What We Value

Philosophy

Over the course of several years, we’ve developed a paradigm that we believe best supports an infrastructure where children can grow and learn. Our educational plan encourages children to be actively involved in the learning process, to experience a variety of activities appropriate to their age and rate of development and to pursue their own interests in the context of life in the community and the world. Through play that is guided by adults, children learn language, concepts about the physical world, social skills, problem solving, motor coordination and self confidence.

Developmentally Appropriate Practices

We base our curriculum, planning and activities on these three things:

1. Knowledge of the stages that all children go through and recognition of where each child is developmentally within these stages.
2. Identifying individual children’s strengths, interests and needs. This requires copious anecdotal records by the teachers.
3. Knowledge of the social and cultural context of the children. This requires healthy, on-going relationships with the parents and family of the child. We want parents to know they are welcome to spend time with us as often as they like. Let us get to know you! We want you to look around your child’s classroom, know what your child is doing, ask questions, talk with the teachers, exchange information, follow through with ideas from the center at home, stay involved. Share your culture, traditions and areas of expertise with the children and teachers!

Infant Through Toddler

Our Infant through Toddler Program (children ages 6 weeks – 24 months) is based on the works of Magda Gerber and the Resources for Infant Educarers, commonly known as RIE.

Our vision is that "from the day they are born, all infants are cared for with respect and are seen as unique individuals with surprising capacity to participate in relationships." Basic patterns of life such as trust, endurance, and optimism develop at an early age. When children are treated respectfully from birth, they have a better chance of gaining confidence and developing good judgment.

In order to foster quality care RIE encourages:

• Basic trust in the child to be an initiator, an explorer and a self learner
• An environment for the child that is physically safe, cognitively challenging and emotionally nurturing
• Time for uninterrupted play
• Freedom to explore and interact with other infants
• Involvement of the child in all care activities to allow the child to become an active participant rather than a passive recipient
• Sensitive observation of the child in order to understand his/her needs
• Consistency, clearly defined limits and expectations to develop discipline
• The RIE approach, based on respect, helps raise authentic infants who are: competent, confident, curious, attentive, exploring, cooperative, secure, peaceful, focused, self-initiating, resourceful, involved, cheerful, aware, interested and inner-directed.

All Age Groups

Our educational philosophy for all age groups is based on the integration of several theories and practices.

Piaget suggests that “children shape their own conceptions of reality by continuous interactions with their environment.” Vygotsky emphasizes the influence of culture and social interactions. He suggests that “children construct their own understanding of concepts in the course of interactions with others, not in isolation.”

From the work of these prominent theorists blossoms the theory of Constructivism. Essentially, this theory deduces that learning occurs when children are engaged in collaborative activity about something that deeply interests them. Constructivism’s foundational premise is that children actively construct their own knowledge. Play and experimentation are valuable forms of learning that encourage children to reflect on their ideas. Constructivism has led to the additional discovery that powerful gains are made when children work together, as well. Collaborative or cooperative learning demonstrates the benefits of children working with other children in collective learning efforts. When children collaborate, they share the process of constructing their ideas, instead of simply laboring individually. The advantages of this collective effort are that children are able to reflect and elaborate on not just their own ideas, but those of peers as well. Children come to view their peers not as competitors but as resources. Mutual tutoring, a sense of shared progress and shared goals, and a feeling of teamwork are the natural outcomes of cooperative problem-solving.

In our classrooms, Emergent Curriculum means that ideas stem from the daily life of children and adults in the program. Projects emerge as teachers thoughtfully listen to children’s conversations and social interactions to determine their deep interests. The teacher’s role is to collaborate with the children in their exploration so his/her knowledge can scaffold the child’s understanding. The teacher serves as a guide rather than a source of knowledge. The teacher engages the children by helping to organize and assist them as they take the initiative in their self-directed explorations, instead of directing their learning autocratically.

A project is an in-depth investigation of a topic worth learning more about. In a sense, like a good story, the project can be described as having a beginning, a middle and an end, each memorable in its own way. Projects develop through three phases.

