Shopping Cart

Your Cart is Empty

Quantity:

Subtotal

Taxes

Shipping

Total

What is it like?

Well, campers say it's:

A forum for talking about what really matters in education
A time to connect with others in meaningful ways and share our stories
A chance to relax and renew in a peaceful setting with kindred spirits
A place to play, to sing, to be curious, to wonder, to laugh and get in touch with the kid in me again

Each year, it is up to you and what you bring to it!

We invite each of you to share your expertise, curiosity and wonder with the rest of us! This year's group of educators includes teachers, musicians, authors, artists, and leaders who work with all ages.

What would you like to wonder about with us?

Click the arrows on the image to cycle through a slideshow of GMTC.

Daily Schedule- sample

8:00 wake up bell

8:30 breakfast

9:30-12 Morning Presentations

12 lunch

1:30-3 Focus group

3:30-5 Focus group

5-6 free time

6:00 dinner

7-9 evening gatherings (campfire, singing, storytelling etc.)

2023 Presenters
We are so grateful to spend each morning learning alongside one of our staff.

At GMTC, we wonder about things that matter to us, so we asked each of our presenters what they are wondering. We have included their questions below!

We are very excited to have an amazing line up of creative and exceptional presenters with us, and a strong support staff to back them up! Remember, campers propose and/or facilitate afternoon focus groups on any topic they are curious or passionate about.

What are you wondering? If you have an idea, staff are happy to help; just ask!

Angela Bayer-Persico

Angela has been a director and head teacher for her childcare for over 25 years and earned her Master’s in early childhood. She ensures quality standards by being NAFCC Accredited. Angela travels to State capitols and DC to advocate for children’s rights and education. She is a motivational speaker talking from personal experiences and stories that make the listeners feel her passion and connect.

She is the author to “Journey of an Accredited Provider”. She has also authored articles in ECE magazines including Exchange article January 2021: “Trauma Informed Care”.

Angela works as an independent consultant across the nation. She has presented at NAFCC national conferences for the last 10 years and local and State conferences on various topics catered to the needs of the participants inspiring them with her insight and love. Angela also works as a bi-lingual trainer/ specialist and mentor for providers.

Angela is wondering:

"Resilience: how are we creating it within us considering all of our trauma?"

Rich Holschuh

Rich is a resident of Wantastegok (Brattleboro, VT) and immersed in the stories layered within this landscape. He serves as Chair for the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs and is a public liaison and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Elnu Abenaki, members of the contemporary northeastern Native community. Rich is founder and co-director of the Atowi Project. His work draws upon history, linguistics, geography, and culture to share beneficial ways of seeing and being in relationship with place.

Rich is wondering:

"Where is home, to you, and what does that look like?"

Stasia

Stasia teaches women how to build a loving and trusting relationship with their today-bodies through style. No, that’s not a typo. She said STYLE. As a somatically informed Style Activist, Stasia will ask you how you want to FEEL, and provide you with the tools, practices, and supports needed to help you step away from what’s culturally been deemed “appropriate” for your size, your weight, your shape, your age, your role, your gender, so you have the confidence to unapologetically wear what you want to wear, rules be damned! While most of us learned to abandon authenticity for approval to ensure our emotional safety, Stasia’s work teaches women how to HAVE THEIR OWN BACKS, so they can show up CONGRUENTLY, from the inside out.

Stasia is wondering:

"What are the life-long consequences of trading our AUTHENTICITY for an (outsourced) sense of SAFETY + CONNECTION!?!"

"What's the BIOLOGICAL difference between LOVING your today-body and SHOWING LOVE to your today-body?"

Jed Norris

Jed is the Director of Farm Based Youth Programs at Shelburne Farms and he has the opportunity to work with our preschool adventures program, our school programs, our summer camp program and in our professional development with educators program. Prior to that he worked as a program director at Burlington Childrens Space and previously he worked as a mentor teacher at the UVM Campus Childrens School. Throughout all of my work experiences he has always found himself drawn to being outside and with making food and any day when he can combine the both of them he knows is going to be a great day.

Jed is wondering:

"How can connecting our youngest children to the food system support future change in creating a more just world?"

