The importance of the trainer in Montessori training

I have to admit I accepted attending this Montessori course without doing too much research before.

Since I discovered the Montessori method, I constantly felt the urge to sign up for a course but every time something else came up that made me postpone this decision.

Now that I think about it, I am sure it was faith. 

Making a choice for my Montessori training

As I was saying, I didn’t research too much before saying yes to this course.

My boss came to me one day and told me that there was an opportunity for me to have my own elementary classroom, if I was willing to go to Hyderabad, India and attend the Montessori Elementary Training for 2 summers in a row.

I remember the feeling that entered my whole body: my heart started racing and my knees started shaking. I went home and talked to my family.

We made a pro and con list and decided that me being away from them for 6 months was a small price to pay for having this wonderful experience.

And we were right!

Meeting our Montessori trainer

It was only after I arrived in Hyderabad and started the foundation course, which was mandatory for the actual elementary training, that I found out more about our future trainer.

Until then, I only knew his name and that he had a lot of experience in the field.

But after talking with my classmates and hearing all the kind words they had to say about him, my curiosity was stroke. 

And on the last day of the foundation course he arrived at school and attended our small celebration. I remember looking at him, listening to his speech and thinking to myself: “How will I ever understand his Australian accent? He talks soooo fast!”. 

But the fact is, I will never forget the feeling I got when he told us that the journey we are about to start is going to change our lives forever and that it was the best decision to make. And he was right!

I always felt that the connection you make with your teacher has a great impact on your ability to learn.

And just by observing every day the joy and happiness in his eyes, when he talked about children and how important it is to follow each child’s rhythm, he made me understand that if you put passion and excitement in every Montessori presentation there is no way this method won’t work. 

The quality of our Montessori training

He showed us that patience is essential in our work and that we should not fear errors.

Usually, human beings are afraid of making mistakes, because they fear they would be laughed at.

In the whole Montessori education, the idea of mistakes being a bad thing is eliminated – even when making an error when writing on paper, you can always learn from that and give it thanks by turning it into a beautiful design! 

I am so thankful for having the chance to learn from our trainer, to understand that in this world there are no problems, only challenges for us to rise from and opportunities to make our world a better place, by guiding our tiny humans into reaching their full potential.

So, I would like to end this article by expressing my eternal gratitude to Greg MacDonald for guiding us into becoming Montessori Elementary Teachers and to promise that I would do my best to follow his valuable advices.