For the second year in a row, Opal School hosted a “Rising Educators Study Tour” for high school students who study approaches to early childhood education and apply that learning in a school-based center. It’s a rare treat for us to learn with people at that stage of life. As we often do, we spent part …
We believe that educators—like children—have a vast capacity for deep dives of mind, heart, and spirit. Their thoughts are “ample and greedy”; they seek substantive questions and complexity. Their work is challenging and exhilarating, and demands their full intellectual and emotional attention. Educators deserve—and are sustained by—professional learning that strengthens their development as thinkers, researchers, …
The teachers are back to work at Opal School this week, getting environments ready, cracking open big ideas, and imagining possibilities in anticipation of the children arriving on Tuesday. The primary team began our work together this year by sharing our excitement: things that each one of us was looking forward to exploring with children …
The weeks leading up to Winter Break provide teachers with a unique opportunity to pause and reflect on the work that our learning communities have been so immersed in. Our recent staff meetings have been structured to support this processing. We have been exploring how we might support the children in our respective learning communities …
“Every story starts with the assumption there is some acceptable, canonical state of the world. What starts the story going is that the expectable, the predictable, canonical state of the world gets violated.” Jerome Bruner, Loris Malaguzzi International Centre, June 2006 “Opal School definitely got me out of my comfort zone… [It] goes against a lot …
Opal School led professional development workshops in Vancouver, BC last week. They were rich opportunities to connect and develop new ideas with educators in a region that has been inspired and transformed by Opal School’s work. Our second day’s session focused on play, the arts, and education for democracy. Before considering the role that play …
Read more “Pedagogical approaches and their political implications”
Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness. Brené Brown Last week, we hosted the first of this year’s Opal School Visitation Days workshops. This one brought together 70 educators from diverse contexts – pre-k and elementary, rural and urban, public and private, multilingual and …
Read more “Courageous and Collaborative Communities: A report from the workshop”
Last week, I split my time between two groups. The first half of the week, Opal School hosted a Study Tour for a school from Miami Beach. On Wednesday, Susan and I went to Juneau, where we spent the remainder of the week working with another school staff. These are radically different demographic contexts: Other …
A new post at Cadwell Collaborative responds to a familiar request: Will you write the curriculum for a new Reggio-inspired school? The post thoughtfully responds that the request cannot be fulfilled. We make that road through walking. While there are known guideposts to help orient that path and great tools to have in your kit, …
To be open to others means to have the courage to come into the room and say, “I hope to be different when I leave.” – Carlina Rinaldi Opal School families returned today, encountering spaces full of life. They found invitations to form new connections and communities with each other, with ideas, and with the …