Behind the Classroom: How Teacher Learning and Planning Nurtures Our Children
Understanding Professional Development at WMS
At The Washington Market School, we believe that curiosity never stops growing, for our children and our teachers. Continuous learning allows our educators to dive deeper into early childhood research, nurture their own growth, and bring fresh joy and inspiration back to their classrooms every day.
To support this, we’ve added dedicated Professional Development Planning Days to this year’s school calendar. While these days quiet our hallways for a moment, they give our teachers the time they need to collaborate, innovate, and thoughtfully design meaningful experiences for every child.
Recently, Nicole Vaughan, Director of Advancement, sat down with Carrie Kries, Head of School, Heather Burchyns, Duane Street Site Director, and Marielle Lopez, Hudson Street Site Director, to explore how our educators learn, how that passion translates into classroom magic, and why investing in planning time is truly an investment in our children.
Learning Beyond the Classroom
What does it mean to be a lifelong learner as an educator?
Heather: I think lifelong learning is about being curious. We want our educators to be curious about research, best practices, and the many ways children can learn and teachers can teach.
Things change, and we want to be curious about that change. It’s not about throwing everything out and starting over. It’s about taking what we’re already doing and using new information to make it better.
Carrie: A great example is literacy. What we understand about how children learn to read and the foundational skills they need continues to evolve. Lifelong learning means being open to change, understanding the research behind it, and using new information to make our practice stronger.
This Fall, The Washington Market School partnered with early literacy expert Carolyn Strom for two interactive sessions, where WMS educators explored the neuroscience of reading development through an early childhood lens.
Why is curiosity so important to WMS’s approach to professional development?
Carrie: As Head of School my goal is that our educators center curiosity before any other wondering. When curiosity comes before judgment, we are in an ideal position to learn and understand in ways that allow us to put the child and their family’s experience in front of our own assumptions.
Marielle: I also think about curiosity in terms of really getting to know each child. Every child is different. We are curious about all aspects of child development: where a behavior is coming from, why a child is drawn to one area of the classroom, or why they may be particularly interested in numbers or language.
That curiosity keeps us observing, asking questions, and learning more about the children in front of us.
How does WMS empower teachers to continually deepen their expertise?
Marielle: In so many ways! Since 2023, educators are hired with the expectation of pursuing Montessori training after 2 years at WMS; fully funded by the school. WMS fully funds an early childhood master’s degree focused on the philosophies and practices of the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education, allowing our teachers to deepen their expertise in this important area of our program. Educators can also participate in conferences, workshops, and other learning opportunities that support their individual professional journeys.
We also have opportunities to learn together as a school community, including working with outside experts and sharing learning from seminars and conferences with our colleagues.
Heather: Part of being a lifelong learner is sharing expertise with fellow educators. At our school, teachers actively contribute to the broader education community by leading professional learning opportunities. Last year, Carrie, Marielle, and I had the privilege of presenting at the American Montessori Society (AMS) Annual Conference. In the spring, Linda Incantalupo, Kayleigh McCallister, and Maria Henley shared their work at the AMS Regional Conference, and later this year, Carmen Andino, Molly Kendall, and Marielle will present at the national AMS Conference in Chicago.
We aren’t just learning for ourselves; we’re contributing to the learning of our colleagues and the broader field. These opportunities to teach the teachers allows our teachers to think deeply about their practices and share their expertise beyond the classroom and our school.
Carrie: We also think about professional development as something that can extend to our families. We value the opportunity to bring early childhood expert speakers into the school who work with both our teachers and our parents so that we can create shared community learning.
WMS Teachers, Maria Henley, Linda Incantalupo, and Kayleigh McAllister, presented at the American Montessori Society (AMS) Regional Symposium on implementing a food tasting and cooking curriculum.
WHY IS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SUCH A POWERFUL INVESTMENT?
Marielle: There is an incredible trickle-down effect. When you invest in teachers, that investment goes directly to the children and their experience. The more our educators learn about different fields and areas of child development, the better prepared they are to understand and support the individual children in their classrooms.
Carrie: Early childhood is not a straight line. It is multi-layered and complex. There are developmental milestones that we understand as professionals, but every child will find their way through those milestones on their own timeline.
The deeper our educators’ understanding of child development, and the more time they have to plan, the richer and more responsive each child’s experience will be.
When Teachers Learn and Plan, Children Benefit
Take us inside a Planning Day. How does it benefit the children?
Heather: There is only a small amount of time before and after school, and during the school day our teachers are entirely focused on engaging with children. Dedicated planning time gives them the sustained time they need to work collaboratively and go deeper in their curriculum development, classroom design, and implementation of best practices.
This year, Professional Development Planning Days are designed for teachers to delve deeply into planning for their individual learners and classroom communities as a whole. This includes honing in on the children’s readiness for skill development in each domain: Cognitive, Math/Sensorial, Literacy, Language, Physical Well-Being, Social Emotional, and Approaches to Learning. During Planning Days, teachers are also working on determining which specific works to place on their shelves that both appeal to the children’s interests and curiosities as well as bring these developmental skills to life.
Marielle: Families may not always realize how much conversation happens around individual children.
Teachers are thinking about individual children and groups of children, considering their development, preparing for meetings, and determining how to support each child’s next steps. It’s not simply, “We’re going to plan a lesson about letters.” It’s, “This child could benefit from focused attention on this particular skill,” or “This child needs more time to connect socially,” or “How can we think about these children together?”
This intentional, nuanced work takes time. Dedicated Planning Days give our teaching teams the essential space and resources to plan thoughtfully for every child.
What led WMS to prioritize dedicated Planning Days?
Carrie: We spent a great deal of time considering how to create the additional planning time we knew was necessary to bring the Journey pillar and Educator pillar of our Strategic Plan to life.
We considered multiple options. Ultimately, we determined that, for our school community, adding dedicated school closure days for planning would be less disruptive than having early dismissals once a week or several times a month, as is common in some preschools.
We were also intentional about where we placed those days, aligning them when possible with existing school closures or public school calendar closures. Our goal was to minimize disruption for families while maximizing the opportunity for teachers to engage in critical planning.
What do you hope families understand about Planning Days?
Carrie: WMS has extraordinary expectations of its educators. In order for educators to rise to those expectations, we need to honor and respect that they require proper time within their workday to accomplish everything we ask of them.
That time isn’t optional if we want to deliver on what we promise to our children and their parents.
Heather: We also want families to see the impact of that time. When teachers return from a Planning Day, children and their parents will be able to see and experience the work that happened as a result.
We want to make the connection to these Planning Days visible. Children may see new work in the classroom and partake in new lessons; teachers will be able to share something they learned about the children’s development or explain how they are thinking about the next month of learning in Daily Posts, parent-teacher conferences and the children’s end-of-year portfolios.
How CAN PARENTS EXPLAIN school closures?
Heather: It can be very simple: Teachers need to learn, too.
Just as children come to school to learn and grow, teachers are sometimes at school learning, planning, and preparing for the children.
Marielle: We can also help children understand that their teachers are using that time to get their classrooms ready for them to learn more when they return. There may be new materials or new works waiting for them because their teachers had time to think carefully about what would support their learning.
complete this sentence: "Professional development plus dedicated planning time equals…"?
Carrie: An exceptional learning experience for every single child.
