Growing Teachers: Partnerships in Staff Development
by Elizabeth Jones

Chapter 6
Co-Creating Primary Curriculum: Boulder Valley Schools
by Maja Apelman

Notes From the Storyteller*

*Here the storyteller is Maja Apelman, describing several years of going to the brick factory with Celia, a first grade teacher, in her work as a teachers' center advisor.

Celia took her first trip to the brick factory the year before we started to work together. She had heard that it was "a neat place to go" and visited it with her first graders. Dating back to the early years of the community, the factory is a local plant where you can observe the entire process of brick manufacture, from the crushing, mixing, and sifting of the dry clay to the loading of stacks of fired bricks onto trucks that go to building sites all over Colorado and neighboring states.

I met Celia in the 1975 Mountain View Center summer workshop. Celia was teaching in a Follow Through program that placed great emphasis on social studies-a subject that she did not feel comfortable teaching. I invited her to attend a series of discussions on developing curriculum in social studies that I led during the workshop. She came to all of the sessions and at the end of the workshop asked me if I could continue to work with her.

I was happy to do so, and we arranged to meet in August to make plans for a social studies curriculum for the fall semester. It revolved around the children themselves, their families, their homes, and their parents' work.

In the spring of 1976, Celia wanted to return to the brick factory. The previous year she had taken the children there with almost no preparation. This year the children had taken walks through the neighborhood, looking at building materials. They saw many houses made of different-colored bricks and started to ask questions about where bricks came from, how the different colors were made, and so on. They also knew that the father of one of the children in class was a truck driver at the brick factory, and they were excited at the prospect of seeing bricks made.

I encouraged Celia to ask for two guides at the factory so that the children could be taken through all of the different areas in two separate groups. The trip was tiring but exciting for both the children and the accompanying adults. Follow-up activities went on for several weeks-writing, drawing and painting, block building, as well as work with clay collected at the site. We were surprised at how much the children remembered and how involved they were with their work.

The following fall one of the parents invited the new first graders to her dairy farm, and after the trip Celia and I had a brainstorming session on possible related activities. A week or so later, however, Celia told me that she didn't want to do the farm. "It's not my thing. It's important for me to be excited about what I'm doing." We tossed around some building related ideas, but again Celia backed away from that topic. "I really want to do the brick factory again," she told me, "but I want to start earlier this year so that we have lots of time for follow-up."

And so we went to the brick factory in November, this time accompanied by a former teacher who was an expert photographer. After our trip she gave Celia and the children a beautiful book recording both the trip and the children's posttrip classroom activities.

In the spring Celia wanted to return to the brick factory, although she wondered if she could take the same children. I suggested that we divide the class into smaller groups, each one going to a different place. A lot of preparation was needed for this trip. Celia, her teaching assistant, an interested parent, a preschool teacher friend, and I all went to the factory to see which areas we should focus on and who would be in charge of each chosen area. Would there be enough to see for each group? Celia worried. Would the children want to go to more than their special area?

After extensive preparations we started out on a beautiful day in early May. Every group spent more time than anticipated, and every leader reported that they could have spent even more time in their area! On the way back Celia confessed, "I had this dream that nobody would focus and that all the kids were just jumping all over in their groups and I kept saying over and over, 'Look at the conveyer belts!'"

The following year Celia wanted to return to the brick factory, but this time she thought that everyone should first go to the clay mountain. The small group that went there on our last trip had a great time digging the dry clay. Celia wanted this experience for the whole class.

To prepare for this trip, she set up an area in her room where children could experiment with various raw materials she provided. She also asked all of the children to bring a sample of their own backyard "dirt." There were magnifiers, sieves, and plastic tubes to see how long it took water to seep through the various soils.

On a rather chilly November day, we set off, loaded with buckets, trowels, magnifiers, and water-to be able to mix with the clay on site. Again Celia worried that there might not be enough to do on the clay mountain, and again the children showed us how involved they can get if they are properly prepared and accompanied by interested and supportive adults.

In February Celia took the class to the brick factory, touring the establishment in two separate groups. I went along as photographer, taking pictures of the work done by men and machines. I wanted Celia to have a record of all of the processes so she could use the pictures for a book for the children.

