Carol Murray

This is an interview with Carol Murray conducted by Noah Schoen on June 21, 2021 on Zoom. Carol is the Director at Wimpfheimer Nursery School at Vassar College and the author of Illuminating Care: The Pedagogy and Practice of Care (Exchange press 2021). At the time of this interview, Carol was the director of Bard Nursery School.

The interview begins with reflections on Carol's state of being these days, which includes gratitude for the appreciation from parents as the school year closes, promoting her new book, Illuminating Care, and sharing new learnings from the process of writing and getting feedback on it. She touches on the challenge of getting time off for vaccines for the essential childcare workers, while noting her increased ability to center teachers and children given her freedom at Bard. Carol touches on how more time at home during the course of the pandemic helped some children at her preschool to be more secure and regulated in themselves, and explains how political policies like universal childcare should also support children to get what they need from parents in the form of paid childcare leave and other options. She reflects on the challenges of caring for everyone around her this year, from struggling family members to teachers, and the ways that care is not embedded in our current education system. She shares hopes for more personalized support for parents in the coming year, while noting the challenge of pushing her staff to care in ever-improving ways without being an insensitive supervisor. Carol closes with a friendly reminder to herself to slow down.