Early Childhood Educator

Job Description

Job Description

About This Role

We're a vibrant, child-centered learning community dedicated to nature-based and project-based education in Nashville, where our Reggio Emilia inspired garden campus is the perfect setting for hands-on, experiential learning with a focus on environmental stewardship, creativity, and critical thinking.

As a valued member of our teaching team, you'll have the opportunity to collaborate with experienced Early Childhood Educators in a spirit of Reggio pedagogy, contributing to and leading projects that enrich children's education and foster a deeper connection with nature.

Our ideal candidate will inspire, nurture, and guide our preschoolers in a learning environment that encourages curiosity, collaboration, and exploration.

The ideal candidate shares our passion for nature-based and project-based education and enjoys the following:

• Developing and leading projects in all domains of development with our young learners, while being a co-researcher with them and other educators.
• Collaborating with children to explore “100 languages” and learn through play.
• Observing children’s interests and developing learning experiences in our Reggio Emilia inspired garden campus.
• Spend at least 50% of their time outdoors, promoting a love for nature and environmental stewardship among our preschoolers.
• Integrating language arts and numeracy into teaching practices, and fostering relationships within the group to inspire every child to grow intellectually with curiosity, socially with respect, and emotionally with agency.

• Extensive experience in early education/ child care centers, or
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Early Childhood Education, or
• Child Development Associate's degree, with
• Practiced usage of the Tennessee Early Childhood Developmental Standards, and
• Ability to document learning experiences through both words and photographs, along with
• Dedication to ongoing professional growth, and
• Effective communication skills and a strong team-oriented mindset, combined with
• Patience and effective tools for supporting children's social-emotional development, as well as
• Skills in establishing meaningful rituals, fostering care for one another and the environment, and
• Space and time management skills, and
• Highly organized with ability to assist teachers with classroom cleanliness, and
• Physical resilience for outdoor activities, including hiking, and tolerance for encounters with insects including ticks, coupled with a genuine love for wildlife.

• Previous experience in Nature Education and/or Reggio inspired schools.

• Paid planning time weekly.
• Paid time off
• Paid In-Service days
• Paid personal time
• Paid sick time
• Cancer insurance or Short Term Disability insurance.
• Worker’s Compensation Insurance.
• Accident at work medical coverage.
• Half-price summer camps for your children.
• Schedule: 7:30 am to 3:30 pm.

A New Leaf's mission is to bring education back to Earth. Here you are part of something greater than yourself. We playfully and seriously learn, together as a community, about things that are real, meaningful, at times enigmatic, and always powerful! We are licensed by DHS and work in the Reggio way. Together we question and improve the means and goals of education for our youngest learners.