Making Adjustments: Meditations on Learning with Children (ROW)

Making Adjustments is a thoughtful and welcoming invitation to be present with children and with ourselves. Through her attentive and playful eye, Misa Okayama helps us see what is possible in our work - in our moments - with young children. Opportunities to reflect and meditate throughout the book will help you embody these practices and integrate them again and again into your pedagogy.

Making Adjustments is part of the Reimagining Our Work (ROW) collection. Use the ROW collection to discover how early childhood educators in the field are reimagining their work and thinking alongside children.

"Powerful, insightful, inspired, and inspiring, this little book gets to the soul of teaching and learning."

- Pam Oken-Wright, Pedagogical consultant, author, “Mommy, They’re Taking Away My Imagination!”: Educating Your Young Child at Home

"Misa’s meditations on her interactions with and her relationship to five-year-old Tsuki are an invitation to each of us to slow down, to be present and to discover infinite possibility in our lives as educators and as students of life. For all who desire to bring their whole selves to the classroom, Misa shares how it can be done, bringing a cultural and intimately personal lens to the daily practice of teaching. One can taste the richness that comes when one deeply understands that the reference to that magical teaching moment is not only for the child but for all of us."

- Lisa Lee, Early Childhood Educator

About the Author

Misa, a native of Japan, came to San Francisco Bay Area after high school to explore the wider world and to attend university. While majoring in Child and Adolescent Development with a focus on Young Child and Family, Misa had opportunities to work with diverse groups of preschoolers in different settings and found deep fascination with being in a classroom with young children side-by-side.

Misa has been at a Japanese bilingual preschool program, Nihonmachi Little Friends, for the last 17 years. Her great joy comes from being a co-researcher along with the children for inquisitive pursuits every day and having collaborative partnerships with other educators.

Misa finds it inspiring to participate in reflective learning community for dialogues with other professionals, from national to international, who are in various roles in the field, to envision what’s possible as a greater wholeness.

Misa enjoys going on a hike, traveling anywhere near and far, and finds peace with engaging in creative arts and processes.