Pervasive Joy in Early Childhood and Beyond

Anna Hartman’s passion for early childhood education mirrors her own personal sense of spirituality. She has been influenced by Rabbi Ariel Burger, who believes in finding the awe and reverence and joy in life and advocates for being deeply open to experience. Thinking about the experiences of early childhood, Hartman reflects, “Young children think really deeply. They embody the dispositions many of us wish we had, such as an ability to exhibit pure joy.”

When Hartman was working on her doctorate at The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education, Professor Jeff Kress (now JTS Provost) pushed her in a class on research methods to turn her question marks into declarative sentences. “In my career I honed an appreciation for questions and listening more than speaking,” she said. “In an early childhood classroom, we thrive when we leave space for uncertainty and respond to the uniqueness of each child.”

For her research, Hartman took the advice of her advisor, cultivated an academic voice, and used more periods. Her appreciation of the role of questioning in learning remains the core of her practice.

Now vice president of JUF education at Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, Hartman was recently promoted after eight years as director of early childhood excellence. She oversees educational initiatives funded by the federation, including early childhood, congregational education, Hebrew in public schools, and the local cohort of the IsraelNow trip for eighth graders. Hartman is a nationally recognized leader who advocates for and strengthens the field of Jewish early childhood education and a recipient of the prestigious Covenant Award. She is also the longtime director and co-founder of the Paradigm Project, which nurtures and networks educators toward a vision of Reggio-inspired Jewish early childhood education.

Hartman’s current priority is to work with the members of her team to apply the successes in early childhood to more sectors of Jewish education. “The efforts that have made a difference include a network for educators to connect to each other, increased professional development, and measurements of success,” said Hartman. “We have the data now, for example, to report on the rising salaries of early childhood educators in the Chicago area. Our work has been not only pedagogic but also innovating ‘hard systems,’ such as data collection and strategy.”

Hartman began her career in Middle East policy and somewhat accidentally fell in love with Jewish early childhood education when she “dipped her toes” into a Jewish day school as a substitute teacher. That led to a full-time early childhood teaching position and a career she loves.

“You always get where you’re meant to be,” said Hartman. As a high school senior, she had originally planned on attending the dual degree program between Barnard and List College. After spending a year in Israel on the Nativ Program, she decided to attend college instead at Emory, where her mother was on faculty. Years later, “when [then dean] Bill Robinson pushed me to consider the Executive Doctoral Program at the William Davidson School, I felt like I was coming back to where I was headed all along. Bill’s encouragement made a huge impact.”

Commuting from Chicago to New York for the program, Hartman greatly valued the focus that came from immersing in learning with a cohort of peers and having dedicated time of her own. “From the minute I got on that plane, my mind was set to engage deeply,” she said, noting her thanks to her mother, who took care of her children so that she could travel twice a year. Hartman pointed to ways the William Davidson faculty were supportive: Meredith Katz helped her to break down research methods into manageable pieces, and Shira Epstein refashioned the transition from coursework to the phase of qualifying tests and dissertation proposals. “To be in such a strong cohort, with the guidance of such amazing professors, I felt energized about the whole doctoral process and had exactly what I needed to finish.”

Hartman’s academic work helped contextualize her professional focus on early childhood. “Much of early childhood is about teaching skills for independence, such as going to the bathroom, learning letters, playing with others,” said Hartman. “These are critical skills in and of themselves, but it is even more important at this phase of learning for children to gain a sense of who they are as individuals.” Hartman referenced the work of David Bryfman and the late Jonathan Woocher, who argued that Jewish education needs to give learners what they can use today—not as a kind of preparation for an “adult” Jewish life, but instead providing real meaning and authentic connection at any age.

In the Reggio Emilia pedagogy that informs Hartman’s work, what happens in the classroom is customized for the children and responds directly to them. “The flow in early childhood has ample blocks of time for children to make choices. What happens each day should be based on the needs of the group, not an arbitrary schedule,” said Hartman. “When we ask a child ‘what would you like to do?’ we are empowering them to express themselves and to find their own joy.” The pedagogy of listening, which is one component of Reggio Emilia, asks the teacher to practice profound observation, notice threads that are coming up, and respond to needs as they emerge.

Educators themselves can replicate that process and find it personally energizing as well, said Hartman. “I know that part of why I fell in love with early childhood education is the pervasive joy and creativity of the children. You can be a joyful educator at any age when you sincerely understand and care for the human beings in your classroom. Our mission is to punctuate the day with moments of joy.”

How can teachers make that happen? For starters, said Hartman, they need to have a sense of their own pulse and seek out what they need for themselves. “Whatever we want to cultivate, we have to model ourselves.” One of Hartman’s favorite examples is the ubiquitous “rest time” that takes place daily in most early childhood programs. “Educators need to make sure to get rest too!” she said. “When we relax, we can find joy—it inevitably shows up in the classroom if we create the space to nurture and notice it.”

Hartman quoted Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who differentiated between the individual emotion of happiness and the social process joy requires. “It is all about connection,” said Hartman. “The positive relationship between teacher and learner is the prerequisite for joy.”