After the trip Celia had a discussion with the children during which she drew a picture-map of the plant's layout-a suggestion I had made the previous year. I had thought of making such a map ahead of time and then going over it with the children, but Celia improved on my suggestion: she made the map with the children. "We're going to make a map of how the brick company is laid out," she told them, "so I want you to think in your mind what we saw first. What would we put right here?"

As the children remembered, Celia drew pictures on the map. Encouraged by her the children recalled each step. "Now, what was happening here? Who remembers? ... Then what comes next? What was down here? ... Where do the conveyer belts go to? ... What was in that building? Who remembers?" When the whole layout was reconstructed, with input from the children, Celia went back to the beginning. This time, however, she asked the children to describe what they had seen. "Who can describe the dinosaur machine? What did it look like? ... Who can make the sound the air bags made? ... Who touched the bricks after they came out of the kiln? What did they feel like?" It was a great way to reconstruct the trip with the children.

My work with Celia was now quite different from what it had been when we began working together several years earlier. She no longer needed my help for organizing trips or follow-up activities, but she still wanted to have talks with me about curriculum and about individual children.

In April Celia was ready to return to the brick factory one more time. She asked me if I could come along and take one of the small groups. Because I was not spending much time in Celia's classroom at this point, I encouraged her to tape all of the children's discussions that preceded and followed the trip. I wanted to document this last trip through these discussions, hoping that they would provide a record of the children's learning.

When Celia told the children about the return trip, she first described how they would be going in small groups. She listed the different areas and then simply said,

I'd like to discuss now what you would like to find out on this trip to the brick company. Think about our last trip when we had a whole tour of the entire brick company. Is there a specific thing that you would like to find out that youdidn't get to find out on the last trip? And you can also be thinking of the group you'll choose to go on.

It was two-and-a-half months since the last trip. Here are examples of the children's questions and comments:

I want to find out how the conveyer belts run, if they have a motor ... how they put the bands around the bricks.... I want to know how they put the fire in the kiln.... I want to ask why they put five holes in some bricks.... I was going to find out how they fill those bags with air in the dinosaur so the bricks won't fall out.

When children asked questions that weren't to the point, Celia reminded them of the purpose of the return trip. 'Think about your last trip and about something you saw that you didn't quite understand. That's what we're going back to find out."

Larissa: How do they put different colors in one brick?
Susan: They told us that.
Celia: Well, Larissa wants to find out. She didn't quite understand it.

Celia valued every child's question and supported the desire to learn. Sometimes other children came up with the answers:

Michael: How do they get those little specks in the bricks?
Jean: I know that. The man said they grind the stuff that's not very good and put it in new bricks.
Carl: I know about the yellow specks. See, the guy said that they put in something special to take out all the oxygen and that changes the color too.
Celia: Well, let's check it out. Maybe all those things happen.

Clearly these children were keen observers, had remembered many details, and easily accepted their teacher's reason for going back to learn more. Not understanding something, asking questions, expecting to learn from their own observations as well as from the knowledge of interested adults-all of this was taken for granted by these first graders. It is clear that children are capable of much concentration and understanding when a situation supports learning.

It was hard for me to think back to the days when I started my work with Celia- when she told me that she hated trips and was "terrified" of discussions. Now she was able to explain why:

I didn't really know how to ask questions and how to get children to talk. Now I just start and the kids talk back and forth and they're really good. I'm always thinking about what they want to find out, what they want to know. I don't even know if I thought that was important before. So many teachers don't really give kids credit for being able to think. What are teachers worrying about? The kids have got the questions. Just ask them.

The setting and the people

My work with Celia and other public school primary teachers took place when I was a teacher-advisor on the staff of Mountain View Center for Environmental Education in Boulder, Colorado. (The overall goal of the center was defined as "education through fuller use of all the environments in which children live-physical, social, natural-and the environments of books, ideas, and history.") Funded by the Ford Foundation, the state of Colorado, and the National Science Foundation, and located on the campus of the University of Colorado from 1970 to 1982, the center was directed by David and Frances Hawkins and was modeled after an advisory center in Leicestershire, England. David was a professor of philosophy at the university, with special interests in the philosophy of science and of education. Frances, a former preschool and kindergarten teacher, had great expertise in early childhood education. They created a very special learning atmosphere.

