Welcome from the Director of CDS

Hello! Children’s Day School has been loving and caring for children since 1946! I am so happy to be a part of this wonderful place and am thankful to have the opportunity to carry on the spirit of CDS. My job is proving to be the best…In what other profession can you get excited, warm welcomes; wonderful, honest declarations; innocent, funny questions and lots of hugs each day?

As early childhood educators, we have a huge responsibility. It is in the early years of a child’s development that he/she forms who they will become as an individual. Therefore, CDS’s unique program is based on the principles of respect, responsibility and community that follow the natural development of children. We focus on helping children develop and maintain close relationships with their peers and teachers and provide an environment that is both supportive and enriching. I love this poem by Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of the Reggio Emilia Early Childhood Philosophy. It is inspiration for us, as adults, to think about the world from a child’s perspective. It is my hope that we can aspire to the message it gives as we work (play) with children each day at Children’s Day School.

The Hundred Languages of Children
The child is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking of playing, of speaking.

A hundred.

Always a hundred ways of listening
of marveling, of loving
a hundred joys for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds to discover
a hundred worlds to invent
a hundred worlds to dream.

The child has a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.

The school and the culture separate the head from the body.
They tell the child: to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel only at Easter and at Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.

They tell the child:
that work and play reality and fantasy science
and imagination sky and earth reason and dream
are things that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way.
The hundred is there.
-Loris Malaguzzi Founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach