Current Boulder Journey School Resident Teacher Molly Harrington shared the following on her classroom’s blog:
As a participant in the Teacher Education Program at Boulder Journey School, my graduate coursework aligns with my time spent in the classroom. These past few weeks in our contextual curriculum course we have been discussing technology in the classroom. I wrote a position statement discussing the benefits of technology in early education, and made a slideshow as well to summarize my ideas. Here are the slides below!
The classroom blogs are a space for dialogue and reciprocal learning. Educators post on the blog and families can engage via comments and reflection. In this way, the blog serves as a space for honoring the right to participation of all members of the school. Boulder Journey School parent Kelly M. shared a comment in response to Molly’s blog:
Love the positioning, Molly! We love how BJS helps to foster a healthy and curious relationship with technology. -Kelly M.
The documentation Molly shared with her Room 2 classroom community made way for Kelly to share her perspective with the community and provoked the potential of a dialogue.
Above, Ysidro Holmes and a small group of children from his preschool class connect with a group of infants in the halls of Boulder Journey School.
Above, Ysidro visiting Chautauqua Park in Boulder for the first time since moving from Arizona for the Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program.
In the video below, Ysidro introduces himself and shares a little bit about his personal context and what he values about Boulder Journey School so far in his journey as a Resident Teacher.
“My name is Ysidro Holmes and I’m a Resident Teacher at the Boulder Journey School. I come from a family of Educators and something that they have taught me is that teaching is reciprocal; coming with that in my classroom, I’m able to bring my ancestors with me and know that I’m teaching as well as learning from the children in my class. They (other members within the Boulder Journey School community) are very interested in what we (Resident Teachers joining the school) have to offer and they value our voices; that teaching community is a beautiful thing to witness.”
Below, Ysidro touches upon the importance and space for perspective taking within his 2022-2023 Boulder Journey School cohort. He shares why he chose the Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program and what he loves about Boulder; he also speaks to the supportive environment of the Teacher Education Program & the importance of the anti-bias/anti-racist commitments within the school community.
“The other Resident Teachers that are in the classroom with me and around Boulder Journey School, they’re all coming in from around the country and so it’s nice to see different points of view and different perspectives from new teachers and also teachers who have been in the classroom for a few years.”
“I chose the Boulder Journey School as my Masters program because of the philosophy and pedagogy of the school. I also love the relationship they have with the schools over in Reggio Emilia, Italy and I’m excited to go and study over that way (referring to the week-long study tour in Reggio Emilia Resident Teachers are a part of each year in the Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program).”
“The community and culture is one big supportive group of people. Even if it comes from coursework, in the classroom, or even to get some sort of scholarship everybody comes together and they really try to support you in any way that they could.”
“I come from the desert. So, the greenery is very different; it’s beautiful, the mountains. Everybody here is very friendly and I love that they are very environmentally conscious here as well.”
Ysidro chose to read his thoughts surrounding anti-bias/anti-racist work because of the importance of the topic. “Something that surprised me about the Boulder Journey School were the efforts towards anti-bias and anti-racist work. Boulder is not too much of a diverse place so it speaks volumes that this school is working collectively to unlearn how schools traditionally perpetuate white supremacy and how they can actively dismantle that narrative.”
Lauren Robinson was a member of the 2021-2022 Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Programand is currently a Boulder Journey School Mentor Teacher. Below, a reflection from her Resident teaching year.
Lauren Robinson, a Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program graduate and current Boulder Journey School Mentor Teacher, shared her reflections after revisiting Carlina Rinaldi’s “The Pedagogy of Listening: The Listening Perspective from Reggio Emilia.” Lauren connected her reflections to a visual mini-story she created for the course A Colorado Interpretation of the Reggio Approach, one of the courses she took while completing her Residency MA in Early Childhood Education.
