Noah Hichenberg has spent the past twelve years as a preschool director, first in New York City and now in Washington, DC, and was previously a teacher in three-year-old classrooms for five years. Noah received his MA in Early Childhood and Childhood Education from Fordham University and earned his Doctorate in Early Childhood at Teachers College, Columbia University. For his dissertation, he spent nine months shadowing a two-year-old child throughout their daily life, from which he developed novel and critical insights into how children experience the social construction of early childhood. His work highlights the transformative power of a young child's agency in the face of adult expectations. Noah has hosted regular Coffee Chats for preschool parents for several years as well as written a regular newsletter about preschool, parenting, and community. Noah currently serves as an adjunct professor at the American Jewish University, where he teaches a graduate class on current research trends. He has led and taught at workshops and conferences on a variety of topics. Noah lives in Maryland with his wife and four children.

Samantha has taught at the Saul and Carole Zabar Nursery School at the JCC since 2018. Before coming to the JCC, she worked as a 2's teacher at Eisman Day Nursery, was a founding teacher at Tribeca KinderCare, and spent 5 years working at the West Side Y's nursery school. Since joining the Nursery School in 2018 as a Floater, Samantha has worked in both 3s and Pre-K classrooms as an Associate and Head Teacher.

Samantha is a current member of the school's leadership team and is passionate about anti-bias and anti-racist work in early childhood education, championing ways to continue to implement these teachings into our daily practice with purpose. Outside of school, Samantha is an active contributor to AMA's Arc which is an educational resource collaboration with schools in rural Ghana. Through service projects, we have created a philanthropic partnership with these institutions and are working to build a brighter future together.

Judy Kashman, an art educator for nearly forty-five years, holds a BS in Art and Art Education from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. An artist and sculptor, Judy has participated in many educational workshops focused on creative exploration, including presenting a workshop at the JCC’s Come Learn With Us conference in 2019 and participating in the Adapting the Reggio Emilia Approach: A Workshop in Collaborative Educational Work at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. For the past 32 years, she has been the head woodshop teacher at Village Community School in New York City, where she specializes in teaching woodworking to young children and training teachers to create materials-rich learning environments that emphasize an experiential approach to woodworking. Judy has trained woodworking teachers who have gone on to teach at Washington Market School, Little Red School House, Brooklyn Apple Academy, Bank Street, Allen-Stevenson, Brearly, and Ethical Culture Fieldston School.

Robin Koo is celebrating 24 years of teaching alongside young children. She began her teaching career at Beginnings Nursery School, first as a teacher in the 2s and 4/5s classrooms, and then as the Art Studio Teacher starting in 2006 after a life-changing visit to Reggio Emilia, Italy. In 2007, she helped establish The Materials Center, a resource dedicated to the repurposing of materials for children's learning.

In 2013, Beginnings Nursery School established the non-profit organization, Teaching Beyond the Square, where Robin served as Program Director and Materials Center Coordinator through 2018. During that time, Robin worked closely with a variety of public and independent early childhood school communities, providing support through professional development as they moved towards an inquiry-based approach to teaching, in addition to developing the organization's training programs and events, and advancing the capacity for The Materials Center. From 2013-2015, Robin served as Chair for the Atelier Committee, which created the Light & Shadow Atelier and Natural Materials Atelier alongside the Wonder of Learning Exhibit from Reggio Emilia, Italy.

She has since returned to the early childhood art studio and is currently at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights, where she teaches pre-K through 1st grade. Robin has presented at conferences across the U.S. and finds great joy in connecting with fellow early childhood colleagues. Robin received her MA in Art & Art Education from Teachers College, and her BA in Visual Art & Art History from Bowdoin College. She lives in Brooklyn with her family in an apartment that seems to resemble more and more like a satellite materials resource center.

