Diane M. Spahn is a passionate, humorous, and dynamic public speaker. With twenty years of EC classroom experience, Diane understands the joys and constraints of the educator’s role in the field. She has been a classroom teacher, theater arts teacher, and curriculum specialist working with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Diane is strongly influenced by constructivist philosophy and has a passion for supporting both children and adults in the classroom. As the Director of Education for Kodo, she works directly with the design and engineering team working to ensure that the needs of young children and the adults who care for them are heard and reflected in product design and quality. She travels internationally promoting a classroom experience in which child-initiated play and adult-framed learning experiences have equality and balance.
Diane has had a diversity of work experiences that have provided a foundation for her expertise in the field of early childhood. At the Evergreen Community School, in Santa Monica, CA, Diane was a Lead Teacher in a continuity of care program working with toddlers through PK; at the Boulder Journey School in Boulder, CO, she taught Infant/Toddlers and was the Theater Arts/Studio Teacher for all ages; and at the Acorn School for Early Development in Boulder, CO she was Infant/Toddler teacher and the Curriculum Specialist for Infant/Toddlers. Diane also had the unique opportunity of being a Mentor Teacher through the Boulder Journey School for the Teacher Education program at the University of Colorado/Denver. Her work with children and adults has been featured on Videatives Views and in the NAEYC online publication, Voices Of Practitioners. (See Encounters With Sunlight And A Mirror Ball November 2011.)
Prior to entering the ECE field, she worked as a designer in professional film and theater. She credits her artistic design experiences as having profound impact on her passion for classroom design. Spahn is known among her colleagues as a resource for creating beautiful, intriguing, and engaging spaces in which children and adults thrive and learn.
Speaking Engagements:
Featured Speaker:
North Florida AEYC STEM Conference 2018
Paradigm Project Conference 2016, 2017
Broomfield Early Childhood Conference 2017
S.T.E.M Kids Lecture Series – China 2016
Monterey Early Childhood Conference 2015
Loveland Early Childhood Conference 2015
Session Speaker:
NAEYC 2018
NAEYC 2015, 2017
CAEYC 2015 and 2016
Aurora Public Schools Conference 2016
EC STEM 2014, 2016
Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Conference 2014, 2015, 2016
NAEYC PDI Conference 2015
Many other presentations…
