Havens of Hope

Redesigning the Future of Early Childhood Education

Shira Leibowitz

• Publisher: Redleaf Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781605547626
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica per la prima infanzia

Havens of Hope shares thehopeful energy and positive transformation that is emerging through the early childhood education field in this historic time ofpandemic, economic uncertainty, and protests for racial equity.It brings readers on a journey into the possibility for new approaches in education to learning emerging in response to the momentous challenges of our times.Deemed essential in most US states and many countries throughout the world, asubstantial number of early childhood centers remained open throughout the worst daysof pandemic, economic uncertainty, and protests for racial equity. Dr. Shira Leibowitz's center, Discovery Village Child Care and Preschool, located in downstate, New York, was one of the first COVID hotspots in the country. Seeking connection and companionship, she and other early childhood educators globallyjoined together during the worst of times for support and reflection. Havens of Hope shares the stories of resilience, creativity, and growth of schools and educators across the country.Inspiring approaches to early childhood learning of the 20th century—Montessori, Waldorf, and especially Reggio, were born out of crisis. Could this be a founding moment? Might we be witnessing, and even participating in, the birth of new approaches to learning and care, resonating with the needs of our owntimes?

Part One Beginnings

Introduction COVID-19 and the Start of Something New

Standing in the only open room at the child care center and preschool I had begun less than a year earlier, I wondered: Were we experiencing a founding moment for education, the start of something new? COVID-19 had changed everything. And not only in the obvious ways.

Long faulted for being painfully slow to change, schools transformed, literally overnight. Many did it exceptionally well. Not only were we navigating through a global pandemic and managing—we were getting better. The process was messy and full of challenges. Yet we were not only improving incrementally, as is typical in schools, even schools of excellence. We were improving exponentially, accomplishing what we had never before imagined possible. It was both a time of despair and a time of renewal.

It wasn’t the first time that crisis had fueled educational rebirth. The Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio-inspired approaches to learning were all born out of the turbulence and despair of twentieth-century Europe. Maria Montessori encountered gender and economic inequity in turn-of-thecentury Italy. Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf approach, was deeply influenced by the devastation Germany suffered in the aftermath of World War I. Loris Malaguzzi, who pioneered what has come to be known as Reggio-inspired learning, experienced the brutal oppression and destruction of World War II.

The messages of all three of these educational founders resonated deeply, reaching across continents and generations. I never imagined that I might one day live through events even remotely as consequential. Yet here I was, running a child care center and preschool in 2020 in downstate New York, one of the first and worst COVID-19 hotspots in the United States. Deemed essential in many states, including New York, child care programs were allowed and even encouraged to remain open even as schools and most businesses were required to shut down or operate remotely. K–12 schools and numerous early childhood programs moved immediately online, continuing to serve although they could not remain physically open.

From the very beginning of the pandemic, I chose for my child care center and preschool, Discovery Village in Tarrytown, New York, to remain open. Initially only a tiny number of children of essential workers attended. I decided also to provide free remote learning for my students who remained at home during those first frightening months of the pandemic. I implemented COVID-19 health protocols before there was guidance on how to do so, while functioning with essentially no income. Just weeks earlier, the thought of all of this would have sounded like a bizarre dystopian novel. And yet I was doing it.

I wasn’t alone. Throughout the country and throughout the world educators and families weren’t only surviving—we were rapidly improving, adapting to be present for our students in the ways they needed us, serving as havens of hope in a world in need of so much healing. This book shares some of our stories.

On the surface, this is a book about COVID, written in real time as the educators I interviewed and I were navigating through daunting challenges and adversity. Yet delving deeper, it’s not so much a book about COVID at all. It’s far more a reflection on what is possible for our learning and for our lives when we set our minds to saying “yes” to possibility.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, educators, parents, and children made the impossible possible. If we did it once, because we had to, we can do it again because we choose to. We can redesign learning to reflect our visions for our children and for our world.

As you read, I welcome you to view yourself in these pages. Consider how you design learning and care that resonates with your own vision and values while remaining responsive to the realities of those you teach, lead, and care for. I invite you to join in conversation and collaboration with many oth- ers who are charting their own course forward, designing schools and other educational programs that stand out by virtue of what they stand for.

I welcome you to see yourself in the pages of this book; your own work, sense of purpose and possibility, and responses to adversity. Rather than merely reading, I invite you to consider ways of applying the insights in this book to redesign learning in your own school or organization. You can access these resources to support you in the process for free at https://revabilities.com/books-by-shira-leibowitz. You’re also welcome to email me at

[email protected]. I’d love to hear from you!

Northern Italy, 1945

It had been only five days since World War II ended. Women and men, young and old, farmers and factory workers from the tiny working-class village of Villa Cella, in the Reggio Emilia province of northern Italy, banded together. Their village lay in ruins. The entire region, a stronghold of the Italian resistance, had suffered. The area had endured relentless bombing by the British and brutal attacks by Italian fascist forces. But, amid the devastation, there was love and hope.

Faced with rebuilding their lives, villagers showed rare vision as they focused not merely on surviving but on setting a strong foundation for the future. Using land donated by a farmer, stones and bricks from bombed-out buildings, and funding from the sale of a tank, three trucks, and a few horses abandoned by the German forces, they set out to build a preschool. They wanted quality learning and care for their children in the present, but they also sought to prepare the next generation to stand strong against the oppression, injustice, and inequity they were certain would arise again.