In Phase 1 the teacher is particularly concerned to find out how much individual children already know and what first hand experiences form the basis of their current understanding. The children engage in an initial discussion of the topic and offer ideas and stories of their experiences. The children also paint, draw, write about, dramatize or role-play the experiences and understandings they bring to the study. The children acquire a collective baseline understanding of the topic through representing their own experience and sharing this work within the class group. The first phase concludes with the class recording a list of questions that they would like to investigate.

Phase 2 involves planning fieldwork and inviting experts to the classroom to talk with the children. The teacher’s concerns center around the provision of new first hand experiences for the children and the collection of other resources. A field trip is arranged. Real objects and processes are investigated, questions answered, more questions posed, explanations sought. Children read, write, draw, compute, gather data and represent many different kinds of findings and reactions to their experiences. A representative selection of the work is displayed on walls and shelves in the room for all the class to see. Documentation: samples of a child’s work at several different stages of completion; photos showing work in progress, comments written by the teacher or other adults working with the children, transcriptions of children’s discussions, comments and explanations of intentions of the activity. The documents reveal how the children planned, carried out and completed the displayed work.

Phase 3 features the culmination of the work in some form of opportunity to share the project with others, the principal, other classes, and parents. The work is reviewed, evaluated and particular items are selected for presentation. The emphasis is on communication of learning. There are also opportunities for children to personalize the new information for themselves in more imaginative art and dramatic activity, and personal story and poetry writing.

The environment also plays a part in helping the child construct his own knowledge. With the provision of a resource-rich, activity-based curriculum, the environment is supportive, one in which children can create their own ideas, both individually and collaboratively.

The Constructivist Approach is robustly practiced in Reggio, Italy where the Reggio Emilia philosophy is the spirit and substance of our program. We ask ourselves “Who is the child”? We have respect for the child’s intelligence. We give children time to construct their own knowledge. “Sow a small plot deep.” Quality versus quantity.

We honor the “100 languages of children.” Young children are able to form images, represent their ideas and communicate with the world around them in many ways. Young children need opportunities to express these ideas and messages not only through words but through a number of avenues including media. They need many formats for expressing themselves – words, drawings, paintings, sculpture, construction, sound, drama and movement to name a few. All of these forms of expression are a natural outgrowth of children’s thinking and problem solving.

From Italy, back to California, we borrow from Bev Bos who emanates “If it’s not in the body, it’s not in the mind.” All classroom activities embody the Bev Bos philosophy through: creativity, self expression, hands on activities and sensory oriented activities.

Moral development/anti-bias

Children construct their moral understandings from their day to day social interactions. When we speak of “moral children” we do not mean children who are merely obedient, know moral rules of others, act in pro-social ways, conform to social conventions of politeness, have a list of character traits or are religious. Instead we refer to moral children as grappling with interpersonal issues that are a natural part of their lives. Morality must develop intrinsically, not be imposed. Our job is to model sincere behavior so that children will come to understand the spirit of the rule, the moral necessity for treating others as they would wish to be treated. This is not done by praising the deed or offering rewards or threatening punishment or imposing fear… but by sincerely commenting on the genuine effect that that child’s action had on another person.

We include Anti-Bias because it is part of moral development: “An active/activist approach to challenging prejudice, stereotyping, bias, and the isms. In a society in which institutional structures create and maintain sexism, racism, and handicappism, it is not sufficient to be non-bias (and also highly unlikely), nor is it sufficient to be an observer. It is necessary for each individual to actively intervene, to challenge and counter the personal and institutional behaviors that perpetuate oppression.”

Guidance

All of our centers provide guidance that helps each child acquire a positive self-concept. At all times we adhere to guidance and discipline that is positive, constructive and suited to the age of the child.

We see guidance as the external tool to help children develop internal control. Young children learn by experimenting, testing limits and experiencing the consequences of their behavior. Our program promotes a positive approach to managing the behavior of all children. It is the goal of this program to help children become happy, responsible, cooperative participants in this program through positive, non-threatening teaching techniques.

Guidance at the program has two primary goals:

1. We strive to find a solution to the current situation
2. We attempt to help the child process feelings, recognize consequences, explore alternative solutions and outcomes and develop internal self-control

Interactions between children and caregivers provide opportunities for children to develop an understanding of self and others and are characterized by warmth, personal respect, individuality and responsiveness. Our caregivers facilitate interactions among children to provide opportunities for development of social skills and intellectual growth.