At Preschool of the Arts, our mission is to nurture open-minded and open-hearted individuals who learn alongside one another and embrace the world with compassion, creativity, wonder, and joy.
Our Values
We value a culture of belonging and believe that participating in a variety of meaningful, connected, and transformative experiences creates conditions for becoming and learning within a group. By balancing the rights of self and others, we empower children and adults to be advocates for themselves, others, and generations to come.
We value reciprocal relationships and believe in learning with children, collaborating professionally with our peers, fostering family partnerships, and strengthening our connection to the natural world. Our approach is based on trust, mutual respect, care, and a deep desire to learn more.
We value intentional listening and believe in negotiating our curriculum through a process of observation, documentation, and reflection which nurtures a reverence for ongoing inquiry and investigation. As learners and educators, we welcome dialogue as essential to continuous learning.
We value aesthetics and believe in intentionally curating dynamic spaces that are inviting and beautiful because our environments serve as protagonists. We create spaces that reflect the people who interact within them, making visible their identities, their perspectives, and their ideas.
We value freedom of expression and believe children are naturally curious and motivated, capable of communicating their learning in many ways, particularly through the creative arts. We acknowledge, honor and celebrate differences and individuality, inviting all people to share their ways of knowing and being.
Applying Our Pedagogy: How we walk in our values
The Reggio Emilia approach encourages young children and their teachers to explore, question, theorize and draw conclusions in a rich and beautiful environment. It is intended that every child at PSA will have the opportunity to encounter the Reggio Emilia approach by experiencing our unique values. Although application of PSA’s pedagogy will vary according to the age group, abilities, and interests of each group of children, an underlying thread is our belief that children are powerful and competent learners and that they learn best in thoughtfully prepared and engaging environments by educators who are loving, enthusiastic, joyful, and careful listeners.
Approach to Children
We support an image of the child as capable and strong. We advocate for our school to be a place that provides environments where children are protagonists in their learning and where there are opportunities for children to express their thinking in diverse ways that include the arts.
Role of the Educator
Our teachers serve as researchers, nurturers, and guides learning alongside children. We are responsible for providing a consistent, compassionate, and developmentally appropriate environment that meets the cognitive, emotional, social, and physical needs of young children.
Role of Families
We view our families as partners playing an active role in their child’s learning experiences. As the child’s first teachers, families are viewed as co-teachers supporting the learning of the child, while at the same time helping ensure the welfare of all children in the school.
The Learning Environment
We view our environment as the third teacher and a powerful protagonist of the learning. Every space has an identity and a purpose, is rich in potential to engage, and is valued and cared for by children and adults. Read more about our classrooms here.
A Shared Project Curriculum
Our negotiated curriculum is developed through collaboration between teacher and child. Teachers facilitate children’s exploration of short- and long-term investigations, and guide experiences of shared, open-ended discovery and problem solving.
Learning Made Visible
Pedagogical documentation creates evidence of learning within our classroom communities. We reflect on and document children’s thoughts, ideas, growth and construction of knowledge as a form of communication with the community and an opportunity for further learning.
Integration of the Arts
We believe that each child has a right to an artful life, expressing themselves through the Reggio Inspired concept of a hundred languages. Children utilize unique ways of communicating, and their varied languages provide rich insights into their thoughts, emotions, and creativity.
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