Montessori in Action Podcast

Engaging conversations with Montessori practitioners

Season 3 Ep. 3:

A New Era of Indigenous Representation in Montessori Materials

Our next episode is a conversation with Trisha Moquino and Marcus Trujillo, the creators of new Montessori material coming out through Montessori Services. This material offers Montessori classrooms nomenclature cards created by Indigenous educators that represent Indigenous people across the land. Trisha is the author and Marcus is the illustrator of this new work created to reach children and educators with their words and beauty.

Trisha Moquino is a member of the Cochiti, Kewa, and Ohkay Ohwingeh Tribal Nations. She is a wife, mama, auntie, niece, daughter, community member, and holds a BA from Stanford University in American Studies and an MA from the University of New Mexico in Bilingual and Elementary Education. She is the Co-Founder/Education Director and Elementary Keres Speaking Guide at Keres Children’s Learning Center (KCLC), an Indigenous Language Immersion Montessori school, located in Cochiti Pueblo, NM. Her Montessori Teaching credentials include American Montessori Society-Elementary I and United Montessori Association & Association Montessori Internationale (AMI)-Early Childhood. She also recently completed AMI’s orientation course for birth-3 years. For the last 5 years, she has been working with her KCLC colleagues and partners to develop the Indigenous Montessori Institute- an anti-racist teacher training program grounded in the Philosophy of Indigenous Education. More recently and in her spare time, she is co-creating with other Indigenous Educators, an online platform for Indigenous Educators that centers the narrative of Indigenous-led learning settings, curriculum by Indigenous educators, and children’s books by Indigenous authors.

Marcus Trujillo is a tribal member with the Pueblo of Laguna in affiliation with the Village of Paraje. He is the son of an Indigenous Educator and comes from a matrilineal line of Indigenous Educators. He graduated from the University of New Mexico in May 2020 with a BA in Humanities. Coming from a background of traditional art from his youth, he began freelance designing at the beginning of 2020 with the vision to give back to his People through creative expression.

Merging design with passions for social and environmental justice, Marcus uses his skill sets to embody solidarity with Indigenous communities and communities of color at large. Marcus contributes his work as a Graphic Designer for the Office of Laguna Learning in Laguna Pueblo. In addition, he does graphic design for Indigenous Educators (IE) and Montessori Services.