Executive director, Leisa Pollander, is happy to announce Lindsey Sterrett as the new Preschool Director of Sara Holbrook Community Center. “The Sara Holbrook Center is very fortunate to add Lindsey to our team as the Preschool Director. Lindsey demonstrates great commitment to being the best possible teacher she can be. She is solidly grounded in designing a learning environment that guides children to the next level. We enthusiastically welcome her skill base.”
Lindsey earned a BA in Theater at Grinnell College in 2001, and was a fellow at the National Theater Institute in 2000. In 2007, after years of contracted theater teaching and two AmeriCorps Services, Lindsey formally began her journey in early education. She became a lead teacher for Head Start at Operation Breakthrough, a program serving inner city children in Kansas City, MO. She then became a teacher and case manager as a qualified mental health associate in a day treatment program at the Old Mill Center for Children and Families in Corvallis, OR (one of the first integrated preschool programs in the US.
Lindsey moved to Burlington in the fall of 2016, where she was a Participant Researcher with young children and a Mentor Teacher to preservice undergraduate teachers at the Campus Children’s School, the University of Vermont’s social constructivist lab school. In the summer of 2016 Lindsey completed a MS from Portland State University in Curriculum and Instruction in Inclusive Early Education with a Constructivist Specialization. Her research studies focused on the affordances and benefits of nature on play and development in early education, as well as the bio-physiological connection humans have to nature. She is an advocate for children in nature and has presented her research at UVM, NAREA and VTAEYC.
Lindsey’s joy and passion for early education and joy of lifelong learning is greatly influenced by her own experiences in early life with her family and in playing in nature. One of her favorite quotes is by Loris Malaguzzi, who said, “We need to think of the school as a living organism. Children have to feel that the world is inside the school and moves and thinks and works and reflects on everything that goes on. Of course not all children are the same—each child brings a part of something that is different into the school.”
“I believe all children have a right to authentic and meaningful learning contexts to grow and play in,” said Lindsey. “Culture is created in early life, and I love the culture here at the Sara Holbrook Center.”