Georgina Ardalan is an early childhood educator at Janney Elementary, a District of Columbia Public School, who draws on inspiration from her first career in architecture to create a nurturing and collaborative environment within a thinking culture where teachers and children both question and listen. During the school year she serves as a facilitator for Harvard University's Graduate School of Education’s online courses “Let’s Play” and “Look, Listen, Interpret, Teach.” She serves on the faculty of national institutes including Washington International School Institute for Teachers (WISIT), Project Zero Classroom (PZC), and the Cultures of Thinking Summit. She has presented at national and international conferences on her work with Children Are Citizens. She has published articles in Young Children, a National Association for the Education of Young Children publication; International Perspectives on Educating for Democracy in Early Childhood: Recognizing Young Children as Citizens, edited by Stacy DeZutter and published by Routledge; and most recently in NCTE's Classroom Corridors, issue 11, "Art Invites Us In." She holds a BA from George Washington University and three master's degrees in design-related fields from Parsons School of Design and the University of Miami. Georgina and her family live on Capitol Hill, where she is often found on the pickleball court, cheering on her son at a soccer game, or simply walking around our amazing city.
What might it look like when two educators from different schools create a single point of connection that brings their students together in community for one year? In 2017 Jaime Chao Mignano, the director of technology and innovation at Stone Ridge...