Compass Montessori Junior High
7th and 8th grades
Compass Montessori Junior High empowers each student to imagine their direction in life as they embark on their journey from adolescence to adulthood. Our curriculum offers a wealth of information, ideas, and experiences that foster an ever-expanding concept of self and community. Students explore their unique interests and challenge themselves to consider how diverse individuals, communities, and cultures perceive and engage with one another. This method requires authentic experiences with adult mentors engaged in real work, in the real world -- in Traverse City and across the country.
More Than a Transition, More Like a Transformation.
History, science, literature, mathematics, the arts, and language weave together to provide students with an authentic understanding of the complex world they will occupy and contribute to as independent-thinking citizens of our planet. In pursuit of authentic understanding, students experience firsthand a diversity of perspectives and cultures, as they explore professions and occupations that comprise many sectors of society such as government, business, nonprofit, social service, and environmental organizations.
Real World Experiences
More Than an Education, More Like an Experience.
Workshops follow the three-period lesson structure. First, the introduction of the topic often happens during a field trip, interactive presentation, or immersive activity. Once engaged in the topic, the second period empowers students to choose a focus and dive as deeply into their research as their curiosity and imaginations take them. During the third period, students share the results of their investigations. Throughout the workshop, adults provide support and guidance.
History Class
More Than a Classroom, More Like a Community.
Students have regular excursions throughout Traverse City, the woods, meadows, wetlands, and waterways of Northwest Lower Michigan. Multi-day trips and day-long field excursions take students throughout Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Extended trips explore Southeast Michigan, Chicago, Philadelphia, South Florida, Washington D.C., Atlanta, GA, and Birmingham and Montgomery, AL. History is explored where it happened. Science is experienced hands-on and in context. All learning is aided, interpreted, and made meaningful through the arts, mathematics, and the written and spoken word. Students are encouraged and empowered to examine, interpret, and share what they are learning with support from teachers, mentors, and professionals.
Science Lab
More Than being Included, More Like Belonging.
Compass Junior High students are stewards of the Timbers Recreation Area. They frequent this “Land Lab” every spring and autumn to collect and study water samples, map old-growth forests, write poetry, interview elders, identify plants and animals, and likely catch frogs and get soaking wet!
Before European colonization, the Anishinaabe used the land for hunting, fishing, and trapping, as well as a transportation corridor to and from Lake Mishigami. At the turn of the 19th century, Chicago’s meat magnate J. Ogden Armour built a sprawling estate, which became the Timbers Girl Scout Camp in the 1960s. Now part of the Long Lake Township park system, the 250-acre Timbers Recreation Area with its two inland ponds, old growth and early succession forests, abandoned farm fields, 2,000 feet of Long Lake shoreline, and numerous wetland areas make for the ideal living laboratory for studying both human and natural history.
Faculty
Kristina Weidenfeller, Junior High Guide
B.A. Michigan State University, Special Education K-12
M.A. Michigan State University, Curriculum and Teaching
AMI Orientation to Adolescent Studies, Compass Montessori, Golden, CO
The Children's House experience: (summer 2009 - present):
Elementary summer yoga and nutrition class, Kitchen Classroom, Junior High Guide
Kristina has been a parent at TCH since 2006, and an employee since 2009. She has had many roles during her tenure; room parent, summer yoga instructor, coach, Kitchen Classroom, Earth to Table, and Junior High Guide. She enjoys time with her family, outdoor sports of all seasons, reading, and new adventures. Kristina appreciates that TCH community provides so many opportunities for not only students to explore and share their interests, but adults are encouraged to as well.
Tori Craig, Junior High Guide
B.A. Psychology, Portland State University
C1 French Language Diploma, Université Lumière Lyon 2
AMI Montessori 6-12 Diploma, Centro Internazionale Studi Montessoriani
The Children’s House experience: (2021-present)
Primary Classroom Support, Junior High Guide
After a decade working with nonprofits and farms for food justice, Tori realized being with young people was the common feature of her favorite jobs and decided to pursue teaching. She is energized by the potential for creativity and change she finds in the classroom. The Montessori method felt like home right away. Her favorite of Maria Montessori's books is Education for Peace. Tori grew up in Cincinnati, OH and Portland, OR where she learned to love the northwoods. She lives in Maple City at the end of a dirt road.
Isabel Forster, Junior High Guide
B.A., Oglethorpe University, International Studies
MSc, London School of Economics and Political Science, Environment and Development
The Children’s House experience: (2025-present)
Junior High Guide
A native of Pennsylvania Dutch Country, Isabel bounced around the East Coast United States, United Kingdom, and Norway for her higher education. She recently pursued a postgraduate at the London School of Economics Department of Geography. When not reading and writing, Isabel enjoys learning about all things ecology and exploring the great outdoors. She is thrilled to join The Children's House community as an Adolescent Guide this year and continue her education in the Montessori method.
