One summer I took a group of my students to New York City. Most had never left their Philadelphia neighborhoods. We'd spent weeks reading Wonderstruck, a novel that unfolds partly inside the American Museum of Natural History, and we never told them where the bus was going. Watching them realize they were standing inside the book, then scatter through the halls hunting for rooms they had only imagined, is one of the clearest pictures I have of what learning should feel like: magic.

In the Hall of Meteorites, they found Ahnighito and were able to put their hands on it. Thirty-four tons of iron from the core of an asteroid, nearly as old as the Sun, and something they had seen in the pages of their book. We spent those weeks on grammar and summary, but what I really wanted was for them to walk out believing the world is full of things worth seeing.

I was a classroom teacher and then a high school principal. I am now a professor training future teachers, an analyst studying inequalities in my home state, and an advisor to education organizations in the United States and around the world. But the through line I come back to in each of these projects is that children should not merely get through their schooling, but should feel connected to a community, know they matter to others, and be driven by a sense of wonder for the world.

Reggio is where I come to center myself and reflect on my capacity to do those things. I try to be fully present with people and with the place, rather than moving from one item on a list to the next. I am so grateful to keep seeking that wonder with you.