Friends’ Neighborhood Nursery School and Director Madeleine Beresford
August 17,2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
The First in a new series of articles about local businesses
About Friends and Madeleine Beresford:
Ridgewood NJ, Madeleine Beresford has been the Director of Friends’ Neighborhood Nursery School since May 2012. The school was established in 1959 as a nonsectarian nursery school sponsored by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). It is a member of the Friends Council on Education.
The school is based on the principle that each child is unique and will flourish in an atmosphere that promotes acceptance and respect for all children. We also believe that children learn through imaginative play and focus on social development as well as academic inquiry. Children learn through hands-on experiences and through their senses.
Friends’ Neighborhood Nursery School is an multi-age school. Children ages 2½ to 5 socialize together and separate for projects, stories and work with numbers and letters. The school is influenced by the Reggio Emilia approach, which fosters a sense that children have an active role in their learning.
Madeleine has a Masters in Early Childhood Education from Montclair State University and am certified in teaching children with disabilities and a Bachelor of Arts from Oberlin College.
In December 2012, an article that she also co-wrote, Community and Connection in Inclusive Early –Childhood Education: A Participatory Action Research Investigation, was published in Young Exceptional Children.
Madeleine has worked with children for many years both in and out of the classroom. As a New Jersey Council-on-the-Arts teaching artist and through programs run by Young Audiences and Arts Horizons, She has taught in classrooms throughout New Jersey and New York City.
As director/cofounder of Galapagos Puppet Theater, she received a Henson Foundation Grant and a Puffin Foundation Grant for puppet productions. She performed in Taipei, Taiwan as well as at venues such as American Museum of Natural History, Boston Children’s Museum, and Peabody Museum in Salem, Mass.
With my puppet partner, she produced Theater of the Palms: The World of Puppet Master Lee Tien-Lu, a documentary on Chinese hand puppetry that has been presented at the Margaret Mead and Bombay Film Festivals and shown nationally on public television.
Friends’ Neighborhood Nursery School
224 Highwood Ave Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 445-0681
