The design and development of a genuinely holistic program and global peace curriculum for the 21st Century has required that I acquire extensive knowledge, training, and experience in: early childhood and elementary education; brain development and ongoing research; psychology and the inner life; and the nature of the human spirit.
Toward that end, I have an undergraduate degree and extra credits in elementary education, including college courses and workshops in child development, physical education, and Montessori education, from four universities in Kansas and Missouri, U.S.A. I also have lifetime certification in Elementary Education (1-8), Early Childhood Education (Pre-K-3), and Montessori Education (Early Primary). As teachers who are also mothers often do, I taught while my four children were younger, but mainly just part-time, at the early childhood and elementary levels. I completed the Montessori training and my internship during that time, while continuing to take university classes and attend workshops for teachers. After working as a Montessori teacher and director for many years, I attended a summer institute for Waldorf teachers, observed in their schools, and adapted the inspiring parts of Waldorf education for my own program. As I had already done with Montessori’s method, I incorporated the best ideas from the Waldorf schools, so the strongest components of both programs have been integrated into my own unique program. My program, however, is much more than a synthesis of the two; it adds those dimensions missing in both.
My coursework in curriculum design was undertaken at the graduate level in the late 1980s. After I had worked as a regular substitute teacher for several years, a public school superintendent, who hired me to teach kindergarten, rightly observed that I undoubtedly knew far more about the schools in his urban district than he did. In addition to urban schools, I worked in parochial schools and a suburban district. I have taught or worked in some capacity at every level—pre-K through 8th grade. After having set up and operated Montessori programs, first for my own neighborhood, then for a private school, and finally for a church, I worked in expensive, for-profit Montessori day schools (day care centers) before I again set up my own non-profit school in a large home I had leased. I also sought out any workshop that addressed gender differences, and I continue to grow in areas like literacy, whole language, and the cultural arts.
In addition to the sociology and psychology courses I completed in the College of Arts and Sciences as a university undergraduate, I began even more reading, training, and work in the field of psychology during mid-life. I then eventually participated in an intensive, long-term and in-depth program ~ working with and learning from a wide range of psychologists, psychotherapists, and counselors for over two decades. A fellow participant, who had already earned a PhD, pointed out that completing this program, which I did, was the equivalent of earning a PhD in psychology. I continue to read, learn, and write in this area.
During that same stage of my life, I took classes from Unity Institute, where I studied for seven years and earned an Advanced Diploma in Religious Studies. Since I lived nearby, I studied primarily at Unity Village, where Unity ministers are trained, so I had some of their very best and most highly qualified instructors ~ and enough time between sessions to apply and to practice what I had learned. I also attended elective classes at the village as I had time, including a course in prayer that met once a week and had a different instructor and prayer method every month for an entire year. The course work I completed was the same as that for Unity teachers; however, because I have never been affiliated with or a member of a Unity church or center, I chose not to become a licensed Unity teacher. My religious studies classes extended beyond Unity Institute to include other denominations and American Indian spiritual practices and ceremonies. One psychotherapist with whom I worked closely said that, in combining the two fields of study, I had shown him how the psychological and spiritual dimensions work in concert within the soul. I then applied what I learned as an adult to my interest in and work with children–and to my writing.
If I had focused solely on academics, which I did not, I could have earned an interdisciplinary PhD in Psychology, Religious Studies, and Early Education during my many years of work and study. However, rather than just learning more and more about what was mostly already known, I focused on what was not yet known or fully understood in these fields.
You can contact me at P.O. Box 173, Liberty, MO 64069.
Sarah RisingSun-Lee 