Alayna Kramer
Childhood General Education '06
Childhood is finite, it’s a very special time, and the work we do in school to understand and care for one another is essential. We are experiencing some very challenging times, and I believe it stems from a basic lack of care for our fellow humans.
Oakland-based teacher and producer Alayna Kramer—an “Edutainer,” as she calls herself—has spent more than 25 years blending play, creativity, and social learning for children.
After several years teaching in Bay Area schools, Kramer was drawn across the country to New York City to pursue Bank Street’s master’s degree program in Childhood General Education.
“I had a friend who had attended Bank Street, and the head of the school where I was working at the time also knew it very well,” Alayna recalls. “Bank Street has this great reputation with people I really admired and trusted—and going to New York had always been a dream.”
At Bank Street, Alayna’s progressive approach to teaching took on new depth. Her supervised fieldwork placement at The City and Country School immersed her in Caroline Pratt’s “I Learn From Children” philosophy—one she still holds as a touchstone for a “progressive, constructivist way” and which she fell in love with.
Crediting Bank Street’s faculty for deepening her understanding of how to make learning come alive, she said, “To be a learner at Bank Street and have these professors reflect the model of teaching back to me was so valuable. I really got to understand what it was like to be in what Vygotsky called the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’—having enough success that you want to keep working, but it’s just hard enough for you to really reach and want to push yourself to the next level.”
Her time in New York also expanded her creative reach. After teaching in elementary grades and preschools, Alayna joined a children’s hospital, where she brought her edutainment approach to life.
She said, “I was producing closed-circuit television shows for hospitalized kids. They could call in and play bingo or trivia games and win prizes. I remember wanting to integrate the Bank Street model, so I started a program where long-term patients could design their own trivia shows. Then we got kids really invested in the programming.”
Her project was so successful that she later presented it at The New York School of Medicine as an example of a psychosocial intervention that could support the children experiencing illness with agency, creativity, and fun.
Returning to the Bay Area where she had grown up, Alayna continued teaching with lively, project-based studies that engaged her students and used Bank Street’s model through every part of her work.
“Childhood is finite, it’s a very special time, and the work we do in school to understand and care for one another is essential. We are experiencing some very challenging times, and I believe it stems from a basic lack of care for our fellow humans,” she said. “Bank Street taught me that if you use social studies as the core of the curriculum, you can find a way for every child to find an entry point—that thing that excites them. I strive for a steady hum in the classroom—it’s busy and it’s noisy but I can tell everyone is engaged, reaching their full potential and finding their way to contribute.”
Today, Alayna brings those same ideals to younger audiences through performing and her YouTube channel, Ms Alayna.
“My work at the children’s hospital really ignited the edutainment piece inside me,” she says. “Now I’m working on programming for the youngest audiences. I use books, puppets, and songs to bring in the values of community and a celebration of our shared humanity.”
Watch these clips from our recent conversation with Alayna to learn more about her work.