Dr. Megan Pamela Ruth Madison is a political educator and a lifelong student of radical Black feminism. Her work in the field of early childhood education began in preschool classrooms across the Midwest, where she grew up and earned her Master’s degree in early childhood education. Today, she lives on Lenape land in Harlem, where she facilitates professional learning for teachers across the country on anti-bias education. She earned her PhD in Social Policy from Brandeis University, with a concentration in child, youth, and family policy. As a scholar-activist, her approach to research and practice is guided by the Sociopolitical Ecology of Development, a theoretical framework that she developed as a part of her participatory action research dissertation. Megan has established herself as a visionary, strategic, and effective leader through her service on the boards of the National Association for the Education for Young Children and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. She is excited about her new role as the Board Chair of Transformative Schools. With Jessica Ralli, she co-authored First Conversations–an award-winning series of books for young children and their grown-ups on topics like race, gender, and consent. Despite attempts to ban these essential conversations, they’ve sold more than 200,000 copies to date!

NM Coaching and Consultation; Behavior Consultant and Parent Coach

Nadine is a NYS certified General/Special Education teacher and Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) with extensive experience working with young children and their families. She received her Master of Education degree in Early Childhood Education with a specialization in teaching children with autism and Intellectual Disabilities from Teachers College, Columbia University and became a Board Certified Behavior Analyst through Pennsylvania State University.

As a Behavior Therapist and Parent Coach, Nadine works with families who are facing challenging behaviors in their home and community by offering support and hands-on coaching directly to the caregivers around effective behavior management strategies. In addition, Nadine provides consultation services to various school settings where she supports teachers in the design and implementation of effective classroom management strategies to prevent behavioral challenges and address developmental concerns.

As the sister of an adult with Down syndrome, Nadine has had first-hand experience with the challenges that families face when raising a child with special needs and the strain that this puts on all family members. Her personal experiences, along with her professional endeavors, have been the driving force behind her passion, dedication, and continuous commitment to helping children and their families lead a healthy and more fulfilling life.

Sonya is internationally recognized as a leading voice in early childhood education and design. She was head teacher at a school for under-resourced families in Washington D.C. called The Model Early Learning Center at the Capital Children's Museum, the only school to ever be accredited by Reggio Children, Italy.

She has been featured on NPR and interviewed by Newsweek and Child Magazine, among other publications. Since 1990, Sonya has consulted, lectured, and taught nationally and internationally at such places as Stanford University, Harvard Department of Education, Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the State Department of Education. She was the creative director of Where Ideas Learn to Fly, a Reggio Inspired exhibit based on the work of teachers in Ohio.

For over 20 years, Sonya has worked closely with Jewish Education initiatives around the country, developing a constructivist approach to Jewish early childhood education. She was a lead consultant as part of JECEI (Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative), and collaborated with several major Jewish organizations to promote the lived values of Judaism in the daily life of early childhood classrooms.

Sonya is a prize-winning photographer, and a writer. She has co-authored numerous articles and chapters in books. She is currently working on a book with her partner about artifacts from the Holocaust and the stories they tell. Along with her work in early childhood centers and spiritual coaching practice, Sonya focuses her energies on protecting forests and being an advocate for Mama Earth. She currently resides in the mountains of upstate NY with her partner, daughter, and their dog.

For further information, please check out her Creative Childhood website, creativechildhood.com, or her spiritual coaching work at spiritwisdom.com.

Lizzy joined The Saul and Carole Zabar Nursery School as a head teacher in 2017 and has worked in 2s, 3s, and Pre-K classrooms. Prior to joining the nursery school, Lizzy taught preschoolers with special needs for 10 years. Lizzy attended New York University and received a B.A. in psychology. After assistant teaching for three years, she completed her master's degree in early childhood general and special education at Bank Street College of Education. Lizzy was born and raised on the Upper West Side, where she currently resides with her husband and daughter.

Lizzy is a member of the nursery school's Leadership Team, and helped to found and lead the school’s DEI committee, as well as the Special Rights committee. Lizzy is passionate about teaching and strives to provide engaging and exploratory learning experiences that elicit creative thinking and a love of learning in every child. She is dedicated to anti-bias and anti-racist work in the classroom and strives to create a caring community that recognizes and supports each child’s individual learning needs.