SAEM gets stronger
The Auxiliary Secretariat for Montessori Education (SAEM) continues to grow and strengthen with the arrival of Program Directors of different levels of development. This will allow SAEM to closely accompany the guides in their respective levels. This accompaniment will bring benefits to the communities where the public Montessori education project is developed.
Since its creation in 2018, SAEM's mission is to make the Montessori philosophy and methodology accessible to communities around the island that wish so, communities that otherwise would not have access to this pedagogy. The SAEM plan is aimed at authentically implementing the Montessori model, supporting and accompanying public schools in their optimal development.
The SAEM program directors are those who develop the Montessori Model within the Department of Education (DE), accompany the teachers in the development of the curriculum, in the construction of community, and in school transformation. It works hand in hand with the school directors in supporting the faculty and the families, in the search for improvements in the physical structure and student services. These SAEM personnel visit the schools, publicize their achievements and their public policy.
For Marlyn Rodriguez , Montessori Assistant Secretary, the Program Directors are “that link between perhaps the most administrative thing that I am working on and the work in the field, in the nucleus of that school. They are that bridge.''
The Program Directors are assigned according to the ages of the students according to the Montessori development plans: Infants and Toddlers, Early Childhood, Elementary I, Elementary II, and Secondary.
Who are the SAEM Program Directors?
Marishela Garcia De Jesús, director of the Elementary Program.
Before coming to SAEM, Marishela served as a full-time special education teacher at the Luis Llorens Torres school in San Juan, since 2009. In 2011, she studied Montessori philosophy and methodology and was certified as a Montessori guide at the Instituto Nueva Escuela for Elementary I and II.
Once the certification process was over, an inclusive environment began with special education students and regular students. She worked with another guide, the inclusion model for Elementary I and II.
''The achievements, the scope and the wonders that we achieved with the experience with them were abysmal compared to when I had them alone. So we did see that the practice of inclusion from Montessori allows them some experiences that the traditional method that I used was not available''.
Marishela joined SAEM as a facilitator in 2020 and now in 2022 she was appointed director of the Elemental program.
Juan José Rodríguez Fernos, Director of the Secondary Program
Juan J. Rodriguez Fernos is the current director of the Secondary program at SAEM. Secondary levels in the Montessori methodology span the grades 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th.
Before Juan arrived at SAEM, he witnessed the transformation at the Ines María Mendoza school in Caimito, where he served for 14 years. Juan experienced the transformation of the community into one of peace, from classrooms to environments and his own transformation when he became certified as a Montessori guide at the Instituto Nueva Escuela. Today the Montessori Ines Maria Mendoza school serves from Infants and Toddlers to Secondary.
Juan is led to serve SAEM by the need for a human resource to accompany this group of high school guides like him. "I was moved by the same need that I experienced, I was moved by being able to arrive and replicate the beautiful things that one does and that this is possible," said Juan.
Sonia Pantojas Rodriguez, director of the Infant and Toddlers program and Early Childhood.
Sonia was one of the people who dreamed of Juan Domingo's school in her teenage years together with the community and families. The closure of the Juan Ponce de Leon school in 1987 affected Sonia very closely, since her brothers studied there.
After the re-opening and transformation of the school to become the first Montessori public school, Sonia returned to school as a mother by bringing her children to study at Juan Domingo. Once there, she becomes a mother tutor, then a Montessori assistant, until she manages to get certified as a Montessori guide in Early Childhood.
''What satisfies me from this place is that now I don't serve a single community that gave me so much and that I learned so much. So from here I see the opportunity that the benefit that the children, youth and families of Juan Domingo have can be multiplied throughout the island '', Sonia said about the fact that she makes her serve from SAEM.
The goal of this team together with the Assistant Secretary is to rescue the authentic Montessori. ''It's that philosophy. It is looking at the child. It is knowing what he needs and defending him above all things. That the schools, the guides, feel safe in what they are doing, that it is the best for the child and that they can protect him in a pandemic, a hurricane, in an earthquake, within the bureaucracy…'', Marlyn shared as that close goal that the SAEM collective has.