Our staff of eight included two types of advisors: generalist advisors like me, who had considerable classroom experience and who drew primarily on that experience in their work with teachers (although they also had special strengths and interests in subject-matter areas, such as reading and social studies), and specialist advisors, whose contributions were primarily in their subject-matter knowledge. We had experts in science-especially physics and botany-mathematics, arts and crafts, and music. Some specialists had extensive teaching experience and familiarity with classrooms, while others' classroom experience was limited. Most of their work was at the center, teaching workshops and being available to teachers for consultation, but they also went into classrooms, alone or with one of the generalist advisors. Their success with teachers and children grew out of their enthusiasm for their subject matter and their desire to share this knowledge. It was important for teachers to see how children responded to new subject matter and to a different style of teaching. Even though teachers generally cannot devote themselves fully to just a few children at a time, seeing the work that the children produced and the thinking that they were capable of under these circumstances often changed teachers' expectations, and their classroom activities became richer and more diverse.

All of the advisors offered seminars and workshops for preschool and elementary teachers. Classes met weekly for 8 to 10 sessions-after school, in the early evening, and occasionally on Saturdays. The classes were free unless teachers chose to earn university credit, and they were limited to about 12 participants. In addition we ran an intensive two-week summer institute with an enrollment of 20 to 30 people.

The emphasis in all of the courses was on teachers' own learning. Exploring materials in science and mathematics, becoming familiar and comfortable with growing plants, learning to weave or make baskets, using an assortment of musical instruments-many of them homemade-playing language games, exploring the community and using its resources-all of this was taught at an adult level to interest the teachers themselves. Teachers could borrow materials to try out in their classrooms, and they were encouraged and helped to make materials in our woodworking shop.

Defining ourselves as teacher-advisors, Mountain View staff believed in

1. providing assistance only upon the request of the teacher;
2. having no evaluative or supervisory function:
3. having no predetermined agenda and not imposing or implementing mandated programs;
4. providing assistance in terms of teachers' needs, goals, and objectives;
5. acting as a support and resource person for the professional growth of teachers and helping them develop more effective educational programs for children;
6. respecting teachers' autonomy and working toward strengthening teachers' independence; and
7. developing long-term collegial relationships based on mutual trust and respect.

But is it relevant?

The funding that was available to support teachers' centers such as Mountain View in the 1970s is, for the most part, no longer with us. There are, however, teachers' centers in a number of places, a few of them surviving from the 1970s. They may be sponsored by resource-and-referral agencies, children's museums, Head Start programs, school districts, or a consortium of community agencies. Variously, they offer recycled materials; toy loan; dramatic-play kits; tools for making materials; published resources; and, sometimes, workshops for teachers and parents.

School district centers are often places to look for activity ideas, reproduce worksheets, and laminate things, rather than to engage in collaborative inquiry. In an era of tighter budgets, providing quality staff who are able to support inquiry by teachers is seen as too expensive.

Mountain View offered both unusual, challenging materials and knowledgeable, enthusiastic staff. It was funded as both a demonstration and a research project; it sought to provide effective in-service support for teachers while studying teachers as learners. Its staff, in their advisory role, were scholars gathering data though collaboration with teachers. Each specialist had a room full of hands-on materials, enabling teachers to investigate selected topics in math and physics, botany, and the arts and music, and to reflect on their growth in understanding. The expectation was that teachers would make the connection between their experience as learners and children's experience as learners.

Staff modeled and shared their excitement about their areas of expertise, but they did not tell teachers how to teach. Some staff were more interested in how teachers think than in how teachers teach. They were thus able to ask genuine questions of teachers who were exploring materials, rather than simply to give them information.

While my colleagues' interest was in teachers' construction of in-depth knowledge in the arts and sciences, I was more interested in how teachers construct their knowledge of children I was also interested in the practical dilemmas faced by teachers in classrooms, as were the teachers themselves. It is cheaper and more familiar to regress to the American tendency to rely on commercial materials, rather than relationship building, in support of teaching. Mountain View provided extended opportunities for teachers to explore all sorts of materials and to build relationships with advisors and other teachers through shared inquiry about their learning process.

Mountain View's relevance lies in its documentation of principles of learning applicable to teachers as learners as well as to children and is based on deep respect for the learner. It emphasized excellence, a very current word in educational circles, although we never used the word. Under what conditions is it possible to achieve work of increasingly high quality by both teachers and children? These are goals for education everywhere.

