Amy Eikenbery, ’94 this month’s featured alumna, has dedicated her career to teaching adolescents in Montessori education settings and credits her life-long love of learning to her educational roots at MVS.

Eikenbery was a recent hosted speaker at the October 2015 North American Montessori Teachers’ Association conference. Her speech was entitled Adolescents and the Inner Voice: Using Writing as a Pathway to Self-Expression. Eikenbery shared the success of the writing program she teaches which helps support “the unique development needs of the adolescent.”

Eikenbery has taught in Montessori education for 13 years and follows in the footsteps of both her mother and father, Tana and Steve Eikenbery, as a committed educator. She credits her success to her own educational roots, explaining: “One thing MVS gave me that set me up for success from the get-go is the confidence to speak out in groups. I went to college totally prepared to engage in discussions, and actually was totally put off by the large lecture classes. I think this has extended into my professional life, because obviously being a teacher, you have to be comfortable speaking in groups.” Eikenbery believes her focus on group discussion and engagement in her classes stems from this early educational heritage.

In this way, Eikenbery carries on the gifts of learning she received by passing them on to her students. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout-out to Mr. Squiers and Mrs. Inbody – I fell in love with history, majored in it, and now I teach it. They both had different styles, but each anchored me with not only an interest, but some technical skills to pursue that interest.”