In a recent exhibition, the teachers at Charlestown Nursery School (CNS) shared the important lessons they’ve learned from leaving their building and running their preschool program outdoors in their Boston neighborhood.

The move to the great urban outdoors occurred last fall in the middle of the pandemic. Every morning staff packed supplies into red wagons and pulled the wagons to a local park that served as a classroom. Children arrived in masks and weather appropriate clothing. Being outside helped mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

How did it go?

The teachers say it was the best year ever.
 

To heighten their point, they put together the exhibition — “The Qualities of High Quality: Why Reimagining School Matters Now More than Ever” – to engage policymakers in a discussion about access, quality, and how to optimize young children’s learning experiences.

The exhibition was held in the John Harvard Mall, a brick plaza in Charlestown that overlooks the outdoor classroom spaces that CNS used.

For children, being outside offered a delightful and educational range of options. There were traditional activities like playing with blocks as well as uniquely outdoor activities like studying nesting birds and measuring daffodils. Children practiced their letters next to historic Freedom Trail signs, and they designed pulley systems that were small scale versions of the construction cranes on North Washington Street.

In addition, the children met and exceeded state early learning standards, enjoyed social relationships, and had expanded views of and interactions with their communities.

CNS’ move outside also shows the importance of having high-quality teachers. CNS did not have a bigger budget. And it obviously didn’t have a new building. All it had were teachers who figured out how to use existing resources in a more strategic way.

Another key ingredient: salaries. CNS pays its teachers the same rate as the starting salary of Boston Public School teachers. And CNS teachers have paid planning time so they can come up with creative, personalized curricula for their students.

One teacher says she could not have engaged in such demanding teaching at her previous position in early education because back then she had to get a second job at night. She adds:

“I am not sure I would have stayed in this field if I had not found a school where I could make a living wage.”
 

For the exhibition, each CNS teacher made a panel to show how they developed curriculum and to highlight the work children did. An exhibition brochure highlights these and other points, among them:

• “The quality of programming, not the quantity, matters.”

• Instead of making identical, product-focused art, children should have the opportunity to create expressive works using studio techniques while being guided by professional early educators.

• Instead of letter of the week worksheets, children can learn sound-symbol relationships in real life settings. And instead of toys that limit imaginations, children can study actual, sophisticated tools.

More than 50 people attended the exhibition, including parents, policymakers, and public school educators. One of the attendees, Massachusetts Representative Daniel Ryan (D-Boston) said:

“To see teachers out here in early September and also in the middle of the winter making school happen, has been a great example to all of us. Our next steps are to figure out how to make this possible for more children.”

CNS has some suggestions about how this could happen, including:

• funding expanded access to quality early education programs; quality should not be limited to parents who can afford to pay for it

• prioritizing fair, family-sustaining wages for early educators

• enabling early educators to enroll in higher education programs that include mentoring, coaching, and student loan forgiveness

• invest in a mixed delivery early education system that includes, programs in schools, programs in centers, and family-owned programs

• ensure that all mixed delivery programs can connect families to needed services and community programs, and

• expose teachers to excellent early learning programs and use these examples to set goals and standards

 

 
As CNS has found, the reengineering early education – even in the middle of a pandemic – can be profoundly inspiring. As one CNS parent says:

“This is the type of learning — around opening a food truck, designing a bridge or protecting urban forests – [that] you might see in graduate school. They really follow the interests and questions of children then tie in the skills.”

Now the challenge is to take this example of a reimagined preschool and share it so that other programs can devise new, creative, and strategic ways to offer young children a truly meaningful education.