That Early Childhood Nerd

If you love thinking deeply about childhood, early childhood education, caring for children, and supporting children’s right to play, this is the podcast for you! Each week, host and self-proclaimed early childhood nerd Heather Bernt-Santy invites practitioners, writers, and thinkers who share her commitment to doing the very best we can for children, their caregivers and teachers, and their families to discuss big ideas, real life practices, and cool research. Let’s get nerdy!

Listen on:

  • Apple Podcasts
  • Podbean App
  • Spotify

Episodes

NERD_0323 ECE MAYtriarchy pt 4

Wednesday May 29, 2024

Wednesday May 29, 2024

This episode is the fourth installment of a new tradition–episodes in May that invite some of Heather's favorite women in early childhood to talk about the women who guide our work. In this conversation, Heather talks about Lilian Katz, Miriam Beloglovsky celebrates Bev Bos, Rixa Evershed discusses Alison Gopnik's work, and Nadia Jaboneta salutes Margie Carter and Deb Curtis.
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

NERD_0322 ECE MAYtriarchy pt 3

Wednesday May 15, 2024

Wednesday May 15, 2024

Have you ever noticed that most of the theorists and philosophies in our early childhood textbooks are the same handful of men-plus-Montessori? Heather got curious….who are the women (past and present) who are influencing and informing the work we’re doing with young children. This episode is the third installment of a new tradition–episodes in May that invite some of my favorite women in early childhood to talk about the women who guide our work. In this episode, Heather is joined by Krystina Tapia and Kisa Marx to discuss how bell hooks, Emmi Pikler, and Lisa Murphy inspire them.
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

NERD_0321 ECE MAYtriarchy pt 2

Wednesday May 08, 2024

Wednesday May 08, 2024

Have you ever noticed that most of the theorists and philosophies in our early childhood textbooks are the same handful of men-plus-Montessori? Heather got curious….who are the women (past and present) who are influencing and informing the work we’re doing with young children. This episode is the second installment of a new tradition–episodes in May that invite some of my favorite women in early childhood to talk about the women who guide our work. In this episode, Heather is joined by Stephanie Goloway, Stacy Benge, and Nancy Rosenow to discuss how Sylvia Ashton Warner, A. Jean Ayres, Vivian Gussin Paley and Chris Athey inspire them.
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

NERD_0321 ECE MAYtriarchy pt 1

Wednesday May 01, 2024

Wednesday May 01, 2024

Have you ever noticed that most of the theorists and philosophies in our early childhood textbooks are the same handful of men-plus-Montessori? Heather got curious....who are the women (past and present) who are influencing and informing the work we're doing with young children. So, here's the first installment of a new tradition--episodes in May that invite some of my favorite women in early childhood to talk about the women who guide our work. In this episode, Heather is joined by Rixa Evershed, Carol Garboden Murray and Lizz Nolasco to discuss how Robin Wall Kimmerer, Carol Gilligan, Janet Gonzalez Mena and Rhoda Kellogg inspire them.
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

Wednesday Apr 24, 2024

Heather is TIRED of non-expert stakeholders trying to tell her what is and isn't "quality" for young children's spaces and experiences. In this episode, she invites Carol Garboden Murray and Richard Cohen to help her process how problematic it is when we lose sight of children's current, lived experiences in favor of placing the weight of solving adult problems on those children's shoulders.
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

Wednesday Apr 17, 2024

If there's one thing host Heather Bernt-Santy loves, it's a nerdy panel discussion! And this one is a good one...including Heather, Richard Cohen (Zen and the Art of Early Childhood), Nancy Rosenow (author of Encouragement Every Day), Carol Garboden Murray (author of Illuminating Care: The Practice and Pedagogy of Care) and Stacy Benge (author of The Whole Child Alphabet: How Young Children Actually Develop Literacy). Listen in as we talk about what we think we should call ourselves as we work with young children--teacher? Developmentalist? Caregiver?
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

Wednesday Apr 10, 2024

This week host Heather Bernt-Santy welcomes Dartmouth sociologist Dr Casey Stockstill, author of the book False Starts: The Segregated Lives of Preschoolers. In her book, she describes and discusses what she learned while conducting research in two different early childhood programs: a Head Start program and an affluent private preschool. "False Starts suggests that as we continue to invest in preschool as an anti-poverty policy, we need a fuller understanding of how segregated classroom environments impact children's educational outcomes and their ability to thrive."
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

Wednesday Apr 03, 2024

Join host Heather Bernt-Santy and fellow nerd Lizz Nolasco as they explore this quote from an article by Beth Blue Swadener and Shirley Kessler: "Of significance among reconceptualist perspectives is the social, historical and political context of the early childhood curriculum. Underlying this rethinking of curriculum planning is the study of the relationship between what we teach in school and the unequal outcomes of schooling based on social class, race, language or dialect, and gender. According to this perspective, schools are seen not as the equalizer in society, as Horace Mann envisioned, but as a means of reproducing the race, class, and gender inequities which persist in society today."
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

Wednesday Mar 27, 2024

The idea of loose parts is often misunderstood and misrepresented in early childhood spaces and conversations. In this conversation, Heather talks to authors Suzanne Axelsson and Miriam Beloglovsky to explore the origin of the idea, the reasons and ways it gets mixed up, and how to get back to the beauty and possibility of filling our spaces with the "stuff" of child exploration and creativity.
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

Wednesday Mar 20, 2024

Join host Heather Bernt-Santy as she talks to Stephanie Goloway, author of the Redleaf Press book Happily Ever Resilient: Using Fairy Tales to Nurture Children Through Adversity.
Discover how "we can transform our best practices surrounding play, stories, and nurturing relationships into the protective factors for resilience: attachment, initiative, self-regulation, and cultural affirmation." 
Order the book here: https://www.redleafpress.org/Happily-Ever-Resilient-Using-Fairy-Tales-to-Nurture-Children-through-Adversity-P2648.aspx
Find Stephanie here: www.imaginationonthemove.com
Want to support the show and help keep it ad free? You can make a one time donation or become a member to get access to more TECN content at "Buy Me a Coffee:"
buymeacoffee.com/heatherf
Another way to support the show is to leave a review/rating on iTunes or Spotify, and to share on your social media networks!

Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Version: 20241125