Spring Staff Development Day

By Jamie Leach, Assistant Teacher

Each spring, teachers have the opportunity to come together to reflect on the passing school year and further develop their skills as teachers. This year, the recent return of seven teachers who traveled to Italy on a Reggio Emilia study tour and the increasing momentum of the Tower House renovation project made the spring staff development day a particularly exciting time to reflect on our own school’s history as well as its future. On April 30, teachers participated in a full day of discussion, learning, and small group work.

In light of the Reggio Emilia study tour, the entire teaching staff read the article, Reactions to Visiting the Infant-Toddler and Preschool Centers in Reggio Emilia, Italy by early childhood education professor Tess Bennett, PhD. The article nicely summarized the philosophy, environment, and classroom culture of the Reggio schools. Staff development day began with small group discussions of this article, with each group lead by one of the teachers who participated in the study tour. During this small group time, teachers learned more about the Reggio philosophy and then went on to discuss Bing’s philosophy and identity. Teachers later came together as a large group to share their reflections on the Reggio approach as well as the work we do here at Bing. The staff also enjoyed looking through some mementos from Bing’s earliest days, over 40 years ago! Director Jeanne Lepper shared a beautifully bound book of photographs from the school’s opening, as well as Bing’s first brochure. Jeanne was a head teacher at Bing when the school first opened, and she has carefully saved these artifacts to remind us of the school’s beginnings.

The staff enjoyed the small-group discussion time. It was great to exchange and share ideas with colleagues who work on different teams. It was a moment of collective reflection on Bing’s philosophy/practices and those of Reggio Emilia in their own context.

The spring staff development day provides a time for teachers to learn more about the research that is such an integral part of Bing’s mission as a laboratory school. This year, we heard from seven researchers about their current work at Bing. The following studies were presented: Children’s Understanding of Generic Sentences; Monolingual and Bilingual Children’s Use of Mutual Exclusivity Assumption in Word Learning; Understanding Preschool Children’s Concepts of Food Categories; Language and Social Reasoning; Investigating the Importance of Diversity in Preschool; Children’s Behavioral Inhibition; Beliefs about Goodness and Helplessness; and Behavioral Investigations of Perceptual Learning. Researchers Aaron Anderson, Andrei Cimpian, Sean Drake, Caitlin Fausey, Allison Master, Davie Yoon, and Quin Yow shared the theoretical foundations of their work, the protocols they use in the game rooms, and their results thus far. We also heard from professor Lera Boroditsky about her research investigating the impact that language has on thought. (See page 8 for more information on Boroditsky’s research.) She has conducted this research with children and adults alike, at Bing and around the world.

The day concluded with time for more small group work. Teachers had the choice of working on documentation and classroom portfolios, attending the monthly Bing Writers Group meeting, or working on presentations for the upcoming parent seminar series.