Katie Stafford, a teacher on Africa Mercy ship, shares a glimpse of her experience in a floating school. Katie answered these questions from aboard the ship, now docked in Madagascar. What pulled you to serve as a teacher in such an unusual, mobile loca­tion? Well, I have always had the travel adventure bug. I wanted to see the world . It’s also…

Caring Spaces, Learning Places: Children’s environments that work  by Jim Greenman Greenman devoted his life’s work to studying, understand­ing, and constructing environments for young children. He published articles and smaller works over the years but this text is a crowning compendium of his findings and passion. Though as lengthy as a textbook, it reads conversationally. Components of nurturing environments are carefully developed,…

Addressing  the Centre’s Emotional Climate  Adapted from Attentive & Attuned: Knowing  and Serving in the Early Edu­cation Program, pp. 37-49 (Baer, Maher, Leak) Attunement begins with me. I can be intentional about forging relationships with the individuals in my class. But to cultivate those attuned relation­ ships and to display the posture that draws chil­dren in, I must first prepare…