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About the Presenters

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8:45 AM: First Keynote Speaker:

 

CAPTURING HEARTS THROUGH THE WORK OF THE HAND By: Betsy Lockhart

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This is about doubling down on Montessori philosophy and methods, reconnecting to our roots.

 

COVID caused us to make significant adaptations, which enabled children to keep learning in very peculiar and challenging times.

Some of the most significant adaptations include:

- materials being used less, replaced by abstract methods like tell-and-repeat or worksheets

- our focus turns to the product the child produces more than the process that they are using to learn.

- digital systems like Google Classroom and parents becoming the drivers of children's work

These are, in some cases, starting to feel like a normal part of our method.   They are not!  

The neuroscience of learning shows us that our true Montessori methods teach children the way that the brain is wired to learn.  

If we practice our method with fidelity, we will have happier, more successful children!  
All we need to do is go back to our roots, maybe with a renewed appreciation for what Dr. Montessori gave us.

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Biography:

Betsy Lockhart

 

Betsy Lockhart is an instructor at the Montessori Education Center of the Rockies in Colorado and Seacoast Center Montessori Teacher Education Program in Georgia. 

She is a dynamic presenter, drawing on three decades of Montessori experience to apply Montessori philosophy to practice.  She is welcomed regularly at national and regional Montessori conferences.  Betsy is also a prolific writer, having written lesson albums and classroom guides that are in use on 6 continents.  She is the proud mother of two grown “Montessori kids” and a grandson who will be joining a Toddler program in a few months.  Betsy’s current obsession is connecting long-standing Montessori practices with modern findings on the neuroscience of learning. She is thrilled to be back in BC for the Hearts and Hands Montessori Conference

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9:45 AM: Second Keynote Speaker:

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TEACHING TEACHERS HOW TO BE “TEACHERS”

by: Anjeanette Dawson

 

Sharing my knowledge & experience on how to work with Indigenous communities, students, families, and caregivers. Begin to understand education through an Indigenous worldview.

 

Biography:

Spelexílh, Anjeanette Dawson

Skwxwú7mesh úxwumixw – Squamish Nation

 

I am an Indigenous Educator, Counselor, Traditional Wool Weaver, Indigenous Educator, Cultural Worker, Knowledge Keeper, Historian and Workshop Facilitator,

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I have been involved in Indigenous Education for 35 years and have worked in band operated, catholic, private, public, and independent schools. I have earned the following degrees: Graduate Diploma in Indigenous Education – Education for Reconciliation and Masters of Education, Indigenous Education: Truth, Reconciliation and Indigenous Resurgence from Simon Fraser University.

I was one of ten women to revive the traditional art of Wool Weaving in our community. I have blankets hanging in the Squamish – Lil’wat Cultural Center in Whistler and two blankets in the Aboriginal Atrium at Simon Fraser University. I made the shawl for the Opening Ceremonies for the  2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

I facilitate workshops regarding Pre-contact, Residential School, culture, language, protocol, and use a teaching kit I have accumulated over the years that includes fur, hides, cedar, mountain goat wool, and other props.

My passion is to share my perspectives regarding Indigenous Education and working with teachers indigenizing their lesson plans and materials. I would like to offer workshops to individuals that are the decision-makers in institutions from K5 - University.

To truly work towards Reconciliation, we must begin to do this work together. The Creator has blessed me with many opportunities to work with Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in creating safe places to learn and teach.

I look forward to what the Creator holds for me in the future and whose paths I cross to continue this important work in the field of Indigenous Education.

 

Chen kwen mantumiyap

 

Spelexilh, Anjeanette Dawson

GDE, Indigenous Education for Reconciliation

MEd., Truth, Reconciliation and Resurgence 

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10:45 AM Workshops (3 choices)

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Option 1:

 Finding Normalization in Abnormal

Times with Betsy Lockhart

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This presentation is about finding our way back to normalization in a (hopefully) post-pandemic world.

 

Everyone is finding normalization more elusive than ever - everyone!  That is, in some ways, comforting without being satisfying.

We don't need to give up our vision of a normalized classroom.  We can create a path to normalization, even "these days".

But we have to more intentionally lay the path.  We have to teach children things about how "to people" that we never dreamed we would need to teach.

We also have to be more effective than ever at redirecting and reshaping the sometimes-peculiar choices that children make.

And we need to be more patient: with the children, with parents, and with ourselves.

We have only to look to Dr. Montessori and to some more modern researchers to tell us how.  

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Option 2:

Wool Weaving with Anjeanette Dawson 

Learn to create a woven item on a cardboard loom. Beginning with the history of wool weaving, the revival of weaving in our community, and the teachings that go with the weaving.

 

Option 3:

Nature Walk in Stanley Park with Lori Snyder

Lori Snyder walks gently and teaches primarily on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, as well as neighboring Coast Salish nations. 

  

Lori inspires learners of all generations and backgrounds to communicate with the natural world. She guides us to recognize the wisdom of ancestral relations who—for many thousands of years—were nourished by this land and cared deeply for its fate. 

  

Lori asks us to live more consciously on the ancient lands where our cities now stand, and to recognize the beneficial impacts of connecting our human experience of mind and body to nature. By learning from all of our ancestors and caring for the many generations of beings to come, we can now build a future of sovereignty and best practices for healing the Earth and all her living creatures. Lori sees that we are all Indigenous to the Earth, and as caretakers this is the most sane yet radical response to today’s ecological and humanitarian crises.  

  

In a time when our connection to the lands where we live grows ever more tenuous, Lori offers us an opportunity to reconnect.  

  

Lori is a descendant from the Powhatan, Dakota, T’suu tina, Nakota, Cree, Nipissing, Dene and Anishinaabe peoples, mixed with French and Celtic ancestry.  She was born and raised on the lands of the Squamish people, near Vancouver, Canada, overlooking the Salish Sea on the Pacific Northwest Coast of Turtle Island.

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1:00 PM Workshops (2 choices)

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Option 1:

Wool Weaving with Anjeanette Dawson 

Learn to create a woven item on a cardboard loom. Beginning with the history of wool weaving, the revival of weaving in our community, and the teachings that go with the weaving.

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Option 2:

Nature Walk in Stanley Park with Lori Snyder

Lori walks gently and teaches primarily on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, as well as neighbouring Coast Salish nations. 

  

Lori inspires learners of all generations and backgrounds to communicate with the natural world. She guides us to recognize the wisdom of ancestral relations who—for many thousands of years—were nourished by this land and cared deeply for its fate. 

  

Lori asks us to live more consciously on the ancient lands where our cities now stand, and to recognize the beneficial impacts of connecting our human experience of mind and body to nature. By learning from all of our ancestors and caring for the many generations of beings to come, we can now build a future of sovereignty and best practices for healing the Earth and all her living creatures. Lori sees that we are all Indigenous to the Earth, and as caretakers this is the most sane yet radical response to today’s ecological and humanitarian crises.  

  

In a time when our connection to the lands where we live grows ever more tenuous, Lori offers us an opportunity to reconnect.  

  

Lori is a descendant from the Powhatan, Dakota, T’suu tina, Nakota, Cree, Nipissing, Dene and Anishinaabe peoples, mixed with French and Celtic ancestry.  She was born and raised on the lands of the Squamish people, near Vancouver, Canada, overlooking the Salish Sea on the Pacific Northwest Coast of Turtle Island.

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