Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/a-program-showcase-marias-preschool-asuncin-paraguay/5020101/
Twenty years ago, after gaining experience working with the best local and foreign educators in Paraguay, Maria Burt decided to turn her dream into reality and open her own preschool. Her passion had always been caring for and educating children. In the beginning, Maria’s first two classrooms were quite unusual. She ‘borrowed’ her parent’s garage and remodeled it, with the support of her husband, brothers, and parents to help set it up. She says, “During recess we would take the children to play at my mother’s beautiful garden. Then, later every day, ‘Abuela Dei’, as my mother called herself, would bake cookies and we would have great picnics. We always wanted to provide a warm, loving environment.”In 1998 Maria had the opportunity to buy a house near her original preschool, which was already too small to accommodate the classes that she had been planning on adding. She says, “Shortly after completing the arrangements to the house I bought, I realized that we still needed more space for the increasing waitlist. Fortunately, the house next door went up for rent, so we seized the opportunity and rented it. We converted the rooms in the new house into more classes. By adding ...