Lauren Robinson: It was really helpful to have my mini-story in mind while reading through Rinaldi’s “The Pedagogy of Listening.” I was able to refresh my knowledge on what listening truly means, and relate it back to the experience that I captured and analyzed for my mini-story. Specifically, a couple of Rinaldi’s ‘meanings of listening’ that were listed really resonated with me. The first one that stood out to me was “Listening is generated by curiosity, desire, doubt, and uncertainty.” I feel like as adults, things like doubt and uncertainty are feared. Butwhen we get in tune with children and ask questions about what they’re thinking and feeling, we are able to embrace things like doubt and uncertainty, because they motivate the researcher in us. This is closely related to the second ‘meaning of listening’ statement that resonated with me, which was “Listening produces questions, not answers.” Seeking answers to questions is natural, but again, as adults we tend to value the answers more than the questions, when they can equally tell us just as much about whatever experience we’re having. This statement also really embodies the idea that process is just as (or more!) important as product, like how having questions is just as important as having answers.
When I read this article at the beginning of the year, it felt much harder to comprehend then it does now. I definitely attribute that to the quality time that I have gotten to spend with the children and in the classroom. I have been learning so much about being present with children, truly listening to them, and honoring whatever it is they are trying to tell us. My definition of a teacher has expanded so immensely in these past few months, and in turn my confidence in my capabilities as a teacher and my role in these children’s lives has increased!
View Lauren’s visual mini-story below. You may notice Lauren uses the language of photography to listen to this moment of connection between children.
What do the photographs tell you about the teacher’s capacity to deeply listen? What do the photographs say about children’s capacity(ies) to listen and connect? What does Lauren’s visual mini-story tell you about the teacher’s choice to document in this moment? Please leave your comments below.
Boulder Journey School classroom teachers, mentors and interns, compose blog posts for the families in each classroom 3 – 5 times weekly. These blog posts offer reflections on daily experiences, question possibilities for future research, and form connections between home-life and school-life.
The following reflections are from a classroom blog post shared with families, composed by Cassie Sorrells, Boulder Journey School mentor teacher in a toddler classroom.
I had big plans for today, plans that I put in place almost a week ago when I filled out our Weekly Planning Document.
The planning document is a shared document that is filled out by all classroom teachers and directors. The document is printed and posted for families in the classroom. After the planned experiences, teachers reflect on the document and use their reflections to plan the following week’s experiences.
Today I planned to invite a group of friends to take pictures with an old digital camera. I was so excited to see the fine motor skills they used to manipulate the camera, to watch what objects they chose to photograph, and to see how they behaved socially when they viewed the photos together later. I was planning to project the images in the classroom, inviting my friends to revisit the experience.
But my friends didn’t want to explore the curriculum ideas that I had in mind for today.
They wanted to run outside, play, and enjoy the beautiful weather.
So I listened. I put away my agenda. And we had the most incredible day.
I’ll put the digital camera experience back on the planning document for a later date. It was a good idea – just not the best idea for today.
How often do we allow our adult agendas to take precedence over organic moments of learning?
How often do we honor our vulnerability and allow ourselves to reflect on moments that confused us, surprised us, shook us from our plans?
Resiliency and Humility are part of the professional qualities that we seek to support our graduate students in developing throughout their 12 month teaching and learning experience. The ability to recognize when our intended path must diverge, and to continue learning and growing with the new path is a quality that is useful in the classroom and beyond.
November 20th is Universal Children’s Day, a day to honor the rights of children. It is also the date in 1989 when the UN General assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Boulder Journey School (BJS) collaborates regularly with Hawkins Centers of Learning to hold evening workshops, open to the community as well as all members of the Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program (BJSTEP). To learn about and register for upcoming workshops, click here.
This month, in honor of Universal Children’s Day, we held An Evening of Discussion About Children’s Rights.
