How It Started

I founded The Scandinavian School of Jersey City in 2010, after searching far and wide for a school I felt represented our family’s values, a search that proved more difficult than I had ever imagined. As a mother and as a teacher, the thought of sending our daughter to a school where there was no room for play, no time spent outside, especially not in “bad” weather (the best weather, if you ask us!), and where junk food was the norm, I just could not imagine doing that. 

After hearing about a group of Scandinavian moms in San Francisco, who after meeting up weekly for play groups, started a small pre-school, I thought to myself, that this is really what was needed in our area as well. A school that embodied all of the values I hold dear to my heart, where the focus would be on the children, rather than on a pre-packaged curriculum that remains the same year after year, and no room for the essentials of childhood. I imagined my school to be very small, I was thinking more a “one room schoolhouse” model initially, which is actually what it was like for the first year, and little by little we have grown from just 4 children enrolled in 2010, to now having 210 children in three buildings, in addition to an amazing open kitchen, an edible garden, a community piazza and two magical ateliers.

Part of my mission has always been to give children the type of childhood I had growing up in Sweden. A day centered around play, plenty of time outdoors, sitting together eating a healthy, home made meal, and again, play, play, play! A school where teachers embody warmth, love, empathy and respect and where the children are encouraged to see the magic that happens when we care for ourselves, each other, our community and our planet.

I started Scandi School to make a difference in my daughter Emilia's life, and together with our teachers, we have made a difference in the lives of many more children. I knew education could look very different, and I did not settle for what was available to us. This drive and passion is one that is still very much the center of who I am as the director of our school, and 12 years later, my horizon has widened tremendously alongside our passionate teaching team. Someone recently said, “[t]he past is built on muscles. The present on brains. The future however desperately needs heart to pave the way."

 At Scandi School, children’s rights are at the very core of who we are. We protect these rights by giving our children freedom to play, solve conflicts, collaborate and care for one another, and equally important, they know that their voices are valid, respected and heard.

Our children leave our school to a wide variety of schools, with life skills you cannot learn any other way than by doing, by playing, listening and participating. They are leaving here as change-makers, as do their parents. Together we are continuing to knock down walls along the meandering river of life. All in the name of the Rights of the Child, through a lens of working we like to call “Re-Imagining Childhood”.

Founder of The Scandinavian School of Jersey City
Maria Germerud-Sharp