2009 Award Winners

Lourdes Molina
Belmont Cragin Early Childhood Center, Chicago
Bilingual Preschool, Preschool for All

In the 14-year history of the Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards, one special preschool stands out for inspiring excellence in its blue-collar community. Belmont Cragin Early Childhood Center is the first to boast three winners of the elite award, with the 2009 honor going to teacher Lourdes Molina. Joining former Kohl McCormick Award winners and coworkers Flor Villanueva-Winter (1999) and Hertha Ramirez (2006), Lourdes has earned her award with a passion for quality education that took her across an ocean and back. Determined to reward each child’s unique curiosity, this outstanding preschool teacher won a grant to travel to Italy to study the Reggio Emilia teaching philosophy at its source. With this unique approach, she has created a classroom where children learn as a natural course of their day, following their own wonder among a nurturing extended family. Jim Price sums up exactly what makes Lourdes’s approach so inspiring: “Nowhere have I seen John Dewey’s contention more aptly embodied: ‘Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.’”