That Early Childhood Nerd Explorations Early Learning

Have you ever noticed that most of the theorists and philosophies in our early childhood textbooks are the same handful of men-plus-Montessori? Heather got curious....who are the women (past and present) who are influencing and informing the work we're doing with young children. So, here's the first installment of a new tradition--episodes in May that invite some of my favorite women in early childhood to talk about the women who guide our work. In this episode, Heather is joined by Rixa Evershed, Carol Garboden Murray and Lizz Nolasco to discuss how Robin Wall Kimmerer, Carol Gilligan, Janet Gonzalez Mena and Rhoda Kellogg inspire them. 

Heather is TIRED of non-expert stakeholders trying to tell her what is and isn't "quality" for young children's spaces and experiences. In this episode, she invites Carol Garboden Murray and Richard Cohen to help her process how problematic it is when we lose sight of children's current, lived experiences in favor of placing the weight of solving adult problems on those children's shoulders.

If there's one thing host Heather Bernt-Santy loves, it's a nerdy panel discussion! And this one is a good one...including Heather, Richard Cohen (Zen and the Art of Early Childhood), Nancy Rosenow (author of Encouragement Every Day), Carol Garboden Murray (author of Illuminating Care: The Practice and Pedagogy of Care) and Stacy Benge (author of The Whole Child Alphabet: How Young Children Actually Develop Literacy). Listen in as we talk about what we think we should call ourselves as we work with young children--teacher? Developmentalist? Caregiver? 

This week host Heather Bernt-Santy welcomes Dartmouth sociologist Dr Casey Stockstill, author of the book False Starts: The Segregated Lives of Preschoolers. In her book, she describes and discusses what she learned while conducting research in two different early childhood programs: a Head Start program and an affluent private preschool. "False Starts suggests that as we continue to invest in preschool as an anti-poverty policy, we need a fuller understanding of how segregated classroom environments impact children's educational outcomes and their ability to thrive."

Join host Heather Bernt-Santy and fellow nerd Lizz Nolasco as they explore this quote from an article by Beth Blue Swadener and Shirley Kessler: "Of significance among reconceptualist perspectives is the social, historical and political context of the early childhood curriculum. Underlying this rethinking of curriculum planning is the study of the relationship between what we teach in school and the unequal outcomes of schooling based on social class, race, language or dialect, and gender. According to this perspective, schools are seen not as the equalizer in society, as Horace Mann envisioned, but as a means of reproducing the race, class, and gender inequities which persist in society today."

The idea of loose parts is often misunderstood and misrepresented in early childhood spaces and conversations. In this conversation, Heather talks to authors Suzanne Axelsson and Miriam Beloglovsky to explore the origin of the idea, the reasons and ways it gets mixed up, and how to get back to the beauty and possibility of filling our spaces with the "stuff" of child exploration and creativity.