Today we’d like to introduce you to Mazi Irani.
Mazi, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I fell in love and everything I before came to a singular point.
For over 13 years, I enjoyed my job as a registered interior architect experienced in designing office, retail and educational spaces. I thought I had found my passion in design thinking, branding, implementing and building spaces for businesses and corporations around the world as well as Leed certified projects.
Then, my daughter was born and my heart shifted. I was fortunate to be able to stay at home with her for ten months before placing her in a loving daycare. However, I found myself making excuses to spend as much of my free time as possible at her school, immersing myself in her energy and the children around her. She and the other children were my solaces if I had a bad day or just needed a reset or fill up on boundless hugs and love. It was while I was there I came to the realization that my daughter wasn’t being challenged, engaged and provoked into thinking, the teachers were not taking an active role in her development while I was sitting doing exactly what I wanted the caregivers to do. I needed to search for what my daughter needed to be a well-rounded and grounded individual but it was hard to find and it was at that moment the singular point took hold. Why look for what I can do. Soon, an opportunity was presented to move to California to fulfill the quest of opening a school for young children. And just like that, I was on a path to creating Dot to Dot.
You might ask why this, why now? The children of today are the leaders of tomorrow. They are the ones who need to be critical and creative thinkers, problem solvers and innovators with empathy and passion for a better future and world contributors for the betterment of all. I know, a tall order but I wanted to be the catalyst for change in education for children. So, I became an obsessed reader and learner from brain studies to current practices to what children need that they aren’t getting any more. I picked the brains of people in the field utilized the talented educators along the way and sought out answers to my questions. I used my design background to seek out innovators in all areas of design to come with new and fresh ideas and tools. My school isn’t static it is fluid all our teachers research the best practices for the children’s learning styles. We send our dots out into the working world to experience real life, real jobs, and real possibilities. You never know what direction a child will take unless you open the mind up to the experience and discoveries of the world around them.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Thanks to Ms. Karen, one of our advisors at Dot To Dot, we view no challenges as an opportunity that stretches our thinking into other areas we might not have thought of before. So, obstacles become something to surmount a problem to solve a brainstorming session or time with people with a different perspective. At the same time, we applied that philosophy with our children we try hard to limit the word no and instead figure out a way to say yes. What will that look like, how can we make it safe or acceptable, etc.?
That being said, it isn’t easy to convince people that schemas, natural play areas, loose parts and nature pedagogy, emergent, play-based education, and a Reggio Emilia inspired school that has an active child-centered risk assessment and conflict resolution policy are the best way to go. Whew! Quite a mouthful and aligning it all with current standards without compromising on our promise to parents to be the best school for their child to learn kindness and empathy to experience respect and be valued for who they are and to succeed not just for Kindergarten but for the rest of their life is hard and finding like-minded staff and families who understand what we are trying to do is important and challenging.
Times have changed significantly no longer can children play in the front yard, walk home from the park or ride their bike around the block without supervision or come home when the street lights come on. Today’s Parents, as an advisor pointed out, must purchase their children’s childhood. We need to ask them what that looks like. Is it spending 12 hours a day depending on age and school level doing school work or is it something totally different with interests being explored and new discoveries being made and the freedom to play and make choices? Is it stretching thinking and creating brain pathways for safe risk-taking or learning to solve problems, mediate and seek knowledge that gets children to learn about others, is it becoming thinkers and doers?
It is also learning to let go of people who are not on the same page wishing them well and reminding them we are always here to support them. It is a struggle to balance a living wage and benefits for staff and the tuitions for parents. But our highly trained and experienced staff need to be honored for the education and hard work that they do every day.
We aren’t a daycare, we aren’t really a preschool, we are a children’s developmental education center. That alone is hard for parents to understand. A school whose entire purpose is to further their children’s education using their own interests? Who would have thought that could exist. But even coming to this point in our journey was not a static thing it was fluid it grew as our knowledge grew and it became a school that changes with the needs of the learners and I and my staff continued to read, learn and grow as well.
Another challenge we face is making learning visible. Parents look at a child playing with blocks and don’t see what we see they think Day Care, we think what can we do to stretch their thinking. Parents forget that children are more than capable not in just putting on shoes and putting dishes in the sink but cooking snacks and using glue guns and tools. They have ideas and so many ways to express them and we need to listen, observe and challenge. Before the age of five, 85% of our brain is formed. Yet, we crowd the world with subpar schools that house children with little regard for the unlimited capabilities they have. So, another challenge is getting parents and their extended families to see what we see and we do that with parent training opportunities throughout the year exploring new ways to engage them just as we do their children.
