MUSEUM CENTER FOR LEARNING

OPAL SCHOOL RESIDENT APPRENTICE PROGRAM
At Portland Children’s Museum – Sponsored by the Museum Center for Learning
Now accepting applications for the Opal School Resident Apprentice Program. Learn more HERE.

2012-2013 Professional Development Guide is now available.  Download HERE.  In our 2012-2013 guide you will find the help you need to support the creative capacities of children in your community.

Registration for 2012-2013 Workshops will open on July 1, 2012.

Register for workshops and order resources through our online store.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM CENTER FOR LEARNING

The Museum Center for Learning is about research—the art of paying attention, capturing what we notice, and interpreting children’s learning approaches for everyone who has an investment in schooling our young. The Center strengthens and expands the work of the Museum’s Opal School, preschool through grade five.  We’re paying attention to the natural learning strategies of children in order to support and strengthen them in both school and museum settings.

The mission of the Center is to make visible the ways children think, imagine, design, invent, and create when given intelligent materials including the tools of the arts and sciences.  We’re sharing what we learn with educators—locally, regionally and nationally.  We find direction and inspiration in questions such as:

• What provokes curiosity in a child?

• How does playful inquiry support children to wonder, imagine and create?

• How do we strengthen the connection between literacy and the arts?

• How can environments support the creative capacity of children?

We share our experiences through publications, education materials, workshops and an annual summer symposium.

We are influenced and inspired by the municipal Early Childhood Schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy and the groundbreaking work they’ve been doing for decades, and authors including:
Carlina Rinaldi, Vea Vecchi, Lella Gandini, Louise Cadwell, Karen Gallas, Stuart Brown, Richard Louv, Daniel Pink, Ken Robinson, Jerome Bruner, Lisa Delpit, Deborah Maier, Vivian Gussin Paley, Ken and Yetta Goodman, Donald Graves, David Sobel, David Orr, Kathy Fosnot, Allison Gopnik, Ellen Galinsky, Daniel Goleman, Art Costa, Frank Smith, Alfie Kohn, Howard Gardner, Jonathan Kozol, Michael Thompson, Howard Glasser, Ellin Keene and Margaret Wheatley.

The work of Museum Center for Learning has received support from the Boeing Company, Families and Work Institute, Henry Lea Hillman Jr. Foundation, Hirano Design, James F. & Marion L. Miller Foundation, JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Juliet Ashby Hillman Foundation, Summer Lea Hillman Foundation, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, The William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Qwest Foundation and Union Bank.