Resources

Articles, Books, Organizations, and more…

Below you will find various resources, categorized by topic. We have utilized these as references that inform our practice, however we do not seek to abide by only one approach.  Instead we utilize the parts that resonate with us and ponder the sections that provoke new questions.  Just as with the children, we encourage parents and teachers to strengthen their own internal compasses and support structures, so that ultimately we can all trust in ourselves and our community.

Please let us know if you find another resource that you think we should add.

Social Emotional

• Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
• Autonomy: The Aim of Education Envisioned by Piaget – Constance Kamii
  
• How Emotions are Made, by Lisa Barrett
• Parent Effectiveness Training
• How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk
• Hold Onto Your Kids
• Beyond Consequences
• Hand in Hand Parenting
• The Whole Brain Child, by Daniel Siegel
• Parenting from the Inside Out, by Daniel Siegel

The Patchwork School continues to be a national leader in cutting- edge education for young children. Blending philosophies, primarily Reggio Emilia and democratic education, they are looked to as *the* example for what is possible in early childhood education.

Isaac Graves
Outreach Coordinator, Alternative Education Resource Organization

Democratic, Humane & Alternative Education

• A Thousand Rivers “What the modern world has forgotten about children and learning.”
• The Happy Child by Stephen Harrison
• Creating Learning Communities edited by Ron Miller
• Making It Up As We Go Along and In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids’ Inner Wildness by Chris Mercogliano
• How to Grow a School by Chris Mercogliano
• The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World’s Most Surprising School System.
• The Power and Promise of Humane Education by Zoe Weil
• Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century by Howard Gardner
• Ted talks about creativity from Sir Ken Robinson: Schools Kill Creativity and Bring on the Learning Revolution
• Assessment Equity in a Multicultural Society by Asa G. Hilliard III-Baffour Amankwatia II
• Let Kids Rule the School from the New York Times
• Want your kids to get into college?  Let Them play – CNN, December 2010
• Creativity Crisis – Newsweek, July 2010
• Assessment Without High Stakes Testing – Waldorf Perspectives, July 2009
• Old Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills – NPR, February 2008
• Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School – Slate, March 2011
• Unschoolers Learn What They Want When They Want – CNN, August 2011
  

Reggio Emilia

• Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners from Project Zero, Reggio Children
• The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach – Advanced Reflections edited by Carolyn Edwards, Lella Gandini & George Forman

Related Organizations

• Education Reimagined
• Institute for Democratic Education in America
• Alternative Education Resource Organization
• Institute for Humane Education
• North American Reggio Emilia Alliance

Papers Written By Staff

• From Assertive Discipline to Participatory Democracy: The Spectrum of Behavior Management Approaches – Michele Beach (Patchwork Director)
• To Intervene or Not To Intervene: My First Week At Patchwork – Kerry Cerelli (Patchwork Teacher)
• Parents are People Too, Michele Beach
• Creating Positive Negatives, Brenda Ilowit

What is school?
School is not preparation for life, but is life itself.
—John Dewey
 
A place where every one of its coparticipants can discover and explore the full range or their own unique forms of specialness.
—Chris Mercogliano, The Albany Free School
 
A bond of interdependence that can give each subject the meaning of his or her presence and of the presence of others.
—Filippini, Reggio Emilia

my good idea

i have a good idea.

let’s play school.

but instead of you being the teacher and me being the student 

let’s just have a conversation

and instead of desks 

let’s have a round table, and a tree fort 

and lots of pillows lying around on the floor

and instead of curriculum 

let’s have bugs and plants and books and microscopes 

with lots of jars holding strange little objects 

like dragonfly wings and letters to mice and miniature trumpets

and instead of tests or grades 

let’s have internal motivation 

that lets us do things in life because we’re more interested in the process of doing 

than we are in the analysis of the product

and instead of due dates and deadlines 

let’s have time. lots of time. 

time for climbing trees and singing songs and making cookies 

time for being ourselves

and instead of authority let’s have community 

we can see each other as people 

no matter how old you are or how young i am

and instead of recess 

let’s have the outdoors be a place 

we go anytime, all day long 

like the kitchen, or the living room or the grocery store or the post office 

we just go outside and it’s a normal sort of thing to do

i have a good idea.

Elizabeth Baker, Co-Founder