Ezgi Meral Yaman

The University of Texas at Austin, College of Education, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy

• Focus: early childhood governance, child care policy, early intervention, and public investment in early learning.

Anadolu University, Faculty of Education, Eskişehir, Turkey

Şehit Vedat Barceğci Anaokulu (public preschool), Istanbul, Turkey

• Built four learning centers for twelve groups of children, applying School-Without-Walls principles: a community library, a sustainable agriculture area, a mini-farm, and a sensory workshop.
• Designed an onboarding program of parent sessions and child orientation that kept attendance high and compliance and communication issues low for three years.
• Introduced outdoor education to the teaching staff and led the school’s participation in Outdoor Classroom Day, reaching 300 children and their families in 2018 and 2019.
• Created an internship program with universities; recruited and mentored 17 undergraduates in preschool education and child development.
• Taught a class of about 30 children aged 5–6.
• Guest lecturer on alternative preschool models, Preschool Education Department, Istanbul Aydın University.

Küçükçekmece Belediye Anaokulu (public preschool), Istanbul, Turkey

• Implemented School-Without-Walls, an alternative preschool model, within the national preschool program: planned education schedules for 19 classes and coached 30 teachers to the model’s standards.
• Ran operations for one of the largest public preschools in Turkey by setting up 14 staff commissions and mentoring their leaders.
• Managed operations and coordinated teachers for Traveling Schools, the school’s mobile kindergarten, and served as its link to Ministry of National Education systems and processes.
• Led registration and orientation and created the First Week adaptation program for about 900 children and families each year.
• About 2,500 children from diverse socio-economic backgrounds learned in the model during this period.

Küçükçekmece Belediye Anaokulu (public preschool), Istanbul, Turkey

• Designed and taught lessons for groups aged 3–4, 4–5, and 5–6, with an average class size of 24.
• Held weekly family participation events and coached parents on supporting each child’s development at home.

Mehmet Hilmi Altay İlkokulu (public elementary school), Istanbul, Turkey

• Taught a preschool class of about 25 children to the national preschool program, preparing them for primary school.

Central Library, Austin, Texas

• Host a monthly story time in Turkish for children from birth to age six at the Central Library.
• Helped the library expand its Turkish-language children’s collection.

Outdoor Education and Forest Kindergartens

Learning in Nature (Finland and Turkey), taught by Dr. Anders Szczepanski