Our work demonstrated the potential for involving highly qualified advisors in sustained working relationships with teachers, motivated by the opportunity for mutual learning. For the advisors, as for the teachers, voluntary participation, continuity, and freedom from administrative pressures were important. As center staff members we were extraordinarily autonomous; each was free to pursue his or her own interests. We offered teachers comparable autonomy in their work with us. We didn't have conflicts with administrators in the schools because we didn't impose an agenda on teachers (I assured teachers that I wouldn't tell the principal what they were doing, although I might explain to her what goals I had for my work in their classes). Our work took place outside the usual constraints of the school system while contributing, in those schools whose administrators found the center's philosophy to some degree compatible, to outcomes desirable for that system.

Teacher development strategies

Advisors in any setting can begin working with teachers from many starting points. A teacher may request help in a particular subject area, regarding problems with a particular child or group of children, or with matters of organization and scheduling. Some teachers feel more comfortable if they start with a conference; others may ask for a general classroom observation with subsequent feedback. Even if teachers do not have a specific request, they usually have a general idea of the direction in which they wish to move. The success of advisory work depends on a relationship of mutual trust and respect, which develops gradually as teacher and advisor work and learn together through their attempts to solve the problems of daily teaching.

I spent at least half of my time in classrooms-observing, assisting, and interacting with children. My work developed from teachers' stated needs and included helping with management problems; observing individual children; leading discussions so that teachers could see the involvement of children if they were interested in a subject; changing room arrangements to create better learning environments; introducing new materials and activities; assisting with trip planning and curriculum development; and encouraging greater use of community resources.

When teachers asked me to observe in their classrooms, I first asked for permission to take notes, explaining that I wished to write down things to be discussed after the observation. Later, when we sat down together, I put my open notebook on the table and used my remarks as starting points for our discussion. I always shared my classroom notes with teachers, although sometimes I made additional notes for myself later. I paid special attention to areas of teacher strengths because I always wanted to give some positive feedback. Later I used these strengths to move into areas of needed change.

Teachers often look at consultants with some degree of suspicion. They don't like outsiders to come in and tell them what to do. I found that my own classroom experience gave me credibility. Although many of the teachers I worked with told me that they were quite nervous before my first visit, they soon relaxed and appreciated having an interested and supportive adult in their room. One teacher told me early in our work, "Never in all the years that I've been teaching has there been anyone in my room who didn't come to criticize. I don't mind you at all in my class; the kids could be all over and I wouldn't mind."

Sometimes I was surprised at teachers' reactions. I had worked with Joyce, a second grade teacher, over a period of two months. A road along the school playground was being paved, and we used this opportunity to observe and study all of the stages of road building. The children watched the work; took two related field trips-to a gravel mine and an asphalt plant; learned about the machinery, raw materials, and work processes; and did a lot of related classroom activities. At the end of this project, Joyce told me how much she valued my interest in the road paving. "You really got involved, and I felt it was sincere," she told me. Another teacher mentioned something similar: "I feel that we're sharing a lot of the learning together and a lot of the excitement of discovering new things.... I feel like you're really interested." I had never thought of my capacity to become "really interested" as anything special until teachers started mentioning it to me.

My classroom work was appreciated by the teachers, but lunchtime and afterschool talks were just as important to them. In my early work with any teacher, I scheduled plenty of talking time. For teachers with whom I continued to work for several years, talking sessions were scheduled at their request. Face-to-face contact remained important for some teachers, but for others I sometimes wrote down my questions and suggestions. This might happen after a class trip or discussion or after a conversation with a teacher about developing a certain theme. I found that once I started to focus on a subject, I often got additional ideas. The first time I gave such notes to a teacher, she was so pleased that I began to do it more regularly. Teachers appreciated the fact that I continued to think about their classrooms after I left-just as they do-and although it was extra work initially, these notes were useful in the long run. They could be shared with other teachers, they provided a permanent reference for the teachers for whom they were written, and they gave me a written record of what I had suggested.

Giving feedback is an essential ingredient of advisory work. It helps to make connections for teachers and encourages them to become more reflective. After I had worked in Heather's room for several weeks, she told me, "I enjoy getting feedback. You don't often get it in education. You're alone in your room. When the principal comes in, he isn't looking for the same things we are looking for.

