trends.
In Montessori education, there are some very special stories, called Great Stories, that we tell at the beginning of each year. The Great Stories are for the whole community, and they introduce each of the areas of study we explore throughout all six Elementary years.
The first of these stories is The Great Story of the Universe...
