Untitled No. 1 has as its mission to serve our community by offering families and children a joyous and engaging preschool experience, replete with opportunities to learn from nature and from one another. Because children learn best in diverse settings, Untitled No. 1 admits families evenly spread across income levels and provides scholarships to achieve this balance.
We see ourselves reflected in nature. We constantly take out of nature’s laboratory new and wonderful things. We nurture great respect for nature and learn how it acts upon us and how we act upon it. Every part of the universe is connected with every other part, and these inter-relationships call for us to care.
Children at Untitled No. 1 learn indoors and out. Natural elements, functions, and systems inspire the curriculum, as children naturally wonder, “How does that happen?” “Why does it do that?” Their natural curiosities exist before children can even articulate such questions, and allowing time to be in nature and to interact with nature stimulates their intelligence. The sciences, maths, arts, languages, technologies, every field of endeavor seems to have roots in the natural world. For children to develop their whole beings they benefit from direct contact with the natural world.
At Untitled No. 1 tender relationships develop between people - children, teachers, family members, neighbors – and utmost care and consideration for others is our focus. As children develop their sense of self, including ‘agency’ - how one gets things done, and how to care for themselves, we nudge them to empathize with others. We are all emotional beings and with effort we can evolve our thinking from me to we. Children at Untitled No. 1 are respected and respect others. Everyone learns from everyone. Everyone is precious and each offers their multiple gifts to the world.
Loris Malaguzzi also said, “The pleasure of learning, of knowing, and of understanding is one of the most important and basic feelings that every child expects from the experiences he confronts alone, with other children, or with adults. It is a crucial feeling which must be reinforced so that the pleasure survives even when reality may prove that learning, knowing, and understanding involve difficulty and effort. It is in this very capacity for survival that pleasure is transformed into pure joy.”
At Untitled No. 1 the sense of joy is palpable. Children and teachers are engaged in learning and teaching one another, side-by-side on parallel paths of inquiry. Our teachers want to know the children so well that they can plan for their fascination with learning. Nothing without joy!
Untitled No. 1 is a member of the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance and founder Laila Taslimi and the team have participated in conferences, workshops, and intensive training experiences in the U.S., Canada, and in Reggio Emilia in Italy.
Untitled No. 1 is part of the Edible Schoolyard Project and from our kitchen workshop serves morning snack, lunch, and an afternoon snack, sustainably sourced. Click here for a sample week autumn menu.
We agree with Alice Waters that “Lunch is an academic subject.” This few minute video explains: https://edibleschoolyard.org/files/school-lunch-academic-subject-2017
Untitled No. 1 has memberships in many like-minded organizations and is guided by their efforts and initiatives. Examples include: European Child Friendly Cities Network, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, York Region Nature Collaborative, Natural Start Alliance, Children & Nature Network, Constructing Modern Knowledge/Invent to Learn, 8 Shields – Transformative Mentoring and Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature, Opal School of the Portland Children's Museum, Playing for Change, and NAEYC.
Our name, Untitled No. 1, is borrowed from the art world when the artist does not name the work. The artwork is unnamed unintentionally or by choice when it’s implicitly preferred the work speak for itself. Our preschool is not the work of one person, rather our children, families, and community create and add meanings to it across time, therefore we intentionally chose not to name the preschool.
Art + Technology can intersect, and there is a co-incidental calling up of the word Untitled when one opens a window to the world-wide web. Opening a window is a traditional metaphor for learning. Within and without the digital world, searching and researching are integrative processes that occur at our preschool.