"Asked what was most helpful about my work with her, Sharon, a first grade teacher, answered,

All the challenges she throws out and having her there observing, and just the immediate feedback on that from somebody who is kind of on the same wavelength.... After the kids leave, that's almost the most helpful time. We sit there and talk about it. She'll ask me questions and make comments about different things that happened and talk about different kids, just different problems. I sit there and write constantly the whole time I'm talking to her ... probably the biggest help has been just kind of tying all these loose ends that I had together and making sense out of them. I've had reasons why I did everything, but none of them all tied together into a total program.

Later Sharon was asked to describe if and how her teaching had changed during the semester she worked with me:

Instead of thinking about teaching something to my class, I spend a lot more time thinking about individual kids.... I feel like I've gotten to know each kid much better at this point in the year than I ever have before, and I feel like I'm teaching [the children] to learn things on their own.... I feel much more like a teacher.

Sharon was beginning to make connections. She was learning on her own, just as the children were.

Empowering teachers

Teaching is often lonely. There is no regular professional time built into most teachers' work week during which they can think and talk in-depth with other interested adults. Experienced teachers need opportunities to use their intellect to have serious discussion about their work with each other and with advisors and experts. Workshops and seminars at Mountain View offered teachers the opportunity to share common interests and problems.

One year, for instance, I worked with five first grade teachers who all felt a need for firmer grounding in child development. I organized biweekly sessions during which we would discuss problems that had come up in the different classrooms. After a few sessions I realized that these teachers lacked observation skills, so we concentrated on observing children in many different situations to begin to see patterns of behavior and learn how to diagnose problems.

In another year I decided to offer a weekly seminar that I called "Discussions about Teaching." Here is its description:

This is a course for teachers who have questions which they wish to discuss with colleagues: questions about their educational philosophy; questions about their curriculum as it relates (or does not relate) to the needs of children; questions about their teaching methods, about testing, and so on. One focus of the course will be on curriculum content: how to choose, develop, and organize appropriate subject matter for children of different ages, and how to extend and evaluate the learning that arises from it.

Since I am particularly interested in the problems faced by teachers who want to put theory into practice, I hope to visit the schools of participating teachers and be available for individual conferences.

I thought that my work in schools would be strengthened if teachers could meet regularly with their colleagues, and I believed that knowing the classrooms and teaching styles of the participants firsthand would help me plan discussions of interest to all concerned. I also hoped that the teachers in this class would start an informal network so that like-minded individuals in the district could share experiences and get the support they often lacked. Teachers who have an interested audience of peers are encouraged to tell their stories, to think out loud, and to experience themselves as effective thinkers.

Mountain View's emphasis on adult learning was also intended to empower teachers as thinkers. We provided opportunities for teachers to learn at their own adult level, regardless of whether this learning would be of immediate use in the classroom. Too often teachers are expected to transmit knowledge that they have not sufficiently absorbed. When teachers experience the excitement that real learning generates, they transmit their enthusiasm about learning to the children they work with. At Mountain View teachers were exposed to new knowledge and ideas, new ways of thinking, and new approaches to learning. Their efforts were respected, their questions taken seriously, and their learning and growth encouraged and supported.

What was taught, what was teamed, and what am the implications?

Did we make a difference? Did we develop leaders? For more than a decade, Mountain View Center disseminated its experience nationally and internationally through publications and a steadily growing group of teachers attending summer institutes. Local teachers provided good attendance at our weekly open houses. Weekly seminars served a smaller group of teachers, some of whom invited us to work In their classrooms, as well.

As one of several advisors, I worked intensively with half-a-dozen teachers at a time and had additional shorter term contacts with a number of others. This aspect of our work can best be described as leadership development. We believed it worthwhile to invest in teachers who can be thought of as "growth points" in their schools-people with potential to influence others' growth. We made a point of referring teachers to others as resources; for example, I called on Celia several times to share her new trip-planning expertise with teachers from other schools. More formally, we received funding from the Teachers' Center Exchange to implement an Intern Advisor Program in the Boulder Valley School District. This grant paid substitutes to enable several teachers to take off one-half day a week to work in other teachers' classrooms, with supervision from Mountain View staff.

In our direct work with teachers and in our writing for publication, we collected good stories to be retold. Teaching and learning, we believed, can best be understood through many teachers' stories.

