written by Karen Anway, Interim Elementary Director
This position has given me the opportunity to return to the elementary team at Great River. It has changed a lot over the past several years!
I taught upper elementary at Great River from 2013-2016. I started at Great River one year into our offering of an elementary program. At the time we had four elementary classrooms, for a total of about 120 students between grades 1-6. It was a great opportunity to join a growing program that was committed to offering a public, accessible and authentic Montessori education to students in the Twin Cities. After I left the classroom I took over managing our Big Canoe before and aftercare program, where I was able to work with children and adults in a different way from the classroom. I had the unique opportunity to build the program as the school grew (then rebuild it after Covid and distance learning).
As I’ve started this new role I’ve been doing observations in all of the classrooms, getting to know the guides, assistants and students, and learning how the program operates in its current configuration of 12 classrooms, 4 workshop guides, and a myriad of support people and systems designed to help children learn and grow in their time with us. Some things are the same, like the iconic Montessori materials for teaching concepts in math, geometry, language, history, and science, and the Imaginary Island curriculum I created for our upper elementary students that has become a rite of passage every year.
Some things are very different, and one of the things that has struck me most is the shift from being reactive to being proactive about the challenges that children bring to us each day. We now have a robust intervention staff: guides who work intensively with students who need support in math or reading, as well as Deans of Students who create structures that help children regulate their behavior so that they can spend their time learning. We have social workers at each level to work with students on emotional regulation, friendships, and processing their feelings. We have workshop staff presenting enrichment in art, music, outdoor education and health and wellness, and we have a program assistant who helps manage the logistics of drop off, pick up, and the daily needs of our 350+ elementary students. Guides and assistants know that support is on call for them throughout the day, which frees them up to concentrate on delivering lessons and supporting learning in the classrooms. As I walk through the elementary wing each day I see all of these systems and people working together, and it’s reflected in the work that I see and interactions I have with students. This morning, for example, a student handed me a letter asking politely if I could give him more algebra work. That feels like the outcome that we are all working towards every day at Great River!
Here is some work spotted in progress at 3:00pm yesterday afternoon:
