Who We Are
Facilitators & Presenters
Seedlings Fellows, Past & Present
Diane Huot is a master teacher with 34 years of experience teaching 1st through 3rd grades in public and parochial schools. She is currently teaching first grade at Conte West Hills School in New Haven, where she has been for 17 years. Enter her classroom and you will be struck by how much knowledge her first graders have to offer about food chains and organisms in their local environment. It is the kind of depth of knowledge that at that age can only have been acquired through personal experience.
Eva Kibby is our Seedlings Fellow at Six to Six Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport. She has been collaborating with the schools’ preschool team, two of whom attended the Seedlings summer workshop in 2017, to apply their Seedlings thinking in their classroom practice. Below is Eva’s first blog entry about the beginning stages of this collaboration.
Shandra Patton is our Seedlings Fellow at Augusta Lewis Troup School in New Haven. She teaches preK and is collaborating with kindergarten teacher Gyna Grant and art teacher Rebecca Looney, both two-time participants at the SEC summer workshop, to integrate curriculum and explore process art at various age levels. Here are some of her thoughts on emergent curriculum.
Julie Peterman is our SEC Fellow at Conte West Hills Magnet School in New Haven. She teaches with the wisdom that comes with 34 years of teaching experience, but with the curiosity and drive to seize opportunities for growth of a person new to the field. Her students and their developmental needs are at the center of what she does.
Lauren Wiggins is our Fellow from Six-to-Six Magnet School in Bridgeport. She is in her 13th year of teaching, now as a 3rd Grade teacher. In the classroom, she is a risk-taker, a motivator, and full of passion. Her greatest joy as a teacher comes from creating integrated curriculum that nurtures students to become lifelong learners by asking questions, seeking knowledge, and becoming intrinsically motivated. Outside of school the energy and passion continue! She is a Crossfit enthusiast, skier, ice hockey player, triathlete, surfer, and travel nut.
Jenn Wilson is our Fellow from Cook Hill Elementary School in Wallingford. She is in her 21st year of teaching kindergarten. Patient, caring, and creative, she is most passionate about extending her teaching outside the four walls of the classroom. She’s also a mother of two who loves running and spending time outdoors with her family, especially at the beach.
Partners, Supporters & Friends
Nancy Close: Psychologist, Assistant Professor in the Yale Child Study Center; Associate Director of the Yale Program in Early Childhood Education
Sequella Coleman: Principal, John S. Martinez Magnet School, New Haven, Conn.
Carla Horwitz: Director of Yale University’s Calvin Hill Day Care Center and Kitty Lustman-Findling Kindergarten; joint appointment in the Teacher Preparation Program, the Psychology Department and the Yale Child Study Center at Yale University
Jean Lamont: Former Seedlings Educators Collaborative Director, Jean has been a life-long educator, from teaching biology in Kenya as a Peace Corps volunteer to serving for 12 years as Head of School for The Foote School.
Joya Marks: Educational consultant; Docent, Yale Center for British Art; Board of Directors, Edith B. Jackson Child Care Center; Former Lecturer, Yale College
Alan Organschi: Design principal at Gray Organschi Architecture, New Haven, Conn.
Alan Plattus: Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at Yale University School of Architecture.
Mary Schwab-Stone: Associate Professor, Yale Child Study Center, New Haven, Conn.
Deb Vilas is an educator, child life specialist, social worker, writer, public speaker, and consultant whose passion is anything that supports children’s development and healing in the face of everyday life or trauma.
