Mariana Lopez, Bay Area Community Resources, Industry Director

Okay, so when I think about expander learning, both in my professional, and personal life, I think about aunts, like my aunt. Expanded learning is like the aunt of the school day. You need, if your mom, you need a sister, you need a friend that becomes the aunt of your kids. and he's the one who helps you and makes those big differences with the small details. 

And that's what we do in expander learning. We're making a difference in the teacher's life every day, because we're supporting kids in accessing fun, educational enrichment that is going to support the academic content the teachers are delivering in the day. Without the structure, without the minutes, it's more spontaneous to give it a word. 

It also provides the structure, but it's more spontaneous. It's more youth-voice driven. When I think about expanded learning, I also think about the dinner, that you started eating with an ice cream instead of with the chicken and the salad? 

Because how important it is for us to let kids play. We are always thinking, okay, are they having fun? Are they feeling safe? 

And learning becomes part of it because we're providing this safe and supportive environment. But it's not because we are exclusively focusing on the learning that they feel safe, it’s the other way around. And when I think about Expanded Learning, I cannot help but think about equity. 

That's what I think we do every day. We are providing equity in education. We are providing kids with many aunts. 

Those are the program instructors that will help them who do homework that take them to classes because mom and dad are working. And those are the subcontractors that come to the programs or the same program instructors that are, you know, doing soccer and art and dance and a stem experiment and music and all the things that you cannot imagine, taking the kids on a back ride or let's go to the museum in a field trip, right? and how you see all this is smiling faces. 

So I think Expanded Learning also reflects kids as smiling. It also reflects kids saying, I can do this and I eat, even didn't think about doing this. I didn't know this existed, and I was going to feel passionate about it. 

And I felt something I feel confident doing, and I found something that I'm good at it. And therefore, I'm going to try a little harder. And those things that I know that are not my trait, that I'm not so good at. 

Expanded learning is so social emotional learning is social emotional development. I remember one time when I said, I'm not going to assign seats for lunchtime anymore. And my staff look at me like, what is she talking about? 

And I said, well, the only way we are going to allow kids to practice self-regulation is by letting them have the opportunities to practice self-regulation, or by telling them how to be regulated all the time. The custodian got really upset with me because there was a lot of corn under the tables of fifth graders because kindergartens were sitting there. But it's fine, I clean it. 

And I have kids helping me clean it and everybody had fun. And it was an amazing opportunity for what it could translate in the future generational interactions because they learned how to be and get along with people from different ages. And, you know, six year old versus 10 or 11 year old could sound like a big difference at those ages. 

So, yeah, expander learning is my passionion. I believe that every family can benefit from expander learning programs. I believe that we need to different differentiate what the families need and offered a menu, a variety of services within the programs to serve every family and I truly believe that the name is what we do. 

We expand learning in every kid's mind.