We are so excited to be back at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center on Saturday, March 4th 2023!
Please join us in welcoming Katie Keller Wood who will be conducting our Keynote Session in the morning.
In the last couple of years, many of us have had moments of digging deep to give what we can to our students, our families, and our communities. Our work matters deeply to us, yet many of us struggled at some point to find joy, connection, and meaning in each day while attending to all of our responsibilities. Society promotes “work-life balance,” as the healthy ideal, but this perfect “balance” can be elusive, leading to frustration and resentment.
In this keynote, Katie Keller Wood will draw on Montessori’s ideas of work, cosmic vision, and cosmic task to help us examine our own mission-driven work, and how we can promote true thriving for ourselves and others. As whole humans, we need a way to integrate our work as a meaningful and important part of our lives, and shifting our perspective from “balance” to “alignment” can make all the difference. We’ll explore how the alignment model provides a pathway to thriving in a way that honors each person’s unique talents, experiences, perspectives, and needs. Just as our Montessori classrooms provide a container conducive to the development and thriving of our students, we adults need to consider our own developmental needs as we each live our “one wild and precious life” (Mary Oliver).
Keynote Presenter Bio:
Katie Keller Wood, Ed.D. is the Executive Director of CMStep: the Cincinnati Montessori Secondary Teacher Education Program, and she has been joyfully teaching adolescents and adults since 2004. She earned both her bachelor’s and her doctorate from the University of Virginia, and she believes that educational spaces can be a vehicle for the more equitable, just, peaceful, and sustainable world our hearts know is possible. Katie has served on the board of directors of the Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education (MACTE) since 2017, including as vice chair since 2019. Katie has also served as an adjunct instructor at Xavier University since 2017, as an advisor to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls’ Montessori EdD planning committee in 2017-2019 and instructor in 2022, and as a member of the membership committee for the Montessori Research Working group through the University of Kansas Center for Montessori Research since 2016. Her professional memberships include the American Educational Research Association and the American Montessori Society, and she is a frequent presenter at Montessori conferences and schools.