A Mohawk College Early Childhood Education graduate and professor, Karyn Callaghan is the co-creator and coordinator of the Artists at the Centre – Making Thinking Visible project, created in 2001. This project brings professional artists into early learning and childcare programs in Hamilton to support the children to make their thinking visible through art and collaborate with the educators to create pedagogical documentation. The project is inspired by the innovative schools in the northern Italian city of Reggio Emilia that are founded on a strongly held view of the child as competent co-constructors of knowledge who have 100 languages (drawing, painting, moulding, construction, dance, puppetry, drama, etc.) and whose teachers engage in a pedagogy of listening that foregrounds relationships. These views are now also being reflected in the Ministry of Education documents for early learning programs and full day kindergarten in Ontario.

After graduating in 1978, Karyn went on to achieve a Bachelor of Arts in Child Studies from Brock University and a Master of Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. She has co-authored numerous articles and book chapters exploring the the process of transformation in early childhood programs.

Karyn participated in writing the curriculum for the Bachelor of Early Childhood Studies program at Charles Sturt University, an Australian university with a campus in Burlington, where ECE graduates can complete an Honours degree in two years. After her six-year secondment at CSU where she was the program coordinator, she retired. Karyn continues to play an active role in the field of early learning. She is the president of the Ontario Reggio Association, is on the board of the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance, and represents Canada on the Reggio Children International Network. She was a consultant to the Ministry of Education during the process of creating Ontario’s Pedagogy for Early Years, How Does Learning Happen? and is one of the authors of its document Think, Feel, Act. Karyn appears in numerous videos on the Ministry website that were designed to support transformation in thinking and practice. She is one of the authors of the proposal that was selected for the Ministry of Education’s Provincial Centre of Excellence and is one of its coordinators.

Karyn has been a keynote speaker at conferences across Canada and in the United States, as well as in Hong Kong and Australia, and is co-author of a book with Carol Anne Wien and Jason Avery, Documenting Children’s Meaning: Engaging in Design and Creativity with Children and Families.