Meet the Teacher
Sylvia Petri MA, University Arizona
North American Montessori Certification, Lower and Upper Elementary
Hello, my name is Sylvia Petri. I’m a 56-year young high-energy mother of four incredibly creative, high-achieving grown children, ages 18yrs-28yrs. During this time of COVID-19 and government-sanctioned teaching restraints, I opted not to renew my teaching contract at a local private school where I had been teaching. Thus, I created my own teaching business, a non-technology-based micro-school, which is more in tune with my own holistic ideals and philosophies. I enjoy learning new things about our world each day and I hope to inspire this love and inquisitiveness in my students. The following is a bit more about me.
Early in my marriage I owned and operated the Children’s Danscompany, where I and my employees taught a variety of dance and theater classes that evolved into one-of-a-kind story productions based on the children’s input. After becoming pregnant with my second child within a short 6-month time span of having my first, I felt it was in my family’s best interest to prioritize them, so I transferred the business to a fellow employee. I became a stay-at-home, attachment style mom for the next 20 years. During this time, I evolved into my children’s teacher. I became a Suzuki music parent to each child, which involved hours of daily practice on both our parts. Actually, one child is pursuing his Master’s degree in the violin at the Royal Danish Academy of Music right now! Besides lots of Suzuki involvement, I aided my children throughout their academic and creative years, including homeschooling my violinist son from grades 6 through 12.
As my children got older and I began missing the young age set. I started volunteering at Kino School, where two of my children attended for four years. From 2016-2018 I helped the most challenged learners in math and language arts. This group spanned ages 5-14 and all this volunteer tutoring was done within their set classroom environment, not on a private basis. Because I found such gratification in my volunteering, I spoke to the director about possible employment. Knowing my creative aptitude, she encouraged me to fulfill a Montessori Curriculum Certification. During the summer and my last year of volunteering, I completed two separate nine-month courses in thirteen months. Upon completion, I was immediately hired, as a part-time instructor as an 8:30 am-1:30 pm position had opened.
From 2018 through 2020 I taught primary math (ages 4½yrs-9yrs) and Jr. High/High School Language Arts, (ages 10yrs-18yrs). I also acted as a substitute homeroom teacher. In both of my teaching curriculums, I drew upon integrating my talents in artistic construction, origami, painting, drawing, weaving, and storytelling. In the past two years, my language arts class produced a play that was entirely student composed; the actual story writing, dialogue, scenery, props, and costuming were planned and made by my students. An important part of my philosophy is that schooling prepares students for real life. Engaging the students in these productions, mimicked all kinds of job-related situations and at the same time was life-transforming and tremendously confidence-building for all of them. Most of my students at Kino had learning challenges, varying from minor to severe. I have found that all my students, both the high academic achievers and those with challenges, thrived and progressed in the learning environment I promoted.
With the experience I have gained at Kino, teaching my own kids, and my talent at making anything fun, I have established my personalized schooling, Mystic Desert Kindergarten with bigger holistic ideals and higher academic standards in hopes of creating a more harmonious future for our younger generations.
MDK Philosophy
I established Mystic Desert Kindergarten, a micro-school with a creative, earth-centered curriculum in retaliation to the high tech factory-style schooling prevalent in the USA, which I believe has inadvertently bred a disregard to humanity and the earth. Cooperation, being how man has survived thousands of years, is a central theme of Montessori education. I like to substitute harmony for the word cooperation. The ethical premise of my Kindergarten is to find harmony and understanding within oneself first and create harmony with others and our surroundings second.I believe fostering a sacred and magical interpretation of life in the early childhood years is dependent on understanding yourself and connecting to your surroundings.
In addition, I maintain the Montessori belief that early reading and advanced math skills build an incredible foundation of confidence for accelerated academic progression. I also promote early music training in the style of the Suzuki method, which again contributes to all intellectual and humanistic pursuits. I believe in the use of art and hands-on learning materials to enrich the learning experience. Overall, I uphold the idea of a divine presence in our lives and that we as individuals have a divine purpose. I embrace all religions and choose to look at what makes humans similar rather than different. I see each and every child with unique gifts and talents that need to be shared with the world.
If we see the tree as our second lung, we are more likely to consider the ramifications of cutting it down.
Sadhguru
Four House Curriculum™
I use my Four House Curriculum™ an educational system that directs attention to the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of the child/children with the understanding that one house can and will affect the other. The goal is to weave together a beautiful totality addressing all aspects of your child(ren) and developing an elevated conscience.