Laila wants to serve her community by applying her knowledge and skills to meet the needs of children, families, and society. A believer in the potential of all people to contribute to an ever-advancing civilization, Laila is most interested to learn with others to engage energies and intellects. A favorite aphorism is, Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve (Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.). View Resumé
Left to Right: Lucia, Ziggy, Macrina, Amber, Laila, (missing: Rosibel)
Amber has been in the field of early childhood education since 2010, teaching children between the ages of 2 to 5 years, mentoring new teachers entering the field, and just prior to coming to Untitled in 2021 held the title of Diversity and Inclusion Specialist at her previous preschool program. Amber also leads an online community of educators under the handle ECE Teachers for ABAR. My passion is creating safe and nurturing spaces that allow children to develop healthy, confident self-identities, recognize and celebrate diversity, and advocate for themselves and the world around them.
Lucia joined the team in 2022 and has been working as an early childhood teacher full-time for two years, but has been working with children in some capacity for as long as she can remember! She graduated from Wesleyan University in 2020 with a BA in English and a minor in Education Studies, and fulfilled her early childhood education coursework at Santa Monica College, where she continues to study early childhood education. I am passionate about approaching this work through a social justice lens and the "whole child" philosophy, which aims to celebrate and nurture each and every aspect of each child's identity and personality.
Macrina is a founding teacher at Untitled. Her Associate of Arts degree is in Education and she has two Bachelor of Arts degrees, one in Liberal Studies and one in Spanish, with an emphasis in Spanish linguistics. During her university years Macrina distinguished herself with her leadership and motivation to bring about greater culture equity, and she continues diligently in such efforts through serving in her own community of Santa Monica. Macrina’s early childhood education coursework at Santa Monica College has earned her California Commission on Teacher Credentialing Child Development Permit at the level of Site Supervisor. She is fluently bilingual and teaches Spanish using a natural approach to language acquisition that includes basic conversation as well as Spanish story time to engage children. Macrina has two daughters, raised here in Santa Monica. I have always enjoyed being with children and aspire to play a part in all aspects of their development.
Rosibel brings enthusiasm and love to her work with our children every day as she prepares our food inspired both by the seasonal offerings at our learning gardens and farmers markets and by the children themselves. Since starting at Untitled in 2019, Rosibel took early childhood education courses to receive her credential and also provides our children a form of language immersion by speaking with them almost exclusively in Spanish. A mom of three grown children, all raised here in our Pico neighborhood where she volunteered in their classrooms, Rosibel is especially nurturing in ways that complement our school’s approach to caring for the whole child.
Ziggy started at Untitled in 2019 first as a teacher and then in 2021 became our director. Ziggy writes, Hello! I have been in the field of early childhood education for the past two decades, starting as an undergrad at UCLA where I developed my passion for working with young children. Over the years I have gained invaluable experience working throughout Los Angeles and San Diego counties for a variety of different programs from Head Start to Reggio-inspired to dual language immersion. I revel in the messy excitement of approaching each day with new wonder and hope my enthusiasm radiates through with every family I meet. We are all lifelong learners and as a queer first-generation Salvadoran educator, I hope to create a space where all children can show up as they are and explore with unfiltered curiosity.
L to R back: Jessy Elena Morales (Board), Lucia Bernardo, Ziggy Luna, Macrina García Lopez, Kristina Lizama (Board), Laila Taslimi (Board). L to R front: Amber Blackman, Aimée Porter (Board)
Untitled’s Board of Directors is comprised of four members that include activists within our 90404 community, and beyond.
Credits: Art Photography and Background Video by Abdi Taslimi. Web Design by Gin Chen.
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Connections to nature and human connections provide opportunities to consider justice. Differences are recognized, while our basic humanity: the needs and wants we share in common far outweigh our differences. Untitled No. 1 as a community actively engages with our wider community and children are encouraged to enquire about the realities they encounter. Our community needs us and we play a part in shaping it. We aim to establish in our home of Santa Monica characteristics of a child-friendly city. We play at the park, we walk and ride the Expo, we shop at the Farmers Market and grocery store, all to experience life in our city. These experiences inform our envisioning of the better Santa Monica we can be. Children will develop their voices for change in a “hundred or more languages” as the founder of the Reggio Emilia approach (Loris Malaguzzi) says.