“I think it is a topic a lot of people don’t think about, including myself. I know people and children are the same, but I think we don’t know how to offer children the space to exercise their rights.” – Kourtney, Denver Public School educator
On Tuesday, November 14, educators from Boulder and Denver gathered in the Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Room to view The Voices of Children, a short documentary composed of children sharing their lives and experiences through a series of “listening sessions”. The viewing and subsequent dialogue were facilitated by Sam Hall, Member of The Voices of Children Production Team.
TheVoices of Children documentary project was initiated by the World Forum Foundation Working Group on Children’s Rights, formed at the 2011 World Forum on Early Childhood Care and Education, in Hawaii, USA. The following year, in Moss, Norway, members of the Working Group, Voices of Children committee, defined their primary goal and the means to achieve it. The goal was to articulate the rights of children worldwide, from the child’s perspective, rather than from the viewpoint of the adult. One means of accomplishing this unique goal was the creation of a video documentary that would capture children’s voices directly, without filtering them through adult interpretations. – From TheVoices of Children Documentary Project Background Information Sheet
Following the viewing of the documentary, we engaged in dialogue around the rights of children in our personal contexts and how these contribute to our understanding of children’s contexts around the world.
One of the big questions we examined was the grey area between honoring a child’s right to protection, and honoring a child’s right to participate.
When we protect a child from realities that may seem scary, are we prohibiting them from offering their viewpoints, their understandings, and their solutions to the community?
When we offer children experiences that require their voices, does this take away from the protection of their childhoods?
As a group, we discussed that the answers to these questions lie deeply embedded in the cultural contexts in which the children live.
In the film, we saw children stirring steaming vats of food to be served for meals, cutting branches with machetes, and digging with pickaxes. This is in contrast to the protected experiences many of us from Colorado engage in with children. Three girls from Kenya, who appear to be between the ages of seven and ten, explain to the camera, “The reason kids rush to help and do some of the work, the reason we don’t just sit like this, it is because children cannot just sit while the elderly people work. We can help with everything.”
Photo by TheVoices of Children documentary team.
Taylor, a Denver-based Early Childhood Education teacher and BJSTEP alumna reflected, “Anyone who works with children knows they don’t want to just sit around. There is a connection between work and feeling a sense of pride. Offering children the opportunity to do meaningful work, not work that we just make up, but work that they can see why it is important, why it matters, helps children in the long run develop a sense of pride in their contributions to the community.”
Elizabeth, a Fort Collins-based educator and BJSTEP alumna built on this reflection, “Do the children who were cooking and contributing feel a stronger sense of ‘I’m a citizen’ than children who are offered arbitrary experiences, such as a teacher ‘letting’ a child clean up all the red blocks?”
We wondered whether children who have to do work feel more a part of the community because they are responsible for the well-being of the community.
We reflected that affluent cultures tend to value protection over participation. Does that shift in values strip children of their sense of self and community, and their sense of responsibility to the communities in which they reside?
We wondered how we, steeped as we are in our own cultures and contexts, might actively seek to move beyond our own biases. There may not be universal answers to these questions. We must seek to listen, just as the documentary team listened to children, to help us honor the rights of children in the contexts and cultures in which they live.
We cannot afford to ignore situations because they make us uncomfortable.
As we drew to a close on the night of the viewing, filled with questions, wondering whether we had said the right things, asked the right questions, or listened intently enough, Gwen, a Boulder-based educator shared, “With all the discussion, I feel that I want answers. I don’t like the questions. I want answers. And what I’ve taken from tonight is that the conversation is where the answers come from. It is valuable just to have the conversation even if it is uncomfortable. I appreciate that.”
If you are interested in screening The Voices of Children, please contact Sam Hall at sam.hall@boulderjourneyschool.com for more information. Be sure to include your name, city and country, so we can direct your request to the correct team member.
Boulder Journey School classroom teachers, mentors, and interns compose blog posts for the families in each classroom 3 – 5 times weekly. These blog posts offer reflections on daily experiences, question possibilities for future research, and form connections between home-life and school-life.
