LETTER FROM DR. ELLEN HALL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

June has arrived and with it the beginning of Boulder Journey School’s summer session. Each year during summer set up, in anticipation of a new school semester, teachers work together to give new visibility to the work of children and adults in the school. Additionally, based on observations of the children in their classrooms, teachers create and display new materials and new provocations designed to support and encourage the children’s questions and ideas. To this end, we have begun to more carefully consider the ways in which we display documentation, seeking to highlight the unfolding of long-term investigations, considering the importance of children’s ‘reading’ of documentation, and exploring formats that invite interaction. We have also expanded hallway provocations, with a new gravity wall created by Boulder High students, a drawing wall created by our technology manager, Sam Hall and a space dedicated to the exploration of flagstone.

June also heralds the arrival in Boulder of the new North American version of the traveling exhibit, from Reggio Emilia, Italy, “The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children”.  This year’s annual summer conference, which coincides with the opening of the exhibit in Boulder, is a collaboration among the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA), Reggio Children and Boulder Journey School. Over 600 educators from around the world will travel to Boulder to tour the exhibit and our school and to listen to and reflect upon presentations by colleagues from Reggio Emilia and from contexts throughout North America. In addition to touring Boulder Journey School, participants will have an opportunity to work with materials in the classrooms. Materials workshops will focus on the properties, affordances and constraints of paper, tape, ramps and wheels. The title of the conference, “Dialogues for Quality in Education: The School as a Place of Research” resonates with the ongoing research of children and adults at Boulder Journey School. Co-Directors, Alison Maher and Andrea Sisbarro and Executive Director, Ellen Hall will present examples of this research to educators attending the conference.

Leading up to conference week, faculty at Boulder Journey School will have the opportunity to work with Reggio Children consultant, Amelia Gambetti. Amelia has been working with educators at our school since 1999, and thus has inspired, encouraged and supported the evolution of our philosophy of education and how this philosophy is translated in the work of children and adults in the school.   

The professional development opportunities generated by our hosting of the exhibit in Boulder, at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) for four months and in Denver for the two months following, also include an evening at the exhibit for families, private and community initiatives, visitorships and study tours. Faculty at Boulder Journey School look forward to spending time in the exhibit while it is in Boulder/Denver as docents,  sharing our interpretations of the Reggio philosophy and as viewers, finding inspiration and encouragement in the work of our Italian colleagues.

View Spring 2008 Letter
View Fall 2007 Letter
View Summer 2007 Letter
View Spring 2007 Letter
View Fall 2006 Letter
View Summer 2006 Letter