Meet Jane | Artist & Educator

Jane is a professor in the Department of Early Childhood Education at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee, where she has been teaching for the past 20 years. 

Her work focuses on guiding pre-service and in-service teachers as they learn about planning and supporting emergent curriculum from close observations with children using documentation in a cycle of inquiry process. She participated in a study group of the schools of Reggio Emilia in 2010. 

She is inspired by the socio-constructivist pedagogy of Reggio Emilia, Italy where children communicate and explore their theories of the world using expressive arts media. Guiding teachers to really listen to children and interpret their representations helps teachers to recognize and respect children’s vast capabilities and intelligence.