Kendra Bucklin

Kendra (she/they) began working in Early Childhood part-time in 2001 and transitioned to full-time upon completing her undergraduate degree in 2005. Later, she earned an MEd from The University of Massachusetts at Boston. Prior to joining BUCC in 2020, she worked at programs including HeadStart, nature preschools, and a Spanish-language immersion school. It is her belief that children are natural learners, who are innately capable of guiding their own inquiry and discovery. To that end, she prefers to follow her students’ lead whenever possible, creating (and sometimes simply allowing) truly child-led and play-based opportunities for learning.

Kendra’s favorite part about working with children is seeing the spark in their eyes as they learn something new and laughing with them at their jokes and silliness. Kendra believes that a classroom is a community and that a teacher’s job is to help children grow their own sense of belonging. Connection and care not only provide a space for learning to take place, but can also be the curriculum. Children and adults learn more through connection and care than they do through what we typically conceive of as “teaching.”

When she isn’t teaching preschool, Kendra also teaches line dancing at LGBTQ-friendly dance venues, watches Star Trek, and listens to true crime podcasts.