Kathy is a Registered Early Childhood Educator from Ontario, Canada. She currently works part time, at a Reggio Inspired Forest and Nature school, Blueberry Creek Forest and Nature Centre, and explores ideas related to children connecting to and in nature. She is a Forest and Nature School Practitioner trained by Forest School Canada and is studying the ways in which children connect to nature through artistic processes and how that transforms their thinking.
While studying the arts through the completion of her Creative Arts Certificate from Algonquin College, Kathy has been exploring creative expressions with textiles, photography, mixed media and multiple art mediums, to expand on her abilities to support children, educators and families in growing into a relationship with these forms of expression. Digital languages in relation to artistic mediums is a current focus of research and study.
Kathy has also completed her Emergent Curriculum Certificate, from the Ontario Reggio Association, which has deepened her practice and embedded pedagogical approaches that support participation, pedagogical documentation and children’s theory making.
With her intensive study tour in (March 2018) to Reggio Emilia, Italy, Kathy continues to study and learn and expand her knowledge of the processes of pedagogical documentation and thinking of curriculum with a design approach.
Kathy started ReCognition, as a place to engage with educators in individual programs to support pedagogical approaches that honour their interests and research as a team, while using pedagogical tools and modelling for staff how they can grow into their practice with facilitated conversations, studies of their own work and provocations with ideas, stories, examples, and hands on experiences.
Kathy, as a pedagogical collaborator, supports a co-construction of learning with each other.
” I am a designer of learning spaces for educators who see the potential for more meaningful ways of being with children, in our programs and contexts.”
Kathy continues to be a curious learner and strives to offer learning experiences with herself and others, that promote generative thinking in professional learning, developing creativity in herself and others, and valuing curiosity as a disposition.