Center School

The Center School is a progressive, independent day school (Preschool - 8th grade) offering rigorous education for deep thinkers and creative spirits.  

I served as pedagogista for the prek-K1 educators from 2024 to 2026. I met once a month with the teachers to support their pedagogical documentation with a cycle of inquiry process. 

In 2025 - ‘26 the teachers and children explored together the big idea of ownership.

Research Questions:

  • What are the rules of ownership?

  • What are our adult rules of ownership? 

  • What are the rules of ownership from the children’s perspectives?

  • Where are the boundaries between collective and individual ownership?

  • When are children exposed to and gathering information about the idea of ownership?

  • What questions and/or tensions might they be trying to figure out regarding the idea of ownership?

“[E]verywhere we go, everything we do, entails at least a momentary calculation of possessory relationships and rights. Yet, calculations of ownership can be subtle and complex: ownership is both invisible and abstract.”

Noles, Nicholaus S, and Keil, Frank C. “Exploring ownership in a developmental context.”

M: “I don’t want anyone to take my baby anymore. It’s my baby, my baby, my baby. It is my baby. Don’t take my baby!”

Discussing a stick picked up in the woods.

F: “P found it and says that it is hers. But it’s actually mine.”
J: “How can you tell it’s yours?”
F: “Look at it! I just remember that one is mine!”

J: “You both seem so sure that the stick belongs to each of you. Could it belong to both of you at the same time?”
F: “No. It’s mine.”
P: “No it’s mine.”

“How does it organize their world? How are they figuring out what it means, both from us and then within their own culture? We know kids have their own cultural, you know, rules and things that they create.”

Teacher

★

“Well, it's especially interesting to me because I feel like a lot of my kids are nonverbal or just starting to become verbal. So a lot of what I say is just like, echoed back to me. So I'm literally giving them meaning.”

Teacher