In a previous blog post, we shared educators’ experiences in a workshop on mandalas. Here we explore classroom work inspired by that workshop.
The following reflections are from a classroom blog post shared with families, composed by Kirsten Zimbelman, Boulder Journey School mentor teacher.
Last night I had the opportunity to co-present a workshop on mandalas and their role in mindfulness practice in early learning. We worked with educators from several schools to discuss ways in which we could incorporate this kind of intentional work into our days with young children. Today, we decided to bring our research into our classroom.
Mandalas are best known for their use in the eastern religions of Buddhism and Hinduism. The word mandala is a Sanskrit word, and the literal translation means circle. However, if you break the word into parts its translation can change. Man is the Sanskrit word for mind, while the word da in Sanskrit can be translated as maintenance. So mandala can also mean maintaining the mind.
What does this have to do with preschool? Well, according to research, mindfulness has been linked to children being more positive, having better moods, and increasing their ability to focus. It has also been shown to help children build empathy and connections with peers by helping them process their own feelings. These are both crucial pieces of toddlers’ development, as they, like all of us, are developing their understanding of how their actions affect one another.
We began by looking at images of mandalas composed of natural materials and found various items. We also looked at a mandala built by teachers in our studio.
We discussed the shape of the mandalas as well as the materials used to make the ones in the images.
We offered the children materials such as leaves of varying colors, shapes, and sizes and a collection of man-made loose parts.
We intentionally selected circular boards to offer as a base or frame for the children’s work.
We observed forty uninterrupted minutes of children busily working on their own or collective mandalas.
Tuck, age 2, selected a frame and grape leaves for his work.
Linnea, age 3, added leaves to her composition.
Yana, age 2, and Tuck worked together to build a mixed media mandala.
Throughout the morning, several mandalas were built. Then, in the true spirit of the art, they were wiped clean to begin again.
During their work the children were always in motion; however, the motion was one of focus and intentionality. While we have not yet introduced the word ‘mindfulness’, or the language that accompanies conversations about mindfulness among adults, the children remained focused and engaged throughout the time spent in this endeavor.
“The Mandala is an archetypal image whose occurrence is attested throughout the ages. It signifies the wholeness of the self” ( C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1957, pp. 401 – 402).
In what ways do you observe your children being mindful?
This blog post examines classroom work stemming from the Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program (BJSTEP) Fall course, Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum. Intern Teachers observe students, document their observations using a variety of tools, reflect on their documentation with colleagues, and develop and implement curriculum plans throughout the semester. Read more about the course here.
The following reflections were offered by Mollie Lyne, a graduate student in the 2017-2018 BJSTEP cohort.
“Technology use in formal early childhood education (ECE) settings, such as preschools and child-care centers, may help shrink the digital divide in terms of both access and use for children in low-income families.”
In the year 2017, we have everything from television programming at gas stations, digital readers on the bus, cameras in our cars, and iPads at the library. We are in the digital world, and we need to find ways for children to engage with it, to form healthy relationships with technology.
The 3-year-old children in Room 13 have been fascinated with music lately.
We have experienced it through the computer, on our record player, through the iPad at nap time, with a visitor bringing a guitar, with Sam, a teacher from another classroom, playing his ukulele outside, and through sharing our favorite songs.
I wondered how to offer a new form of music experiences to these children who are so widely experienced in music. This wondering let me to my roommate Jefferson.
Jeff is originally from Washington D.C. and moved to Boulder a couple years ago. In his free time he DJs at local venues and enjoys laying down new beats.
Question:
What would it look like for the children to experience Jeff’s turntable?
Answer:
Ask Jeff to present to the class how music can be manipulated and moved to create sounds that we have never heard before.
When we offer children the environment to engage with technology and explore it in their own time and space, a whole new understanding arises.
It is important for children to have the connection to technology to have a sense of how it works and in what ways we can manipulate and play.
