Silver Lining Story
We are grateful for the wonderful community connections that have grown out of the covid crisis. First it was the emergency covid funding offered by many local organizations when our program was first shut down in the spring. Then it was the way our local early childhood community came together to support each other as we navigated closing and reopening our schools. But one of the greatest silver linings we have enjoyed has been the deepening community connection with our local arts center that has developed in direct response to new covid reopening guidelines.
At Garden Gate Child Development Center on Martha's Vineyard, we have continued to seek opportunity and find the good in this time of crisis. One significant reopening strategy that we have been fortunate to put in place has been to secure an additional temporary space in The Pebble Gallery at Featherstone Center for the Arts to use as an auxiliary classroom for the 2020-2021 school year. This strategy builds on and strengthens our ongoing collaborative relationship with the Featherstone arts community. With the addition of an auxiliary classroom at Featherstone, we are able to meet new covid regulations and obtain more square footage and make room for all returning children, providing a rich and creative school environment with opportunities for greater social distancing and outdoor programming on their expansive campus. This has provided us, as educators, with a tremendous opportunity to see new possibilities and to think about our classrooms and curriculum in new ways.
We have been inspired by the beautiful studio spaces at Featherstone to reimagine childhood in this time of covid. Our classrooms have been transformed into studios for learning and our outdoor spaces into expansive laboratories of discovery. We have created a classroom within The Pebble Gallery that draws on the art center’s long history of arts education. Using the arts to explore and express thinking about coming back to school is helping the children process through complex emotions. The children’s creative work is often an outlet for stress or anxiety and provides a language through which children can connect and share ideas even when physically distanced. Through play and project work, our children are encouraged to think deeply about new ways to care for themselves and at the same time be encouraged to think about how we care for each other even as we create new ways to be together.
Doing this work on the Featherstone campus, where we walk among outdoor sculptures and call hello to fellow artists as they head to their studios has inspired us and lifted us up in ways we wouldn’t have imagined. We have been able to reopen safely and beautifully, honoring children and keeping their image as capable and creative at the forefront. Children, parents and teachers arrive each day with joy, grateful for the opportunity to be together once again. Our classroom at Featherstone is a temporary solution to what we hope is a temporary challenge, but we know the impact on our program will be long lasting as the relationship with Featherstone continues to grow.