Season 1 Ep. 3: Key Children
With Ashley Anderson and Bobby Johnson Jr.
Key children is a term that puts wide arms around the most complex children in our Montessori classrooms. These are children who may have big personalities, may have experienced trauma, have individualized education plans or have a vision and passion beyond their years. They are the children who hold the key to our own personal transformation as they help us to grow and change in our practice, becoming ever more flexible and widening our view of what is possible. This episode is a conversation with two practitioners whose jobs are to work directly with the key children.
Ashley Anderson is the special education coordinator at Breakthrough Montessori in Washington, DC. As an educator, Anderson is committed to blending constructivist and behavioral approaches for the for the benefit of children. She has nearly a decade of experience working in special education. Anderson holds a Bachelor's of Science in Applied Psychology from Coppin State University and a Master's in Clinical Psychology from Capella University.
Bobby Johnson serves as dean of students and culture at Lee Montessori in Washington, DC. Johnson’s professional background includes experience as a speech and language pathology assistant. In that role, he practiced applied behavioral analysis, primarily with children on the autism spectrum. Johnson studied psychology and American Sign Language at Long Beach Community College and El Camino Community College respectively, before graduating from Howard University. At Howard, he majored in communication sciences and disorders with a concentration in early childhood education.