Hearing rumors about the preschool, twenty-five-year-old educator Loris Malaguzzi hopped onto his bicycle and rode to Villa Cella to see what was happening. Encountering mothers collecting materials to build their school, he introduced himself as a teacher. With that, they invited him to teach their children. Eight months later, The April 25th School, named in honor of Liberation Day, opened, with thirty young students in the pioneering class. In the following months, years, and decades, Malaguzzi inspired many other schools throughout the surrounding area, the province, the country, and, in time, the world. Reggio-inspired schools are hailed for their child-centered, relationship-based, experiential approach to learning. Less frequently celebrated is the grounding of the approach in that founding moment in Villa Cella. Bricks and love, stones and hope, sweat and the fiercely fought-for values of tolerance, justice, and equity set a foundation for the future.

Seventy-Five Years Later

It was the spring of 2020, only months since the first case of COVID-19. With a rapidly rising death toll globally, nonessential businesses as well as K–12 schools and universities in many parts of the world ceased all in-person operations. Economic uncertainty and massive unemployment followed. Child care centers, which in most places were deemed essential, were typically allowed, and even encouraged, to remain open. In the following months, egregious acts of brutality against people of color led to widespread protests for racial equity. Destructive weather events brought wreckage throughout the world. Teaching in an environment of such pain and despair, whether remotely or in person, took a heavy toll.

But amid the devastation, there was love and hope. Teachers and families banded together, seeking ways to care for and teach children in the frightening, uncertain environment in which we found ourselves. Conversations extended across countries and continents. Remembering past stories of hope in the face of crises that had birthed new educational approaches, some wondered: Might we be facing a moment similar to that experienced by the villagers of Villa Cella, Italy? Might the challenges we were facing fuel new possibilities for learning? The months, years, and decades lying ahead called to us. What gifts, what qualities of character might we instill in our children to help strengthen and prepare them for the challenges their futures might hold? What wisdom did the experiences of our own times have to offer?

Perhaps we were standing at a beginning, on the cusp of something new.

1 Founding Moments

The moment it first occurred to me that I might personally be experiencing a founding moment for education was at once mundane and powerful.

It was April 2020, and I was with the children in the only open classroom at Discovery Village Childcare and Preschool, the child care center I had started less than a year earlier in Tarrytown, New York. Only two out of more than twenty staff members were with me. The rest I sadly had to furlough, at least temporarily. Only six out of more than eighty children had come to school. The rest were at home with their families, adhering to the state’s shelter-in-place order. Ten out of the center’s eleven classrooms remained dark, silent, and empty.

But in our one open room, we were having fun. Two of our preschoolers were taking apart a farm they had made from cardboard boxes and repurposing the boxes to build a car wash. A third preschooler transformed the cardboard road to their farm into a road that led anywhere you wanted to vacation, real or imaginary. He then invited everyone, children and adults alike, to drive the spanking-clean toy cars coming out of the car wash down what he called his highway to happiness.

The remaining three toddlers were giving baths to toy animals, former residents of the now abandoned farm. They used individual bins filled with water and soapsuds. Before COVID-19, children had enjoyed sharing huge bins to explore a wide variety of materials. With COVID-19 we could no longer have many children touching the same materials. The switch to individual bins was seamless, and children were delighted to have their own materials.

The focus on washing, both cars and animals, emerged from our constant handwashing, a core component of our COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Between every activity, and at least every half hour, children washed their hands. Going to the sink and washing our hands became the punctuation mark of our days, offering a moment of respite during transitions.

Children had so much fun savoring the feel of water and soapsuds as they washed their hands that we filled their individual bins with soap and water. Our kids took it from there; creating a car wash, a highway for those clean cars, and bathtubs for their animals. They were, quite literally, cleansing their worlds, washing the animals and cars they so loved as well as their own precious hands. Simultaneously, they were opening their minds to the possible, creating their own highway to happiness, imagining where they wanted to go in the moment and well into the future.

In the following weeks, our children’s curiosity about water brought us in many new directions. We explored the depths of the sea and designed our own aquarium. We looked to the rain clouds above, showering our world with water, and built our own cloud observatory. We marveled at the power of water to nourish plants and people and tended an indoor garden. As we lost ourselves in our playful learning, the outside world melted away. It was as if each day we entered our very own island of calm, our very own haven of hope.

We did not take the environment of playful calm and hopeful possibility we were creating for granted. It is hard to recapture the fear and intensity of those days.

We were located in downstate New York, at the time among the worst COVID-19 hotspots in the world, so the health threats were terrifyingly real. Awakening each day feeling healthy was a tremendous blessing. While a far second from health concerns, financial threats also loomed large. The cost of remaining open for so few children was higher than the cost of closing. How long I could hang on financially was a very real worry. Health and hope became my guiding wishes. I began ending messages to people with the words “stay healthy and hopeful.”

Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I felt as if I had gone to sleep in one reality and awoken in another. Everything was at once different and the same. I alternately imagined myself as a character in a historical fiction novel; a time traveler returning to a past age; an immigrant in a new land, although I had never actually left home; a survivor in a dystopian reality; and an avatar in a video game. Embracing my tiny role in an unfolding global saga as an owner of a small business, a child care center and preschool deemed essential, I committed to doing everything possible to serve our families and children. I also reached out in fellowship to other child care centers. Having learned much about Small Business Administration loans, I guided other center owners through the process of applying for federal funding.

I not only wanted to remain physically open, I also wanted to reach out to the families and children who had suspended enrollment and were sheltering in place at home. Initially it felt ludicrous to even consider remote learning for preschoolers, toddlers, and especially infants. Yet we stretched our thinking, opening ourselves to possibilities we had never previously imagined. Soon those new options felt not only possible but even routine.

I began by sending electronic messages with activities families could enjoy together at home, conveying messages of hope. Teachers created videos of themselves leading songs, stories, exercise, and d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Part One: Beginnings
• Part Two: Adversity and Possibility
• Part Three: Igniting the Best Within Ourselves and Within Our Schools
• Epilogue: The Journey Ahead