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2008: Pre-Kindergarten Teacher of the Year

Joni Anderson's Cosmic Classroom
Chelsea Piers teacher transforms students' learning environment

For Joni Anderson, teaching the youngest students runs in the family.
Anderson’s mother, after all, was a preschool director for a church in her native Chicago. And with all that exposure to an educator in her living room, it didn’t take long for Anderson to start emulating her mother.

“I really had fun going to school, and I also had younger siblings, so I got to teach them when I was little and pretend to be teacher,” she said.

Today, Anderson, 27, does the real thing, educating and exciting kids at the Chelsea Piers Preschool for the past two years.

“My kids love her—love her,” said Erica Schietinger, a parent who’s placed two kids under Anderson’s care. “They asked her to move in. They wanted her to come live with us.”

Part of Anderson’s appeal is not only her ability to make lessons fun in the classroom but also to bring the learning experience home.

“Every Friday she sends home a note letting you know what she’s been doing and what she needs for the following week,” Schietinger said. “Every day she puts up pictures of what they’re doing. You feel like you’re part of their school. And the kids are excited because they feel like they can go home and bring home school. It kind of integrates the two.”

Inside the classroom, Anderson transforms the environment into a replication of whatever the class is learning about. In the past, the space has been turned into a rainforest, complete with butterflies, caterpillars and sloths. At the time of this interview, Anderson’s classroom had become the solar system.

“It’s a lot of science and art and things tied all together and I think living in the city it’s important to get the children to see things they don’t get to see that often,” Anderson said, adding that the looser pre-kindergarten curriculum at Chelsea Piers makes it easier to create appealing lesson plans. “We try to choose things that they have a big interest in. It’s easier to do if they’re actually interested to begin with.”
Schietinger thinks Anderson is so good with children because she’s “patient, quiet and fun”—just the kind of attributes you would expect from someone who’s spent most of her life as a Midwestern girl.

After leaving Chicago, Anderson started taking college classes in early childhood education. And after graduating from the University of Iowa, she began her trek to the East Coast, with the first stop being Florida. But having family in New York, Anderson made the big move to the Big Apple.

She said she just got lucky with the Chelsea Piers position, with the school having a job opening right when she was looking for work. But luck doesn’t look like it has anything to do with what makes Anderson a great teacher.

“I find the most important thing is having confidence when you walk away from someone when they’re taking care of your kids,” Schietinger said. “It’s so nice that you walk out of the room every day and you don’t have to worry about it. If they skin their knee if they’re climbing, if they do something, you know she’s going to take care of it.”

— Cody Derespina