"Growth over time," David Hawkins has written, "is organic and uneven in character and notoriously does not respond to systemwide panaceas or 'models.' "

In-depth work with teachers in their classrooms is a crucial part of the Center's program. It is here that the strengths and needs of each teacher can be taken into consideration.... in our work with teachers we are not rigid adherents of any narrowly defined "models" or "methods." Good teaching does have some universal characteristics but it also varies-as it should-from teacher to teacher and for different children in different areas of work. We learn from teachers' successes, and we claim no credit for these beyond our role as supporters, facilitators. and critics. This statement is an expression not of modesty but of a central philosophy about learning and teaching. The improvement of early education will not come about solely or even largely through the guiding efforts of any single group but through many kinds of professional support for all those engaged in it. (Mountain View Center brochure)

The advisory model, in which self-selected teachers are treated as serious collaborators in action-research on curriculum development, has been implemented in many teacher centers with a broader base than Mountain View and in a wide variety of advisory relationships. Its principles are clear. While it attracts relatively competent teachers, the advisory model recognizes that even the most competent teacher needs support when trying something new. It defines teachers as professionals who are able to identify and pursue their own needs for growth. Extended to other teacher populations, it may help to convince a broad range of less confident but competent practitioners that they are thinkers too.

For further information

Apelman, M. (1979). An advisor at work. In K. Devaney (Ed.), Building a teachers' center (pp. 157-168). San Francisco: Teachers' Center Exchange, Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development. (Distributed by Teachers College Press)

Apelman, M. (1981). The role of the advisor in the inservice education of elementary school teachers: A case study. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.

Apelman, M. (1986). Working with teachers: The advisory approach. In K.K. Zumwalt (Ed.), Improving teaching (pp. 115-129). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Apelman, M. (1991. Summer). Working with teachers. Thought and Practice: The Journal of the Graduate School of Bank Street College of Education, 3(l), 74-84.

Hawkins, D. (1974). The informed vision: Essays on learning and human nature. New York: Agathon.

Hawkins, F. (1986). The logic of action. Boulder: Colorado Universities Press.

Outlook magazine, published quarterly by Mountain View Center from 1971 to 1985. Boulder, Colorado.

Seckinger, B. (1978). A look at the first year. Experienced teachers as advisors to their colleagues. Unpublished master's project, Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena, CA.

Other suggested readings

Baker, W.E., Leitman. A., Page, F., Sharkey, A., & Suhd, M. (1971). The creative environment workshop. Young Children, 26(4), 219-223.

Bolin, F.S., & Falk, J. (Eds.). (1987). Teacher renewal: Professional issues, personal choices. New York: Teachers College Press.

Cruickshank, D.R. (1987). Reflective teaching. Reston, VA: Association of Teacher Educators.

Connelly, F.M., & Clandinin, D.J. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives of experience! New York: Teachers College Press.

Clift, R.T., Houston, N.R., & Pugach, M.C. (Eds.). (1990). Encouraging reflective practice in education New York: Teachers College Press.

Devaney, K. (Ed.). (1979). Building a teachers' center. San Francisco: Teachers' Center Exchange, Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development. (Distributed by Teachers College Press)

Duckworth, E. (1987). "The having of wonderful ideas" and other essays on teaching and learning. New York: Teachers College Press.

Fosnot, C.T. (1989). Enquiring teachers, enquiring learners: A constructivist approach for teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.

Jervis, K., & Montag, C. (Eds.). (1991). Progressive education for the 1990s: Transforming practice. New York: Teachers College Press.

Kohl, H. (1984). Growing minds: On becoming a teacher. New York: Harper and Row.

Marshall, S. (1968). Adventure in creative education. New York: Pergamon.

Pathways: A Forum for Progressive Educators, and Insights into Open Education. Center for Teaching and Learning, Box 8158, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202. (Periodical collections of articles on teaching by classroom teachers and other educators)

Rogers, D.L., Waller, C.B., & Perrin, M.S. (1987). Learning more about what makes a good teacher good through collaborative research in the classroom. Young Children, 42(4). 34-39.

Weber, L. (1971). The English infant school and informal education. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Yonemura, M. (1986). A teacher at work: Professional development and the early childhood educator. New York: Teachers College Press.

Reference

Buxton, A.P. (1979, June). A distinctive option in inservice: The teachers' center meets individual needs and institutional goals. Occasional Paper no. 5, Teachers' Center Exchange, Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, San Francisco.

To contact the author, write:

Maja Apelman, 755 Lincoln Place, Boulder, CO 80302.

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