Transformation of the Adults & Environment
at Suzanna Dickinson Montessori Academy, a Public Montessori Campus
by Whitney Carlisle, Principal, and Marco Escalera, Guide
Suzanna Dickinson Montessori Academy is a Texas Public School that is making the transformation into an AMI Public Montessori Academy. During this process, our campus has seen the growth and shift in the mindset of our staff, students, and parents while embracing the Montessori style of learning in our community. This process and shift have led to the physical change in our environment not only in the classroom but also in different areas of the campus.
These shifts have affected our roles, as administrators and teachers, on campus with the most making certain every decision and expense addresses student success along with independence, equity, and equality in the Montessori learning environment.
Montessori teachers truly embrace and enjoy working within the Montessori environment because it allows students to grow academically, socially, and emotionally at their own pace. The classroom environment teaches order since all objects and activities that are presented guide children to independently place everything in a specific order. The students develop independence because they guide the activities throughout the day. Children work at tasks for the joy of work. Students are encouraged to explore, share, and work cooperatively with a great deal of respect. Students enjoy a classroom that is organized and prepared to serve specific needs and abilities, so they are then naturally motivated to explore more challenging areas, which accelerates the learning experience. Children naturally learn self-discipline, and it refines important skills like concentration, self-control, and motivation.
Teachers facilitate the learning experience. Teachers take the lead from students and ensure they maximize their time, quality, and student products by the end of each activity. The Montessori teacher prepares the environment based on careful and continual observations of each child. Thus, the classroom provides developmentally appropriate learning opportunities that interest the child.
The teacher gives individual or small group presentations and lessons as they move around the classroom. Lessons are hands-on, straightforward, and intended to engage the child so that students will want to continue the discovery on their own. As an educator, it is very rewarding to see students’ creativity and critical thinking skills grow at a very high level that enables them to think and find answers they need independently.
As an administrator change must be embraced when transforming a campus. An administrator must be comfortable with experimenting, failure, learning from it, adjusting, then trying again. When working in a Montessori environment, embracing this change and adjustments become easier. Seeing the students being successful in the classroom choosing the materials. Watching the students grow academically, socially, and emotionally from their individual level to the next verifies the importance of this change. Administration must provide all resources for the Montessori environment for students and the guides to be successful. These resources include but are not limited to the required AMI materials, furniture, professional development opportunities, and mentors/teacher leaders.
Administrators must be flexible to allow the teachers and staff to work their schedules to fit the Montessori model. This shift is from traditional times when subjects are taught daily to ideally 3-hour work cycles where the students are choosing and working with the materials and the teachers are guiding, observing, taking notes, and providing presentations to students. Montessori classrooms look and sound different. Without knowing the model, it looks like students are just randomly choosing materials, have lots of freedom walking around touching things, and are sometimes loud when working with each other. However, this is not the case. The administrator must know that the environment is carefully prepared each day based on the student’s needs from teacher observations. The noise is essential for the students to work together collaboratively.
Dickinson Montessori Academy is in high demand from our community. Our applications to attend from outside our attendance zone and the city has increased almost 4x’s from just last year. Montessori works. The Montessori environment works because it allows students to grow academically, socially, and emotionally at their own pace not forcing a child to learn something they are not ready for setting them up for failure. Our community and parents see our students, of all races and economic levels, succeed. And after Safety being our #1 focus for our students, Student Success is a close #2.
© 2021 Whitney Carlisle
Whitney Carlisle
Whitney Carlisle is a MINT graduate and in her 26th year in GPISD as an employee. Whitney taught 6 years at the middle school and high school levels and has been an administrator for 20 years at all three levels of education, elementary, middle and high school. Whitney is starting her second School of Choice, first being Thurgood Marshall Leadership Academy 12 years ago, where her husband now serves as the principal. Whitney comes from a long line of educators and is passing it on, as her son is also a teacher in GPISD.
Whitney grew up in Grand Prairie and attended Dalworth Elementary, Adams Middle School, and Grand Prairie High School. She loves her community and will do what is needed to ensure her students have every opportunity available and learn to the highest of their potential to become future leaders and decision makers.
Marco Escalera
Marco Escalera is a MINT student with a degree in elementary education and a degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. Marco moved to Texas in 2003 where he started teaching ESL at Mountain View college in the evenings and Pre-K Three at Faith Family Academy in Dallas, Texas. He has a certification to teach ESL at the post-secondary level from California and EC-4 Bilingual Certification from the State of Texas. Marco has been teaching, Pre-K, Kindergarten, First, and Third Grade these past two years with GPISD.
