"It is in our willingness to make mistakes that real teaching happens; then the ACTIVITY of learning becomes the highest goal. If instead we model only completion, learning becomes shameful to those whose entire make-up revolves around learning: the children." – Beth Sutton

Professional Course

This course focuses on learning to research and prepare developmentally appropriate, integrated curriculum. It is the beginning of taking the experience and information gained in the Foundation Course and using it to develop the skills to teach. This process will help participants build the muscle needed to create their own curricula. As a result, they will be able to be more creative and independent in the moment-to-moment life of the classroom. Although participants will be preparing curriculum appropriate to the Enki approach, this ability to create curriculum can be applied to whatever method they choose. 

For each grade on which they focus, participants will begin by observing children in several different classroom settings. All participants will initially focus on the younger grades by writing nature stories to help them enter the child's perception. From there, each student will take on a particular grade, 1 to 5, and will research and develop curriculum covering all academic areas through work with storytelling, music, movement, arts, projects, manipulatives, concepts, and skills. This is an in-depth course; participants are expected to do extensive independent work and to attend monthly telephone work meetings. This work will be presented, critiqued and built on during the Professional Course summer intensive. 

We feel the teacher's own well being is of central importance. Only when the teachers are nourished themselves can they stand before the children as models of self worth. Throughout the Enki program we strive to help the participants uncover their own wisdom and vitality. In this course we ask them to work directly with developing the clarity and courage to address their own needs along with those of their students. 

Over the course of the two-year program, participants must undertake a series of directed mindfulness meditation programs. Participants may propose appropriate programs or choose from the following: Shambhala Training, courses in stress management through mindfulness meditation, or directed contemplative retreats.

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