A Note from the Director

I remember when I first heard about Kumara School, I was in a classroom at San Francisco State. Hearing a report from a student who had visited the program, she described the scene she encountered on entering the front gate; "there were 2 children barefoot in their pajamas, singing and swinging". The power of that image lured me to my own visit to Kumara School. I recognized immediately that Kumara was a wonderful place to be a child and I was drawn right in. After 15 years here, I'm still drawn in and proud to be part of a school that continues to celebrate the multifaceted experience that is childhood.

First you start with a place where as Wende says, "everyone is perfect just the way they are". Far from a platitude, the statement celebrates the understanding that, we are who we are, and, from there is the only place we can start our journey. For children at Kumara School this is the journey into a community of friends and teachers that support the development of their interests, relationships, dispositions, strategies, concepts and skills. These are the founding experiences through which they come to understand themselves and their way in the world.

At Kumara the faculty works together to continue to deepen our understanding of children and our best roles in their development. By beginning with the experience of the child as lively investigator of the world, we have come to understand our role as partner, nurturer and guide. Children have a drive to understand the world around them, intellectually, socially, emotionally and spiritually and we need only look to their play and experiences to find out what is important to them. Teachers work as co-constructors of the curriculum with the children. Using their considerable knowledge, skills and experience, teachers engage with the children and their ideas to deepen questions, reveal thinking, promote the development of theories and hypotheses and encourage critical discussion of ideas. Teachers study their work with the children by creating documentation panels of the learning. Colleagues, parents and children also create new understandings of the work through the documentation panels which are part of the classroom. By presenting the panels and speaking about their work in the larger community, teachers remind people that young children are important and active members of the larger community and they deserve to be celebrated.

The education of young children is a partnership with family, school and community. We welcome you and your family to the conversation.

Sincerely,
Cathy Greene