Staff

The teachers at Piccole Orme are highly qualified and possess a clear understanding of the goals and outcomes to be achieved, as well as the methods, timing, procedures, and educational tools required. They are supported by a team of professionals, including a psychologist, sociologist, social worker, pedagogist, pediatrician, and nutritionist. Each contributes their expertise within their respective fields to achieve a single objective: providing high-quality educational service.

"Being a preschool teacher today involves a highly complex and responsible role, requiring mastery of specific cultural, pedagogical, psychological, methodological, and didactic skills, combined with openness, sensitivity, and availability for educational interaction with children."

The teaching role unfolds in three stages: meaning, purpose, and outcome. Regarding meaning, classical educational theory reminds us that the educational relationship arises from an affective tone: wonder. Between teacher and student, there is a dual sense of wonder—surprise that becomes a question about why an event or object exists. What the student already knows is never enough, giving rise to a constellation of often insistent questions. For the teacher, wonder arises from the unexpected nature of these “whys,” sometimes seemingly meaningless but always rooted in existential reasoning. The intersection of this dual wonder is the secret of successful teaching: it becomes concrete through a cycle of questions and provisional answers, which generate further inquiries.

The purpose of education here is to transform this chain of questions into a discipline of thought, and thus of life. As Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested, educational practice can be represented as learning a plurality of language games, each with its own rules, interconnected with one another. Learning means successfully following these rules. This applies to grammar, mathematics, foreign languages, and even imagination. Questions that originate learning are not left unanswered if they lead to a structured series of rules.

Teaching requires both enthusiasm and realism: helping students learn language games and their rules is hard work. Wonder today has both cognitive and ethical significance: cognitive, because it broadens perspective and introduces new concepts; ethical, because it opens the mind to others.

If the word vocation has meaning alongside “teacher,” it is through the combination of meaning, purpose, and outcome.

Qualities of an Educator:

• Accept responsibility: Perform daily work to the best of one’s abilities.

• Empathize: Understand and imagine the perspectives of others (parents, students, colleagues, administrators).

• Collaborate: Create opportunities for sharing and participation.

• Be accountable: Explain actions, maintain accurate documentation, and communicate clearly.

• Accept challenges: View conflicts, failures, clashes, and fears as natural events.

• Think strategically: Anticipate the long-term consequences of short-term decisions.

• Demonstrate competence and interest: Activate and foster skills and interests in students.

• Persevere: Maintain trust in students even when they struggle, encourage confidence in themselves.

• Reflect and promote reflection: Read, write, think, discuss problems and ideas, share concerns, and cooperate with colleagues. Teaching requires continuous reflection, looking forward to planning and back to experience.

• Acknowledge and correct mistakes: Self-correction is a priority to maintain humility.

• Be patient: Allow time for work to take effect and for students to strengthen their abilities.