It is getting people, politicians, and investors on board with what children really need, to be heard to learn in the many languages available to them, not just the spoken word, to be respected for the unique individual learners they are. As a school, we have committed ourselves to be questioners, learners and educators so we might be that fountain of information for everyone, parents, media outlets, social media and communities to show them the importance of listening to children, to create a place of respect and understanding so all can be heard. We want to raise the bar of current practices in childcare and being stuck in the past without learning for the future is not going to raise that bar.
I guess my best advice to young women is to find your passion and work hard every day to keep getting better at what you do. Believe in yourself, your vision and creative leadership that takes amazing care of your people who are walking your path with you. Live in the moment and take life and all of its amazing connections as it comes, take no as an opportunity to stretch your thinking and follow your singular point. I have two beautiful daughters who are growing faster than I like them to, and with running the company times become hard to balance being a mom and being there for the school and the team. I have learned to make Dot To Dot part of our lifestyle, we travel and look at schools for ideas, we brainstorm to come up with ideas, we do a gardening project at the school on some weekends. I have also learned to let them know that when mom is not there, she is taking care of people who take care of us every day, sometimes harder than other days but a journey of learning together. You also need an incredibly supportive, and selfless support system. Mine happens to be my husband and my parents.
Please tell us about Dot To Dot.
The journey and experiences I have had in architecture and design brought a fresh perspective to learning with your minds in our school. We follow design thinking and are inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach.
Our name was inspired by a Steve Jobs quote which he stated during an interview. In this interview, he is told, “Creative people are geniuses.” He replies, “Creative people are people that have a lot of experiences, think about their experiences and then connect the dots.” At Dot to Dot, we provide children with meaningful experiences, we let them play, explore and discover, together with the educators we reflect to connect the dots and scaffold the learning for the next day, week or months.
At the center of our practice, lies the children’s voices and their competence, ingenuity, imagination, and perspective. We believe that children are our best catalysts to gain a fresh and in-depth understanding of the world with themselves as competent beings and a part of society in return teaching us adults about ourselves.
My passion and inspiration come from children, their dialogues, hypothesis, and collaboration with them and educators to seek more of what they are trying to understand and experiment with. I believe as educators who are learning and being with our children we need to constantly research, train, educate and surround ourselves with like-minded people who believe in our mission. It is not uncommon to have me come back from training and after reflection throw a twist into all the things that have been working so far to see how much further we can stretch the envelope.
We started with one vision of creating an environment for young minds that respects them, provide intriguing provocations and invitations for their minds, genuinely loves and cares for them and all the details of being a child the great and the not so great as well as views them as educators. Along the way, we meet people read content and seek the fire and inspiration to keep elevating the environment and experiences of everyone involved at Dot to Dot. We partnered up with local and international schools to set best practices for making learning visible looking closely at the daily lives of children.
We are a group of educators with the utmost respect and appreciation for children and their competency. We ask parents what they are looking for in a facility for their children and inevitable they say ‘kindergarten readiness’ I take a deep breath, still my heart, and carefully find the words to explain. “Your children are life and childhood is a gift that never returns why limit your child’s potential to the basic, baseless and bereft of true benefit education that will put your children on a path that is woefully ill-equipped to prepare your child for anything other than the present. Today’s education lacks imagination, creativity, problem-solving and the skilled thinking required for the future. It has yet to get the future right and has become nothing but a system preparing children for a workforce that they will most likely be unqualified for or out of their reach. Why not teach children to prepare for whatever comes however that may look. You should be aspiring for your child to be fully present in life, a play which is their happiness explores and discover, imagine and create.
Hypothesize theories in their mind and seek answers by testing theories out. Your aspiration for your child should be for them to understand themselves and their feelings to the fullest, able to regulate themselves, understand and celebrate others diversities while respecting feelings and thoughts and be able to tap into their emotions by engaging in mediation and conflict resolution your children need to be lifelong learners, confident beings and have a huge sense of empathy and responsibility towards others in the world around them. Why have they been ready just for Kindergarten? Why not have them be ready for anything that comes their way.
My team and I are in the business of hearts. We care, nurture and educate your loved ones. Every spark of the eye, every smile, big and small ideas, and thinking add flavor, spark, and fire to our day. We are at Dot to Dot because we believe in your children and their immense potential to form a strong foundation as a human being.
Do you think there are structural or other barriers impeding the emergence of more female leaders?
This field is dominated by female leaders. In fact, I would welcome more men in the filed to bring in a diverse perspective to the field of early childhood.
Contact Info:
- Address: 12160 Alta Carmel Court
- Website: dottodotacademy.com
- Phone: 8584851978
- Email: connect@ dottodotacademy.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dottodotpreschool/
Image Credit:
David Hebble Photography
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