Over a century ago, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, one of Bank Street College’s founders, put into practice a vision of teaching and learning enmeshed in the physical, social, and political city spaces of young peoples’ daily lives. Central to her work was reimagining geography, grounding the discipline in the here and now of children’s neighborhoods, connecting with community members and city spaces as a means to explore complex relationships within the wider world. Mitchell considered working across different modes of engagement as an integral practice for children to learn about their worlds and their roles within it: physical movement, like walking and subway riding, and the construction of maps with varying scales, materials, and symbols (Mitchell, 1991). Mitchell also envisioned movement and mapping as essential for teachers’ learning, leading multi-day Guest Editor
Kathryn Lanouette, GSE ’06, is assistant professor of learning sciences and science education at William & Mary’s School of Education. In collaboration with schools and museums, her research and teaching explore how place-based pedagogies and emerging technologies can be central to young people’s learning about science and data science in ways that build towards more joyful and ethical futures. Her scholarship is shaped by her teaching experiences in Washington, DC and New York City. Lanouette has published in Science Education, Educational Researcher, The Journal of the Learning Sciences, and Mathematical Thinking and Learning.
