Empowered Minds Academy Hiring for Spark Studio/Montessori Guide Job at Durham, NC Full Time

Montessori/Spark Studio Guide (Ages 4-7)
Job Description – 2022/23

Empowered Minds Academy
Our Website: www. empoweredmindsacademy.org

Proud to be an Acton Academy Affiliate

At EMA, we believe that every child is a genius and that our learners will go on to change the world in a profound way.

Do you want to change the world?

Empowered Minds Academy is an independently-owned affiliate of Acton Academy, a rapidly growing network of learner-driven micro-schools. EMA is seeking a Full-Time Spark Studio Guide to become an integral part of our dynamic and passionate team of hardworking entrepreneurs and innovators, working together to create a joyful learning environment for learners.

The Spark Guide will work with 10-12 Panther Cubs and is expected to work five days a week, spending time in the Studio observing, planning, documenting, performing administrative tasks, and communicating with parents.

SPARK GUIDE Position Description:

The Spark Studio Guide will work with the Guides and EMA’s Founder to:

• Facilitate a truly customized education for each learner in the Studio.
• Affirm learners, holding them accountable to their promises and to their commitment to delivering

“the best work they can do” as they discover and pursue a calling on a S/Hero’s Journey.

• Create meaningful exhibitions, ceremonies, celebrations, and other defining moments that reinforce the rules of engagement, personal and group covenants to provide and strengthen a safe learning community.

• Act as a role model as an independent learner on a S/Hero’s Journey.
• Craft, launch, and lead discussions.
• Create and launch Quests (real-world hands-on fun), including developing daily challenges and curating examples.

• Supply Studio environment and set up Studio for curiosity and as inspiration for learning.
• Incorporate Montessori-inspired learning materials and lessons into work cycle time. Observe and track each child’s progress via the software Transparent Classroom.

• Create Black/African-Centered/Culturally Relevant content (launches, genre, and quest challenges) that reflects, nurtures, equips, and empowers Panthers to connect and uncover, reclaim and reconnect.

• Equip learners to embrace entrepreneurial (creative and productive) and growth mindsets (value struggle and failure).

• Encourage learners to track their progress and create portfolios to show parents, peers, and mentors.
• Uphold promises to learners, parents, and fellow Guides made in relational covenants.

Qualifications:

• Strong relationship-building skills and experience working with children ages 4-7.
• Understand the unique need, as well extraordinary opportunity, to nurture and equip Black/African identified scholars for a racialized world.

• Deep love and respect for all children and empathy for the challenges children face in their lives.
• A deep curiosity about life and a love of lifelong learning.
• AMI, AMS, MACTE, or NAMC Montessori diploma for primary-aged children, is strongly desired.
• A passion for the Montessori philosophy and the discipline to embody Montessori values at all times.
• Innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial spirit (must thrive in a start-up environment).
• Ability to build and maintain a strong learner-driven culture.
• Customer service and user-centered orientation with the ability to give and receive feedback, meet needs, and get a positive response.

• Proven excellence in written and oral communication skills.
• Evident passion for being on a S/Hero’s Journey.
• Agile facilitating project-based/experiential/real-world learning.
• Proficient quantitative reasoning skills to look at learner growth data to inform next steps.

This is a position for an independent learner who: can work with little direct guidance; likes to collaborate, experiment, evaluate and continually improve; has a deep respect for all children, believing that each human has genius within; and is a flexible problem-solver.

The position will begin full-time in late July 2022. Our year will begin in late August 2022 and is an 11-month program. We run on 3-6 week Sessions. Guides will report full-time one week before school starts. Please see our calendar here.

In anticipation of our seventh year (2022-2023), and our fifth year as Acton Academy Affiliates, the Guide will have the chance to learn the Acton model, prepare the Studio environment, and perform other administrative tasks.

Details:

Salary: Commensurate with Experience

+ $500 for Completion of Guide Onboarding

Hours for Spark Studio (ages 4-7): 8:30 – 3:30, M-F + Weekly/Quarterly Meetings and Check-Ins

Benefits: In-Progress/None guaranteed at this time

With a 3+ commitment (negotiable), EMA may pay for Montessori Licensure through NAMC.

Resources:

EMA Information Sheet

Parent Handbook

Spark Studio Handbook

EMA MS/LP Blog

EMA ES Blog

Acton Main ES Blog

Acton Main MS/LP Blog

From the Acton Academy Blog:

• Five Rules for Would-Be Guides
• What do Guides do at Acton Academy?
• How Many Questions Should a Guide Answer in a Perfect Day?
• Newsflash: A Guide is About to Answer a Question

Foundational Reads:

• Courage to Grow by Laura Sandefer
• Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work by Akilah Richards
• Unschooling Rules by Clark Aldrich
• The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed by Jessica

Lahey

• How Children Learn by John Holt
• Modern Montessori by Paula Polk Lillard
• Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius by Angeline Stoll Lillard
• Children Who Are Not Yet Peaceful: Preventing Exclusion in the Early Elementary Classroom 1st

Edition by Donna Bryant Goertz

• Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children’s Learning by Peter Johnston
• Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by GB Leonard

• The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
• An Ethic of Excellence by Ron Berger
• Fires in the Mind by Kathleen Cushman
• A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-First Century by

Oliver DeMille

• Work Rules by Laszlo Bock
• One-Room Schoolhouse by Sal Khan
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
• Dumbing us Down by John Paul Gatto
• “I’m a Saboteur” Article by Daniel Pink w/John Taylor Gatto Interview
• Creative Schooling: The Grassroots Movement That’s Transforming Education by Ken Robinson
• Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World by Tony Wagner
• The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson
• Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative by Ken Robinson

Black Learners/Learning

• Awakening the Natural Black Genius of Children by Amos N. Wilson
• SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind by Ancestor Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III
• Maroon within Us by Ancestor Dr. Asa G.Hilliard III
• Young Gifted and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African-American Students by Theresa

Perry, Claude Steele, and Asa G. Hilliard III

• Too Much Schooling, Too Little Education: A Paradox of Black Life in White Societies edited by

Mwalimu J. Shujaa

• The Miseducation of Black Children by Dr. Kmt G. Shockley

Job Types: Full-time, Contract

Pay: From $3,500.00 per month

Schedule:

• 8 hour shift
• Monday to Friday

Experience:

• working with children: 1 year (Preferred)
• working in a Black-centered/led learning environment: 1 year (Preferred)

License/Certification:

• Montessori License (Preferred)

Work Location: One location