Janaki Natarajan

Dr. Janaki Natarajan is an educator and activist who has taught humans of all ages from across the world-- including in Tanzania, China, South India, Washington D.C., and Vermont. Janaki is the Director of Bapagrama Educational Center in Bangalore, India which was founded by her parents and has primarily served the Dalit community since 1949. She founded Educational Praxis in 1998, a not-for-profit organization in Brattleboro, Vermont that promotes critical reflection, economic equity and security, ecological consciousness, cultural groundings and creative action for the purpose of addressing the schisms of class, race, caste and gender.

Janaki loves this stuff and can't wait to engage with GMTC campers!

Janaki is wondering:

What are the best of human actions? And the worst? What is the world we wish to build?

Chelsea Brown

Chelsea Brown has been an elementary art teacher for 13 years. She is also the 2020 Elementary Teacher of the Year for the state of WI. She is passionate about using the art curriculum to teach students about art, in addition to life skills; such as perseverance, problem solving, and craftsmanship. She is a big advocate for student, teacher and parent mental health.

Chelsea is wondering:

“I have been through several new administrators. I want to know how we, as teacher leaders, can influence and help grow strong administrators?”

Stephanie Krause

Stephanie lives in beautiful Bend, OR with her family and loves running (some seasons hiking more than running) trails in the mountains with her four legged running buddy Merry. She’s approaching 30 years of work in the field of early care and education, with the last 14 invested as owner/operator of a private child care program in Bend, Bloom Children’s Center.

Two notable descriptions by friends telling others about who Stephanie is:

“She’s the eclectic one!”

“She’s like your grandma, but she’s not a grandma!”

Stephanie is wondering:

"How does my early life experience inform my day to day actions and how I relate to the humans in my world, AND what parts of that do I want to embrace vs. what parts do I want to change?"

April Zajko

April Zajko, M.Ed. is a nature-based early childhood educator and a faculty member of the Community College of Vermont. She is the founder and owner of April’s Teaching Tree, which aims to help parents and educators deepen their interest in connecting to nature. Over the last thirteen years, April has led ECE professional development with hundreds of providers around the state of Vermont.

April is wondering:

"How can simple daily moments in nature help me feel rooted and supported so that I can help my students develop meaningful connections to nature and become lifelong stewards?"

Support Staff

We are pleased to announce that Laura Perry returns as our beloved cook. Jessica Clayton will be our Nature exploration instigator, and Chelsea Brown will join us as our Art instigator. Stephanie Kraus, Beth Cherry, Cecelia Puleio,Vicky Senni, Lana Hayden, Katrina Ellis-Ferrara, Betsy Langer, Billie Slade and Cathy Martin have been busy behind the scenes as coordinators.

We also offer a limited children’s program with trusted GMC staff during the morning presentations.

Call with questions about our child care options 802-257-1751.

Jessica Clayton

Jessica is a NJ certified teacher who taught in bilingual public preschool programs in both New Brunswick and Trenton before opening up my state licensed home daycare for 12 years. Now, she works as an early childhood educator in a Preschool through 12th grade private, progressive, Reggio Emilia inspired, outdoor school. She is also an advocate for nature play & playschools, a founding board member or the Eastern Region Association of Forest and Nature Schools (ERAFANS), professional development consultant, former Brick board of education member, environmentalist, avid reader, and beginner ukulele player.

Jessica is wondering:

"What does an ideal setting for children look like?

What do we need to teach the way we want to, with the support that we need, in settings that are designed for children?"

Cathy Martin

Cathy Martin is back again for her 11th year as our music instigator, with her guitar, banjo, piano, percussion, ukulele etc. Although a classical pianist and guitarist, she loves making music of all kinds and leading people in singing as a form of expression! Much of her time is spent playing jazz with a jazz sextet and doing gigs on piano and vocals in the area. Cathy is also the music director at Green Mountain Camp and plays and sings in various local nursing homes. Whether singing with children or elders, (or anyone in between), Cathy knows the power of music to create and reconnect with memories that sustain us!

Focus Groups

Each afternoon, campers gather in focus groups of all sorts. These gatherings organically emerge from informal and formal conversations at camp. Anyone can propose a focus group about something that intrigues you, and it can be a gathering of any kind.

Here are some examples of proposed focus groups:

Children and Risk-Why they Need It!

Our bodies are not our masterpieces-Our lives are.

Intrinsic Bias,

Ukuleles and African drums,

Developing leaders and Passing the torch,

We are so looking forward to “keeping it going” by creating a new event together that builds on a solid foundation of what came before, every year it's own creation, depending on who comes to collaborate!