When Jeff arrived, he did just that for us!
He showed us what buttons we could push.
When we pushed them the music moved.
“Woah, it squeaked!” -Nico
“I can hear the noises.” -Micah
“Can I push this one?”- Alexis
We spun the disk.
We pressed the on / off button.
We hit other buttons over and over again.
We twisted the knobs.
Then…
We listened.
We watched.
We tested.
We asked questions.
“Where does the music come from?”
“Why do you need headphones?”
“Why do you turn it all the time?”
“How can you make the music do that?”
We danced.
We were inspired.
We explored.
As a community we want to keep asking about technology in the classroom to help us comprehend the affordances of various technologies.
“Technology has great potential for supporting the learning needs of all young children ….”
- Using Technology in Reggio Emilia-Inspired Programs, Linda M. Mitchell
How do you embrace and explore technology with young children in your context? What technologies are you excited to use?
During the 2017-2018 school year, educators, including mentor teachers and graduate students, and families, are participating in a research group examining the goals of Anti-Bias Education. Click here to read more about this group.
“Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? … I see children looking at me.”
Many of us have been taught, directly or indirectly, that this book is a lovely example of inclusive, non-bias, “colorblind” literature – sure to support children from diverse racial backgrounds in feeling comfortable and welcome – as there are children who appear Black, Asian, Latinx, and White all pictured happily together.
Marissa Tafura visited Boulder Journey School in October to join our community of educators and families in better understanding Reading for Racial Justice. She prompted us to examine the true message that we are portraying when we say we are “colorblind”. Marissa pointed out that we have been, “socialized to think that naming race is racist.” However, rather than being inclusive, an attitude of “not seeing race” erases diverse perspectives and someone’s experience in the world. She pointed out that just as we typically acknowledge someone’s gender, it’s similarly important that we acknowledge a person’s racial identity as central to who they are.
Marissa works with Empowering Kids Colorado and Showing Up For Racial Justice to encourage active participation in anti-bias practices that support racial justice. She shared that her own background, a white woman growing up in a culture that encouraged silence on topics of race, has shaped her own perspective on the topic. She reminded us that acting for racial justice is messy, and that we must be open to embracing our mistakes on the topic and learning from them. It is okay to ask our kids, “I didn’t like the way I phrased that, can we revisit the topic?”
As a community, we reflected that, while we are growing more comfortable engaging children when they bring a topic or question to us, we are less sure how to initiate conversations. Marissa shared tips for examining the books we offer as entry points into new conversations about race.
According to statistics compiled in 2015, 73.3% of children’s books published that year featured White protagonists, 12.5% featured non-living protagonists, 7.6% feature African and African-American protagonists, 3.3% feature Asian Pacific and Asian Pacific-American protagonists, 2.4% feature Latinx protagonists, and .9% feature Native American and First Nation protagonists. A great place to start is checking to see whether racial diversity is present in the books offered to children.
Marissa reminded us that the presence of racial diversity is not enough, however. We must also check to see whether there is racial diversity among the authors of the books we offer.
Additionally, books should be diverse in the stories they tell. It is crucial to have more than just stories of oppression or over-coming oppression; they should also tell stories of normalized life as a person of color, stories of activism, and stories of contribution from people of color.
It is also important to name race, including Whiteness, so that children can become practiced in identifying racial constructs.
So, when reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, a book that is all about naming differences that we see in animals, when we come to the last page, let’s discuss the races of the children who are “looking at me”.
What strategies do you use to support anti-bias in your classrooms or at home?
“Our best source of professional development is observing one another and questioning our practices. To do this, we have to create a space that is safe. We make sure to ask questions of all of the teachers, new and long-standing.” – Alison Maher, Education Director
When we invite people into our space, it changes the dynamics. We are always striving to offer the best possible experiences for the children in our classrooms. When visitors arrive, we must also consider how to offer the best possible experiences for children in classrooms around the world.
