This is the third blog post in the Reclaiming Joy series. I am only in the classroom as a pedagogical companion/consultant now. But I do remember: for me, teaching often felt like play…fluid, creative, guided by flexibility of thinking and mental rules, and...
There has grown a heaviness in our souls over the past several years. We are bombarded daily with images of division, hatred, distrust, and violence of one form or another. We long for belonging, love, and peace, and at times they seem just out of our reach. Like most...
The journey on which I find myself…supporting teachers and schools working with principles of the Reggio Emilia approach…has many paths. I have learned that this is one story that does not have to start “at the beginning.” Or, rather, the beginning can be found in...
I taught Kindergarten and Junior Kindergarten (4’s and 5’s) in the same school for nearly 4 decades. For 26 years, essentially the entire time I was in JK, we were Reggio inspired. I had noticed early on a remarkable difference from my pre-Reggio...
A small group of children (all girls, as this is a story from a single-sex school) met to plan what to build next on the block platform. We had set up this protocol…planning together before building…to encourage collaboration and small group project work,...
I’ve been thinking lately about the right of children to “try.” So much of data-driven, test-apprehensive pedagogy has set the shared value at the right answer. Failure is to be avoided at all costs. If they can’t pass the standardized test,...
