Speakers

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  Ruben Jongkind

  Movement and sports have always been Ruben’s passion. He worked with world class 800 metres athlete Bram Som, and several other Dutch champions in athletics, triathlon and pentathlon before taking on the responsibility of coaching at the famous academy of Dutch Football Club Ajax Amsterdam. Ruben was introduced to the Montessori philosophy through Ajax youth player Jamie Lawrence, the son of Lynne Lawrence, the CEO of Association Montessori Internationale. As Head of Talent Development of Ajax, he teamed up with Johan Cruyff and implemented Montessori principles into the academy, contributing to the development of world class players. Between 2015 and 2018 Ruben of Cruyff Football spreading Cruyff’s football legacy throughout the world. In 2018 he founded Montessori Sports with the aim to use the power of sports to improve education for all children. Montessori Sports programs run across five continents. Ruben initiated the Montessori Sports Fund to support indigenous communities to create and sustain learning environments for children, using the power of sports. Ruben is director of academy of the Dutch professional football club FC Volendam. He holds a master’s degree in environmental science and business administration and obtained the AMI Montessori 3-6 diploma in 2020 with AMI trainer Guadalupe Borbolla.

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  Madlena Ulrich

  Madlena Ulrich spent her childhood in Germany and attended a Montessori Elementary school there. She moved to Norway as an adolescent and later obtained a Bachelor’s degree as a preschool teacher and is about to finish a Master’s degree in pedagogy at the university College of Vestfold, Norway. She took her original AMI 3-6 training at Mount St. Mary’s Montessori College in Dublin, Ireland.

  Since 1995 she has worked in the classroom and has been involved in the development of Montessori in Norway by giving lectures and serving as Vice President on the board for the national association NMF. In 2008 she started on her Training of Trainers, spending two years with Molly O’Shaughnessy in Minnesota and a Summer course with Ulla Wikefeldt in Sweden. She is currently part of the AMI faculty in China and trains and lectures in Norway as well as in many other countries.

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  Carla Foster

  Carla Foster is originally from California, but has lived the last 14 years in Norway. She graduated from UC Berkeley, California with bachelor’s degrees in Social Anthropology and Scandinavian Studies and a masters in Old Icelandic Literature and Norwegian Literature.

  She has her AMI 3 - 6 diploma from the MMTO in London in 1984 and her AMI 6-12 diploma from Milwaukee in 1990 and has been working with elementary children since 1990. She had her own class in Norway for 12 years before joining the AMI Training of Trainers programme. Since then she has assisted on the AMI 6-12 summer course in London with Ann Dunne and the AMI 6-12 course in Chennai with Jean Miller. She is now training and lecturing in Norway and several other countries. Any spare time is spent doing various forms of dance.

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  Marilyne Maugin

  After finishing her ‘Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies’ in medieval literature at the university of Lyon Lumières, Marilyne moved to London, where she finished her doctorate, and was giving college at the university on French civilization and medieval literature. When she returned to France in 2001, she finished her AMI 3-6 diploma. For 10 years she worked as a Montessori teacher in several schools in and around Paris. In 2015 she finished het AMI 6-12 diploma course, and in 2017 Marilyne started the AMI Training of Trainers program (3 – 6). She is now working at the Institut Supérieure Maria Montessori in Paris, where she training new teachers, consulting Montessori kindergartens and is still doing research together with the ISMM-trainers.

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  Jenny Marie Höglund

  Jenny Marie holds AMI diplomas for the ages 3-6 and 6-12. She has mainly worked with the 6-12 and 12-18 (adolescents). She also holds a M.Ed. and she is an established AMI Elementary trainer.

  Jenny Marie was one of the founders of the Montessori School “Lära för Livet” in Varberg, Sweden in 1995, teaching children from 1 till 16 years of age. She founded and runs the first and so far the only Swedish Montessori Farm School. Jenny Marie has taught elementary and adolescent students for over twenty-three years.

  She has been serving as head of school since 2006. She has also lectured at the International Centre for Montessori Studies Foundation-Bergamo (CISM), in Italy since 2006.

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  Patricia Wallner

  Patricia Wallner has been working in Montessori since 1970. She took her AMI 3-6 diploma in Washington D.C. and the 0-3 diploma in Houston, Texas with Dr. Silvana Montanaro. For 17 years she worked in a bilingual Infant Community in Amsterdam, The Netherlands where she lives.

  In 1995 she began the Training of Trainers program supported by the Association Montessori Internationale and during her training earned a Master’s degree in Education. She has trained students and lectured in Europe, Asia and the U.S.A. Her goal is to promote Montessori, especially for the 0-3 age group in Europe.