Emma Melo hails from the big cities of the northeast where she and her family called Boston, Philadelphia, and New York home. She attended Kenyon College in Ohio, and many years later received her MA in Early Childhood Education from UCDenver. Her family moved to Louisville from New York City after her second child was born in 2004.
As a parent of two young children who attended Highland Pres through Kindergarten, Emma was active on the Parent Committee and began subbing and working Extended Play in 2008, when her youngest child was in the Four-day-fours class at Highland Pres. After a brief stint as a Three’s classroom teacher, Emma became the school’s Arts and Environment Specialist, supporting and facilitating outdoor play and art environments, teaching infant and toddler art, and collaborating with the other Arts Specialists in projects. In 2020 she became the Program Coordinator for the school where she continues much of her previous work as well as supporting teachers in curriculum development, project work, professional development, and program administration.
Emma has a strong background and interest in the arts, adventure, and spiritual formation. She worked for many years in the performing arts, as an artist, a teacher, and stage director. She worked with children and youth in a number of children’s theatres and programs in Boston and New York. She taught Sunday school in her home parishes in the Episcopal Church, has served as a leader for youth missions, and was a long time staff member for a New England based church conference for youth and young adults. She was a BoyScout leader for ten years with Louisville’s Troop 30. She continues to dance and teach ballet in the children’s program at the Louisville Ballet School.
Emma believes wholeheartedly in the Reggio Emilia concept of the Hundred Languages of Children and that children (and adults) learn and express themselves through many, many modalities. She believes at the center of good teaching is good listening. As Early Childhood Educators we strive to be close observers and interpreters of children’s play, theories, ideas, questions, challenges, interests, growth and development, and to respond in ways that expand, support, and continue that growth trajectory. We challenge ourselves every day to be curious learners alongside the children, with the responsibility to help the children make meaning and understanding out of their work and play. Emma is a fierce advocate for childhood and that children have the right to have this short and special time in their lives preserved for growth through play, wonder, belonging, and joyful learning. She refers to Highland Pres. as “The Magical Place” and maintains a personal motto for what she does for a living as “The Art of Play”.