Events

The Friends’ School is delighted to announce a one day workshop for Early Childhood and Primary Teachers with Ben Mardell (USA) on Saturday 29 March 2025.

About Ben Mardell:

Ben Mardell is the atelierista and pedagogista at Newtowne School. He is also a research affiliate at Longlong Kindergarten at the MIT Media Lab. Ben has over twenty years of teaching experience with children birth through six. He has also been a principal investigator at Project Zero, a research organization at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, leading the Pedagogy of Play and Children are Citizens projects, and a professor of early childhood education at Lesley University. Ben is a co-author of Visible Learners: Promoting Reggio-Inspired Approaches in All Schools,Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners, Children at the Center: Transforming Early Childhoods Education in the Boston Public Schools, and A Pedagogy of Play: Supporting Playful Learning in Classrooms and Schools.  He is the author of From Basketball to the Beatles: In Search of Compelling Early Childhood Curriculumand Growing Up in Child Care: A Case For Quality Early Education. His new project is The Remake (theremake.org), a blog for educators about playful learning in an era of rapid climate change. Ben enjoys playing with his family (hiking and games) and participating in triathlons.

You can read an excerpt from his blog The Remake here.

Workshop Overview:

During this time of rapid climate change, fostering young children’s solidarity with the rest of nature should be a primary aim of education. In this day-long workshop stories of practices from Newtowne School  in the U.S. that help children playfully engage with the natural world are shared. These stories are paired with activities to help participants use these stories to consider implications for their own teaching.

Date: Saturday 29 March 2025

Time: 8.45 Registration, 9.00 – 3.00pm Workshop

Location: The Farrell Centre, The Friends’ School, Primary School Campus – 395 Argyle Street, North Hobart Tasmania

Cost: $175.00 (Morning tea and lunch provided)

 Please CLICK HERE to book