ECC Directors Blog

October 2016

Our faculty has been involved in deep learning and reflection. As teachers improve their practice, our students and families benefit significantly.

Teachers also benefit greatly from being in each other’s presence as they constantly strive to develop their skills. This year we made an effort to formalize these opportunities and we turned to our own teachers to lead the faculty in professional development.

Beth Sackman, who has been participating in Project LEAD, (a grant we receive from the Jewish Education Project) helped identify a professional action plan for our staff for this year. We have made a commitment to work together on intentional language, and be more thoughtful in how we all speak to children. Beth worked together with Alison Popky, a teacher in our fours, to present a workshop to our teachers where they outlined ten core values of our school and described how our language is reflective of each of these values. They gave many good examples of how the words we choose support our beliefs in children and their capabilities. All of the teachers came out enriched from the workshop and look forward to a year of learning focusing on this topic.

Our teachers can learn from each other and our teachers are also being asked to share their wisdom and experience with others in the field. Alison recently presented a workshop at the annual conference of the Jewish Early Childhood Association. The presentation titled “SEWING TOGETHER MEANING AND PURPOSE” explored the journey a number of students in her class took in expanding their interest and skills in sewing. She showed how by following the children’s passion, she was able to reach so many learning goals including: sustained attention, fine motor development, planning, kindness, perspective taking, turn taking, perseverance, growth and creativity.

The workshop was very well received by all of the teachers in attendance and Alison brought honor to our school’s name.