Perspectives — Creating Joyous Learning Spaces for Children
By Jim Wambach
December 21, 2023
Nurturing Learning Sanctuaries
Joyous learning spaces provide a sanctuary where children can feel comfortable, enjoy learning, and thrive.
Every month, the Succeeding by Reading team of program managers and reading clinic coordinators gathers to review the program’s effectiveness and ideas for improvement. Instead of launching directly into the “business” of teaching our amazing kids to read, the gathering always starts with a reflection. That reflection veers into a consideration of how the kids, tutors, and each team member are feeling and responding to the challenges of learning and teaching.
Last month’s meeting started with a reflection on Psalm 18:19:
“He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.”
In the tapestry of education, Psalm 18:19 echoes the importance of a spacious and comfortable environment for children to learn and thrive. As we reflected on “spacious places” it illuminated the profound impact of dedicated spaces on a child’s educational journey.
“In the midst of sometimes hectic classroom environments … children receive one-on-one attention, support, and care, fostering an environment where they can respond to learning with delight and progress.”
Space, a precious commodity
Children Rising recognizes the significance of creating safe, ordered spaces for learning. Our tutoring programs foster an environment where children are nurtured in a circle of care.
In the Bay Area, finding a fixed, consistent space is often a challenge for children, especially those in our programs. Although it may be something we take for granted, shockingly, Oakland Unified School District reported 1,780 unhoused students in 2023. This emphasizes the critical link between stable housing and conducive learning environments. OUSD uses guidelines in the McKinney-Vento Act to classify unhoused students. It defines homelessness as lacking a “fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime housing.”
It underscores the struggles faced by children living in crowded or transient conditions. Imagine trying to learn at home, when home is not fixed, and could be a hotel one week or a shelter the next?
Our commitment to providing a sanctuary for learning is evident in our tutoring programs. In the midst of sometimes hectic classroom environments, our clinics become havens of order, predictability, and patterns. Here, children receive one-on-one attention, support, and care, fostering an environment where they can respond to learning with delight and progress.
Children Rising strives to embrace children in a circle of care. This includes creating nurturing sanctuaries for children to learn and thrive.
It has been a turbulent 18 months, so full of challenges and opportunities. The global pandemic had a galvanizing effect in many ways. We saw the 
Unintended consequences can be a great thing. As Children Rising develops our one-on-one online tutoring resources to address the challenges of distance learning, we are discovering many outcomes that will better support the children and families, and foster holistic relationships.
Our dedicated community volunteers – who tutor 
This week as a newly minted Math Tutor, I began a quest to make math easier for four fifth-graders who are struggling at a second grade level of math fluency. Each, of course, is struggling for different reasons and each are brilliant in other areas, such as science and reading. When asked about their favorite subjects or activities, they positively light up. When asked about how they feel about math, a dark cloud of tiredness and discouragement suddenly hovers over them. All four students are eager to have help with making something that is now hard to them much easier.
