About US Education Linkについて

Education Linkは、「多くの人と国とで繋がった保育」を目指して1996年にMikie（美貴枝）Stapletonによって設立されました。

>>スタッフ紹介

１、世界中の幼児教育が学べるように
当時、日本を通じて実践したアメリカ、欧米の幼稚園現場を日本に紹介する中で、教育者に留まらず、子どもに関わる全ての人が、世界の保育について知りたいと思っていることを痛感しました。また、ロサンゼルスでは、日本人師弟の子育てや、英語と日本語の指導、学校進学のサポートを通じて、現地に根付いた幼稚園つくりの必要性をも感じ、2001年、新しい試みとして日本語と英語での両語の保育を開始。日本からも施設訪問や研修生が訪れています。小人数制でアットホームな保育環境を基本に、日本とアメリカの保育の融合で、きめ細やかな保育を行っています。

２、日本の英語教育の改善を考えて
Education Linkが両語の保育を始めて5年、幼児期の多言語教育は、言語を通じて「広く人を受け入れる精神を養う」という最大の利点を見出しました。バイリンガルは、その知能の高さや将来の就職展望が広がるということだけでなく、人と上手にやってゆける素質に優れているという点でも注目され始めています。
もっと多くの人に両語の保育から広がる、地球に生きる人としての考えが宿る、地球視野の保育を知ってほしいと願い、2007年、新園舎の建設を始めました。

３、２１世紀を担う、子どもたちに必要な、地球のこと。
毎日の保育では、太陽や土、水や風を感じる遊びや、地球や宇宙を学ぶ時間などをおり込み、自然環境に生きる共存の心、命の尊さ、育てることの大切さに気づかせるよう、日々を大事に過ごしています。また、ユーモアあふれる活動、様々な文化の生活や行事に親しむことで、生活の楽しみを知り、それぞれののアイデンティティを高め、決まりやモラルを世界視野でもって考える人になるよう、日々の保育にあたります。

４、親子と先生が、学べる拠点を世界中に。
スタッフは、全て、海外の生活経験なり、２ヶ国語以上を話せる保育専門の教師陣。深い思慮と愛情をかけ、グローバルな視野での生活の営みを見せることも保育の一つと考えています。
Education Linkは、子ども関連に携わる方々の、海外教育経験を支援しています。
保育の向上を目指す方々の海外勉強の機会を提供し、社会的活動としての保育の価値を高めていくことも長期的な目標としています。

About Education Link

>>Our Staff

Education Link is a school of limited enrollment, surrounded by trees and flowers. Nature is a part of our daily experience. Children are allowed to grow emotionally and expand their interests at their own rate in this happy, natural environment. We provide a home-like environment for the child’s comfort. Through this environment, We are able to attend to a child’s wonder, discoveries and needs.

Since 2002, Education Link has been a very successful home-based pre-school. After many requests from parents and much consideration, Mikie Stapleton, owner and director, realized that the community has a need for more bilingual education. In order to fulfill this need, she has decided to build a new, larger facility in the neighboring city of Lomita. Her new location, designed by her creative, enthusiastic staff, will offer three large classrooms, ample parking and a beautiful, ecology-minded playground. The new site is set to open in September, 2007 and will be a cheerful, warm environment for small children to grow, learn and play.

We are deeply concerned with each child’s emotional, physical, and intellectual development. We believe it is important for children to learn through play and interaction with adults and others rather than to study in a structured and teacher-centered learning environment.

Children develop independence, creativity, the ability to solve problems, and appropriate methods of handling emotions – all of which instill feelings of confidence and self-esteem. Education Link is a happy school and rich in fun and unique activities. Our days are filled with songs and laughs. We also share smiles and occasional tears with children. Working with children and helping them grow is an inspiring and gratifying endeavor. We help each individual child to grow at his/her own rate and achieve his/her goals.

We urge parents to join our school meetings, and we hope to enrich our program by incorporating your interests and talents. Through this process, we continue to grow as people – parents, teachers and students; all with a global point of view. Our school works best through the cooperation between the child, the parents and the teachers. With the child, the parents and the teachers working together, the child is able to thrive and excel at learning.

Studies have shown that crucial language skills are developed in the first 3 years of life and that the ability to become bilingual is best fostered by exposure in those early years. Our school provides exposure to different languages throughout the day, While we foster a bilingual environment, we do not mix languages together in a sentence. Each sentence spoken must be spoken entirely in one language. Among the many benefits of learning more than one language is the respect children learn for other people and cultures, as well as themselves. We are able to easily understand the children, which in turn, allows the children to feel comfortable in their learning environment.

We have many special events throughout the school year. Our focus is not only on Japanese and American traditions, but other cultures as well.

Our daily schedule is very flexible so that we are able to incorporate the interests of the children. We encourage children to be observant and to use independent problem-solving.

We strongly support mixed age activities as this fosters a mutual respect between the younger and older children.

We use both Japanese and English during all activities, but always take into consideration each child’s language development needs.

Education Link uses positive reinforcement as often as possible. We also offer the children different choices for problem-solving.