Thailand Montessori Project—Directors and Teaching Staff
M. Shannon Helfrich, Course Director
Mary Shannon Helfrich is a primary level Trainer, Lecturer, Consultant and Examiner for the Association Montessori Internationale. She has been involved in Montessori Education since 1971. Shannon holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees and the AMI Primary Diploma. She worked in Primary classes in Milwaukee, WI, Chicago, IL, Bismarck, ND and Portland, OR. She served as the Director of Training of the Montessori Institute Northwest from 1988- 2003 and is the founding trainer for the new Montessori Training Center of New England in Hartford, CT. She is an Adjunct Professor for Loyola College in Maryland. Shannon has also served as the Primary Director of Training for the Australian Montessori Teacher Education Foundation in Sydney, Australia. She visited Thailand and supported Montessori Project under the Office of Basic Education in Nakorn Pathom schools since its early started.
Rita Schaefer Zener, Course Director
Rita Schaefer Zener, Ph.D. is a primary level Trainer, Lecturer, Consultant and Examiner for the Association Montessori Internationale. Her doctorate is in Human Development from the University of Maryland. She has been involved in Montessori Education since 1963. For over 30 years she has directed Montessori Teacher Training. These courses were in Mexico, Portland Oregon, Washington DC, Rochester NY, and in Romania. Dr. Zener worked as Coordinator for the Washington DC Public School District for nine years to train and supervise Montessori teachers in the DC public schools. She is currently Adjunct Professor at the Washington Montessori Institute at Loyola College in Maryland. She is also the appointed Director of Training for the Philippines.
Gunilla Kolmodin, Course
Assistant
Gunilla Kolmodin is an experienced kindergarten teacher with working experiences in both Sweden and Thailand. She graduated from Teacher’s College in Gotheburg in 1969 and worked in different kindergarten schools with children in the age group of 3 – 6 years in Gothenburg and Lilla Edet, Sweden. For ten years Gunilla was a teacher and consultant in a training school for disabled children in Falun, Sweden. In 1991 she attended the AMI training program at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, after which she was involved in establishing a Montessori school in Falun, Sweden. In 1995 Gunilla moved to Thailand with her husband and has since then been assisting in kindergarten classes of local country-side schools in Prachinburi. Today Gunilla is also assisting local teachers in Chachoengsao with teaching English in grade 6.
Cathryn Kasper, Course Assistant
Cathryn Kasper is a Primary Consultant for Association Montessori International/USA. and has been involved in Montessori Education since 1971. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in French from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an AMI Primary Diploma. Cathryn worked for 32 years as a primary teacher in Sacramento, CA, Concord, CA; Marin, CA; and Corvallis, OR. She served on the Board of Directors for the Montessori Institute Northwest for ten years. She has been a presenter for the AMI National Conference and has given seminars for the Oregon Montessori Association and NAEYC.
Susan Stephenson, Course
Assistant
Susan has AMI diplomas at all three levels, 0-3, 3-6,
6-12, and has been involved with Montessori since 1970. Her bio: http://www.michaelolaf.net/susan.html
She has been active in Montessori projects in Asia for several years.
See her "Notes from the Field" here:
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
Susan Stephenson's non-Montessori class Montessori work over the years:
PART
1 (3 pages) 1964-2003, India, London, Lima, California,
Japan, India (Tibetan children's village), Nepal, Tibet
PART
2 (2 pages) 2005, Australia, India, Nepal, Thailand,
Nepal
PART
3 (2 pages) 2006, Nepal, Thailand, Bhutan
PART
4 (2 pages) 2006, Bhutan
The above talk, here divided into four parts, is from e PowerPoint presentation
given at the AMI Centenary Celebration in San Francisco in February, 2006.
It was created with many large pictures which have been made smaller and
put together with the text into pdf files.
Kannekar Butt, Translator, Thailand Project Coordinator
Kannekar received her Montessori 3 – 6 diploma in Australia. She is the main course translator and very active in promoting AMI Montessori in Thailand.
Click here to see in interesting art"plan" made by Cathryn and Susan during the first session of the course: plan