Myrna’s Children’s Village: Reflections on a dynamic early childhood laboratory school community in southern New Mexico

Abstract

In this article, the authors reflect on Myrna’s Children’s Village, their university laboratory school located in southern New Mexico in the USA. The Village serves children from the age of six weeks to five years through an array of early childhood programs. This diversity provides a unique context, while also posing issues and concerns, such as lack of collaboration across programs, and also how the authors’ critically framed teacher education program is in many ways disconnected from the developmental philosophies that guide most of the Village’s programs. Based on their discussions as faculty of early childhood who work with the Children’s Village, the authors offer their thoughts and insights about how the Village came to be, its purposes, and who they are as faculty in relation to the Village. The authors then offer possible new directions for the Children’s Village in which greater collaboration across programs is fostered along with stronger faculty engagement. The purpose of sharing these reflections is to encourage a shift in how, as a field, university laboratory schools are conceptualized and how collaboration might be enhanced within dynamic early childhood contexts.