In September 2017, teachers, administrators, and professors from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia visited Boulder Journey School. In collaboration with Videatives, Inc., we hosted the visitors as part of an international study tour, organized by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The tour was designed to examine early childhood programs and initiatives in international contexts to inform the National Early Childhood Curriculum in the Saudi Arabian Kingdom.
Our visitors spent two days observing in classrooms, taking notes on the interactions between children, mentor teachers, and graduate students in the Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program. They unpacked their observations during afternoon dialogues that included presentations and remarks by Boulder Journey School and Videatives, Inc. educators.
One visitor shared that her takeaways from the experience included the understanding that, “the environment is very important. A mindful teacher is even more important.”
Through visits such as these, we grow not only as educators, but also as advocates for quality in early childhood education worldwide.
Delegates from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Early Learning Curriculum Project with NAEYC representatives, and educators from Boulder Journey School and Videatives, Inc.
Boulder Journey School (BJS) hosts an annual two-day conference to support participatory exploration of topics related to quality and innovation in education. The conference welcomes participants from around the world to visit, engage, participate, and explore. Below is a reflection by Paige Laeyendecker, 2016 – 2017 Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program (BJSTEP) graduate student.
As a first time participant in the Boulder Journey School Summer Conference, I was both excited to meet with educators from around the country and nervous to share the work from my classroom. Once the conference was in full swing, all my nervousness disappeared. I grew energized by all of the participants sharing their stories. The excitement in the building was palpable.
Over the course of the two days, the conversations surrounding environments, physics, bridging nature and technology, and children’s rights, among others, were so rich and deeply inspiring.
The topic I found to have the greatest impact on me were the many discussions, presentations, and debates around risk. Risk is a very hot topic in the field of education, and many of us were eager to hear and discuss the different perspectives around this controversial topic. In our society today, we have developed an intense fear when it comes to children and the communities of which they are an essential part. I’ll be the first to admit that this fear of the unknown is powerful, especially when working with the children who you love so much.
Granted, safety is and should be top priority when working with children of any age, but do we go too far? Are we keeping children too protected, and is that impacting the way that children are growing and learning?
As part of my role as a BJSTEP graduate student, I was asked to facilitate a small group discussion around risk. I soon discovered that my colleagues’ thoughts around this topic added layers and layers to what I was prepared to share. Joining us from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, some of the participants shared their concerns around the different levels of risk taking in different areas of the world and even just our country.
What do safety concerns and risk evaluations look like in areas with low socio-economic statuses? How does the conversation change when a family does not have access to health insurance? I was left speechless.
Following this extremely insightful and eye-opening discussion, our discussion group heard a presentation from Meagan Arango, a mentor teacher at Boulder Journey School. Meagan has engaged in advocacy for the rights of children, specifically in taking risks. One major point that Meagan made was the distinction between a risk and a hazard.
A two-year-old child examines the climbing wall. She stays close to the ground while, together with her teacher, she determines whether climbing is a risk or a hazard.
A three-year-old child takes the risk of going high on the climbing wall. He has enough experience working in this space to know what the hazards are and where his personal limits lie.
Meagan explained that a hazard is something harmful about which we do not have the knowledge to make a safe judgement. When we offer our children experience in assessing their environments and strategies for identifying the hazards around them, we provide opportunities to learn about taking risks and pushing boundaries; we support their confidence to explore their limits and to break through them.
When we look at risk through this point of view, it solidifies my belief that risk is a right of all children no matter their different cultural and societal backgrounds. One of our jobs as adults is to guide children through the difficult decision making tasks of assessing risk. This is a life long learning practice that begins at the earliest of ages.
Being able to work through this complex topic with so many educators from so many different perspectives was an experience I will never forget. It is now our responsibility to extend these discussions through the rest of our careers and lives with children.
How do you feel about the children’s right to risk? How can we keep this discussion going?
Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program 
You must be logged in to post a comment.