our Programs rest on the shoulders of innovative educators.
Research in cognition and the arts is the backbone of our teaching. Learn about three experts who’ve inspired us.
Sybil Marshall
British Primary School Educator
“If you teach children to use the environment, materials, and their imaginations, what they will have done is math and literacy.” —S.M.
In her first year of teaching Sybil Marshall realized that art is a doorway to connected learning, and enticing materials trigger big ideas. Taking kids out into their village, she made history come alive, inspiring large scale works of art. Children noticed what they’d never seen before. Marshall’s vision of Thematic Teaching changed the course of schooling in Britain, paving the way for progressive educators like ours for decades to come.
Jerome Bruner
Cognitive Psychologist
“Learning should not only take us somewhere; it should allow us later to go further more easily.” —J.B.
Bruner knew that skills that cut across subject areas, like observing, analyzing, and synthesizing, provoke deep thinking. He recognized that even our youngest children construct meaning by making connections between new information and prior experience. Bruner taught us to focus on process and be intentional about building bridges between ideas.
Loris Malaguzzi
Founder, Reggio Emilia Schools
“Learning and teaching should not stand on the opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning and how to learn.” —L.M.
In Reggio Emilia-inspired classrooms both children and teachers are learners. Art and nature go hand-in-hand. Malaguzzi reminds us that each child’s voice gives us a window into the complexity of their thoughts and enables us to respond personally to a student’s theories. Leaps is committed to documentation, capturing kids’ thinking in words and photographs.
In a recent Brookings Institute elementary school study, more than 86% of the participants affirm that, “Art makes us think about things in new ways.” *
At Leaps of Imagination we are always learning, creating a culture of artistry and thinking. Our programs, both out of doors and in classroom “studios,” have grown with the continued support of our public school partners, individual donors, and the Davis Family Foundation, Maine Arts Commission, Maine Community Foundation, Nellie Leaman Taft Foundation, Onion Foundation, Partners in Island Education, Vinalhaven Land Trust, Wheeler Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, Belfast Bay Watershed Coalition, and the Crewe Foundation. We are enormously grateful for their generosity.
* Source
See the full breakdown of skills that Leaps of Imagination teaches here.
