The closure of Hampshire College signals the end of a remarkable 56-year experiment in student-centered education and has raised critical questions about the future of higher education. But there has been almost no recognition that this is also a profound loss of progressive education for the community’s youngest students: babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. The Hampshire College Early Learning Center will also shutter its doors this June, leaving dozens of families and a roster of seasoned childhood educators abruptly stranded.
The Early Learning Center represented a part of Hampshire that was thriving. Filled to capacity with 34 young students and an active waitlist, the “ELC” was in its heyday. While affiliated with Hampshire College, the center has always had its own identity too. Now community members dream of coming together to keep the center open.
The same free-spirited and progressive philosophy that made Hampshire famous informed the campus’ one-of-a-kind preschool, a joyful and whimsical place that seemed to have been plucked directly from the pages of a fairy tale book on its shelves. Babies visited West African drumming classes; toddlers and preschoolers climbed trees, dug in the mud, soared on tire swings, and roamed freely about the campus. Observers would find no generic plastic play structure on this rambling play yard: the place was closer to something like an enchanted garden, with children watering flowers, examining rocks, and journeying through wooded passageways. The place represented, almost to the point of anachronism, the kind of wholesome and free-range childhood most assume has become a lost thing of the past. At a moment of increasing technology use when other centers rely on social media-like apps, teachers at the school crafted daily letters to parents, detailing pedagogical choices and highlights of the day.
An early childhood literacy and social-emotional curriculum flourished: with rotating chapter books, picture books, and library books, it was common to overhear children discussing subjects ranging from outer space to empathy. Teachers spoke of building social democracy for our youngest citizens — and the small children, remarkably, seemed really to get it.
The ELC, which embraces a Reggio Emilia approach to free play and student-led learning, forged links between the Pioneer Valley and Reggio, Italy, which groups of ELC teachers visited many times, from 1991 to 2024. The ELC’S dedicated teachers worked every day to curate an environment filled with “provocations” for learning, which meant the classroom functioned as a dynamic space, transforming from one day to the next: new flowing curtains, newly positioned mirrors, crawl spaces, tunnels, open-ended materials to manipulate — the environment is one of the teachers in this philosophy.
True to its resilient nature, the ELC began in the basement of Hampshire College’s Dakin Dorm in 1981. In addition to educating generations of small children, the center employs 12-15 work-study students a semester. These student teachers contribute to a school community that truly spans all ages. The ELC impact on these work-study students is clear: many have gone on to pursue careers in early education across the country, and some have stayed at the ELC. The center even has assistant teachers who were once children in the same classrooms.
The ELC has long served as a living laboratory for study, drawing visitors who come to learn from its work. Teachers have been published nationally and internationally, presented locally and nationally, and regularly attend conferences and meet with educational groups to further their commitment to the work. Teachers have collaborated with the Eric Carle Museum as well as with professors and students working in design, dance, poetry, literature, nature studies — and the list goes on.
The average preschool teacher retention rate in this country is two years. At the ELC, teachers stay more than 20 years. Current teachers, for example, have worked at the ELC for 26, 22, and 15 years. A GoFundMe has been established to support these teachers: https://gofund.me/4cc6bc6fe.
The loss of the ELC comes at a moment when childcare in the Valley is already in crisis. Amherst childcare facilities can service approximately 2,100 children but demand far outstrips that number. It is common for waitlists to run years long, and parents are often told to get on waitlists when pregnant. In 2024, University of Massachusetts unions bargained for additional childcare resources. They were not successful. The childcare crunch affects women disproportionately and has ripple effects for the Valley economically, preventing many employees from performing at their full capacity.
When we lose an institution like Hampshire, we lose an entire approach to education and community, for citizens of all ages, including the very littlest. The loss of Hampshire College is a tragedy. But the future of the ELC is an opportunity.
Anna Jones Abramson, Paul Murphy, and Cecelia Ripley on behalf of parents and teachers of the Hampshire College Early Learning Center.