ABSTRACT
This chapter is the story of how a group of teachers took their beliefs about how children learn, are inspired, and grow as a community, and made the same thing happen for themselves. Aquatic Park School (APS) opened its doors in Berkeley, California, more than 25 years ago to serve infants through 5-year-olds, with a strong commitment to cultivating community within the school. Relationships, social justice, a respectful image of the child, and play-based, emergent, and social constructivist curricula have long been central to the APS culture. Leadership roles do have an administrative differential at APS. Historically teachers have led inquiries to address structures, systems, issues that were problematic from their perspective – for instance, the structural and philosophical changes in the program that moved us from a HighScope, mixed-age, station-based program to our current structure of single-age classroom experiences in the morning program and mixed-age afternoon program for preschoolers.
