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About Me

NOTE FROM THE WEBMASTER (and good friend)
Sydney has been devoted to early childhood education, advocacy and children's rights for more than 40 years. In 2005 she received a commendation from the City of San Francisco for her tremendous contributions to this field. I am very excited to share this with you.  

Sometimes the professional needs to be unmasked a bit, so we can be people to each other. So, who am I?

I'm a woman who loves the arts, sings in musicals when she can, and goes to live music and theater often.

I'm a woman who loves my home, and I often tweak it to make it prettier and more comfortable.

I'm a woman who loves justice, and I have an active political life. These days my focus is on the children who have parents in prison. I was such a child: my stepfather was a long-term federal prisoner, and I have grown up around people who choose to speak truth to power.

For the other stuff, the schooling, experience, and so forth, go to my Curriculum Vitae.

And if there are other things you'd like to know about me, please ask. 

Did I say I LOVE explaining things (including myself)?

*The photo above is me playing next to a mural in San Francisco's Mission District. I'm real, he's painted.

Sometimes you need a paragraph about me for a conference flyer, etc. Here is one below. I'll be glad to write you one that is longer or shorter or meets other needs; please have me do that, since sometimes what others write about me is surprising (and sometimes even inaccurate!). Thank you.

Paragraph About Me

Sydney Gurewitz Clemens, an early childhood teacher for more than thirty years, is a widely recognized author and presenter on topics which involve hot cognition: children learning through things they are passionate about. These topics can be from the happy parts of life: early literacy, creativity, and many aspects of the work being done in Reggio Emilia, but they can also be from life's painful parts, including divorce, death & dying, and parents in prison. Her two books, Pay Attention to the Children: Lessons for Teachers and Parents from Sylvia Ashton-Warner, and  The Sun's Not Broken, A Cloud's Just in the Way: On Child-Centered Teaching are inspiring, practical, informative and a pleasure to read.

[They will be available for purchase the day of the event if I come for a workshop in your city.]

E-mail:  sydney@eceteacher.org, www.eceteacher.org • (C) Copyright Sydney Gurewitz Clemens, 2009