We recently connected with Candice Schoolman and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Candice thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

School systems in today’s world have not evolved respectfully and operate in systems and habits that are incredibly outdated. Our public classrooms of today’s world are rooted in forced compliance, taking power from children, unlearning individuality and creativity, and absent entirely of the respect of community. This is sac-religious to everything we know about human development and what children need to be exposed to for growing up in secure minds. For upwards of 8 hours daily, children are expected to memorize facts and there is little to no inclusive for the vast differentiation needed to help each child reach their unique maximum capabilities.

In every effort to advocate for the possibility of this way of education, Reggio & Co. was made. This school uses a teaching philosophy that originates from Reggio Emilia, Italy where they educate in conjunction with a community. There is a conscious, moral effort to empower children to be unique. The emergent curriculum invites children to develop in a progression that supports human’s innate desire to acquire new knowledge- but in a way where children are so much more connected to their learn process. Classrooms are loving, proud, a little noisy, and very accepting of the learning process in place that fosters a sense of genuine knowledge acquisition… not just memorizing for the sake of memorizing.

Candice, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Younger “Ms. Schoolman” has always been extremely strong willed, advocating for those who are otherwise misunderstood and challenging old ideals- even if they seem too concrete to change. In her studies, it was becoming more and more evident that the school systems of America were very far behind on the evolution of human/child needs in the educational setting. Candice Schoolman had internships in classrooms for special education and as a child life specialist at John’s Hopkins Children’s hospital. The professional learning environments taught her plenty, these children were met with respect, decisions backed by science and psychology, quick action when something wasn’t working, vulnerability to admit changes were needed, and unconditional conscious language used when interacting with such amazing children. Unfortunately, this same commitment and treatment was not given to the large groups of children in general population classrooms. These children deserved someone to disrupt a system or two to receive the same kind of respectful partnership in the most important developmental years.

In both Candice’s educational and professional experiences, large amounts of general education students were grouped together as all one body- all expected to do and say the same things or risk being labeled as a problem. They were judged and shamed when they didn’t keep up, singing in the hallways was immediate punishment, creative thinking was disturbing, individual ideas jeopardized teacher power, children were disciplined like trained dogs, families were being blamed and shamed, teacher team work did not exist, bells indicated thinking was to cease, and students were being sorted like farm animals if they couldn’t memorize the same amount in the same amount of time.

One experience, a very young child on the playground climbed up a slide and was yelled at by a nearby teacher and then Ms. Schoolman was instructed to do the same if it happened again. The child, despite creatively thinking of new ways to use old materials, was isolated to zero play time because he was attempting to take risks, use strength to self-organize and navigate his outdoor world. For a tiny child in special education or a child life environment, Candice would have been their instructor that encouraged this type of thinking in children- but in general education we should be prohibiting it? American schools are riddled in control, removal of individuality, and forced compliance… but not everyone is ready to have that conversation.

Reggio & Co. was built to advocate for the unconventional educational style that children deserve. In October 2018, Candice Schoolman set out to design a program where children can learn in a world that supports their natural best. With limited commercial real estate available at the time, so an empty warehouse was acquired and an ambitious vision was used to build out 11 classrooms, a gym, an art studio, and a playground. June 2019 a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony was had and the first day of school was September 2019 with a total of 70 students in attendance.

With only education and leadership experience, not everything was known before beginning the build process of the school; nevertheless, there was an unconditional commitment to the establishment of the school. Candice knew there would be plenty that she didn’t know, but the advocacy for this way of teaching and the need for it to benefit the children was fuel enough for the ‘onward’ mentality. Candice is most proud of the competition of the build out process because there were so many realizations of how much she didn’t know before starting; however, despite not knowing, the attitude of meeting every new type of obstacle with a “I will figure it out no matter what” actually works. Anything literally is possible if you are flexible and passionate and work hard enough. Children deserve the same exact learning process: when you figure it out for yourself, you develop so many more skills and confidence that no amount of memorizing can recreate.

In their 4th school year, Reggio & Co. teaches children 2 years old through Kindergarten and employees Educators, Team Leaders, Assistant Educators, Interns, and Volunteers. Our mission is to help children meet their maximum capabilities and fulfill this mission by teaching with the Reggio Emilia Philosophy of early childhood education. The growing social media presence of 14K followers on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok help us connect with more and more educators around the world who lean on us to help educate and train their teams as well. We plan on making a difference in the way teachers, administrators, parents, and the world sees relationships with teaching young children. Our advocacy is just getting started.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social media, just like other aspects of the business needed to be understood asap but it was not at first. In 2018 I was 25 years old and social media was believed to be a photo blog only. I knew businesses *could* grow a following and spread their brand awareness strategically but I didn’t know how. Knowing that this tool was being incredibly under utilized I became obsessed with understanding website development, social media traction and SEO.

Thanks to my mother, I was raised to “figure it out” when I was faced with something I didn’t know about. Growing up I witnessed my single-mother challenged to be super resilient, non-reactive, and gracefully always find a way. I attached myself to a trial and error obsession and began posting consistently photos of the evolution process of our school build out. I knew I needed a following before the first day of school, I needed students and teachers before the first day so work was due now. When I began posting photos, I realized more people saw posts if I tagged people involved. Then I realized if I tagged companies involved, even more traction was made. If I posted and then emailed my database with links to several posts, more traction was made. Linking social media posts with my website got me even more traction. Diversifying my photo posts with videos, FB or IG lives, or even updates got me even more traction. Becoming a source of value source for the community after construction updates was huge. If a parent wants to gain information about their child, what do they search and what to they click on? If a similar educator wanted to find inspiration for lessons or implementing a similar style in a world that *they* aren’t accepted, what content can we provide that can be used as backup? If we wanted to challenge an old way of teaching children, what can we tag to make sure our disruption makes it to the right people?

My goal was not more followers, my goal was more people interacting with our brand and this way of learning. Once the momentum began it never went away. Our social media presence is consistent and is now solely focused on providing value and inspiration to members of our child development world.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Plenty of leadership coaching came from a job I had at Keller Williams Brokerage in Baltimore, in a leadership role where I helped other business owners with coaching, marketing, business development, training, and social media management. During college years I never would have had experience with business development or mindset coaching or leadership training. Even if I knew about this interest then, I would have failed all of the courses despite intentions to learn the most. There is something about being in the middle of real fires in real time and that’s where the magic of learning happens.

In addition to the real world experience I became fascinated with the disruptions of Gary Vaynerchuk and his attitude towards eliminating excuses and making anything happen. Author and leadership coaches Simon Sinek and John Maxwell introduced me to the world of perspectives and continue to be the men I lean on for handling new obstacles that arise in the leadership piece of my position. During a leadership summit, Simon Sinek gave his Infinite Game speech and it changed the way I have structured my relationships with my employees and the way we fulfill our mission. Authors like John Taylor Gatto wrote ‘Dumbing Us Down’ and this book gave me the confidence propel our mission to change schools, because researchers are saying what I’ve been feeling all along.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.reggioandco.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/reggioandco
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/reggioandco
• Other: tiktok: @reggioandco