MENTAL
I specialize in hands-on activities that usually contain an artistic component. I have had the most experience with preschool through age 7. Some types of materials I have created include the following: an ABC planting garden, Red Baron flying ABCs, Nordic creature eating ABCs, swimming duck ABCs, all involving movement, sound, and no pencil/paper writing. As for developing writing skills I have a sample kitty writing curriculum that can also be adapted for interests other than cats. For mathematical studies, I can demonstrate similar materials involving toy spiders, pigs, and dinosaurs that are highly engaging for learning addition and subtraction. I am also able to demonstrate the use of fairy tales and stories in general to teach math. Mathematical projects and math books created by the child are other specialties. For older children, I can assist with a multitude of ideas in creating real-life engagement activities. I apply modified methods from Montessori, Waldorf, and traditional teachings and customize a targeted curriculum for your child’s needs. I believe all learning can and should be made as fun as possible so that repetition may ensue.
PHYSICAL
I am able to assist with nutrition, natural remedies, alternative medicine, and unconventional exercise, like creative dance, children’s yoga or traditional sport exercise applications. However, I am not a licensed physician and can only make recommendations based on personal research and experience.
Yet, more importantly, I can help parents teach their children to be their own best health advocates by having their children tune in through self-awareness and using guided meditations that promote making healthy choices. Children can be encouraged to learn intuitively what foods and natural medicines aid them. In addition, most children can learn energy healing through the use of their thoughts (prayers), hands, or crystals.
EMOTIONAL
I emphasize the use of communication in understanding our children’s inner world/subconscious. This is accomplished through discussing written stories and talking about their daily world story (what they have been doing and their feelings in regards to what they are doing).
I believe that negative and destructive feelings can be best handled with validation and providing a perspective skill set to help transform them. I also advocate discussing with children the superpower effect of emotions, as emotions act like batteries to our thoughts. Because emotions are a power source they can work to our great benefit or detriment and so awareness is key to a more stable life.
SPIRITUAL
Most children begin life as natural spiritual beings, yet unless nurtured this inherent nature diminishes quickly and significantly with the influences of society. Traditional religious models can be helpful in providing some framework of understanding for a child but can also be just as self-limiting as the public school system. I like to familiarize children with their spiritual helpers such as archangels, goddesses, and spirit animals as it is empowering for them to know that we are never alone and that two-way communication with spirit is easy. In addition, I can provide tools to develop extra-sensory development in children. It is of utmost importance in my mind that children understand that society’s values are skewed by external achievements that do not necessarily relate or correspond to the development of good character. One’s purpose is to evolve into a more whole, loving human being and this can be achieved by spending time each day in these four houses: Mental, Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual.
Four House Philosophy
Four House Curriculum Philosophy came about as a by-product of 2020’s global fear-driven, chaotic experiences. To find peace within myself and the ability to cope with the external world, I devoted much of my time to balancing and integrating the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual parts of my persona. In so doing I was able to become a more positive influence for my children during quarantine. Because social dynamics were so limited in isolation, our family bonded much more, digging deep and acknowledging what truly gives us joy. For all of us, it was an opportunity to stop, reflect, and recalibrate how we were going to grow as individuals and contribute to society.
Through much analysis, I came to the conclusion that through eons of time mankind has progressed significantly with technological advances that seem spiritually devoid. As a result, humanity seems set on destroying each other; basically, all life and the very planet itself. I have a very hard time understanding this incongruity in evolution. It is my understanding that our true purpose in life is to raise our consciousness and experience oneness with the Divine. Yet, what seems to be happening is quite the contrary. Since the industrial revolution, we have witnessed an extremely accelerated pace of advancements that distract the human species further away from their true selves: as loving, interconnected, caring beings.
I have theorized that much of this dilemma has come about from how the education system has been modeled. It focuses nearly one-hundred percent on only the mental component in developing a child. As parents, we are the most important teachers and influencers to our children. We have the power to give our children a better-balanced upbringing, focusing attention on not only their mental capabilities but also distributing equal energy to their physical, emotional, and spiritual attributes. Mystic Desert Kindergarten, counseling and parent groups is my dream to share tailored educational activities that balance what is lacking in most conventional homeschool and public school settings. I want to share my burning passions, life lessons, and ideology with fellow parents by emphasizing holistic methods and teachings.
A benefit to this four house holistic model of education is that a child’s innate abilities and gifts can be recognized at an early age and be further developed. Also, the child is more likely to find happiness and meaningful purpose to their being without becoming prey to extreme materialism, idol worshipping, self-destructive behaviors, and addictions. Ultimately, I believe it is the more enlightened individual that can contribute best to the collective whole.
By consciously engaging with our children in fun meaningful activities that focus on mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects we are not only contributing to their well-being but also the building of a trusting and loving parent-child relationship. In the process, the parent may even relive a part of their childhood they may have not experienced, reclaiming their inner child and bringing wholeness to themselves.
“You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.”
-Dogen