Marja-Leena Tyrväinen
Marja-Leena Tyrväinen has 30 years’ experience of working with children. She graduated in 1979 from the Kindergarten Teacher College in Helsinki, Finland. After working for several years in a kindergarten in Finland, she moved to California where she followed the AMI 3 to 6 teacher training course, graduating in 1984. After working in Montessori Primary schools, Marja-Leena followed the first three years on the AMI Training of Trainer’s Programme in Sweden, at Ulla Wikefeldt’s training centre and the last year of her training in Helsinki with Hildegard Solchbacher and Mary Hughes graduating in 2001.
Marja-Leena has been in charge of Primary Montessori classrooms since 1987, apart from those years when she took the Training of Trainer’s Programme. She has two daughters and she lives with her husband and youngest daughter in Espoo, Finland.
Marja-Leena holds a BA of Education and is currently completing her Master’s degree at the University of Jyväskylä. She is a Director of Training of the Montessori courses in Finland. She also works at the Finnish Montessori Union, consults and gives lectures as well as working as an AMI External Examiner.
Ulla Wikefeldt
AMI Trainer Ulla Wikefeldt is the founder of the Maria Montessori Institutet in Sweden. Prior to that, Ulla was responsible for the education of Montessori teachers for ages 3-6 at the AMI training centre working together with Uppsala University in Sweden.
Ulla has more than 35 years experience within Montessori:
- Montessori teacher and manager with Montessori pre-school for 10 years
- Lecturer, national and international
- AMI’s External Examiner in Europe, Asia and the USA
Holder of a BA in education, and graduate of the AMI Training of Trainers Programme, Ulla directed the first AMI Primary teacher training course in Bangkok, Thailand, during the period April 2009 – October 2010.
To learn more about Ulla, visit her site: http://www.mmi-institutet.se/