Vivian Paley

Vivian Gussin Paley was patron to MakeBelieve Arts. MakeBelieve Arts have an Early Years strand which is dedicated to Paleys work called Helicopter Stories: Letting Imagination Fly. This grew out of Vivian Gussin Paley's book The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter (published 1990 Harvard University Press). After studying Vivian's work and visiting her in America, artistic director, Trisha Lee began pioneering the approach in the UK.

Vivian Paley received a MacArthur Fellowship (Genius Grant) in 1989 in recognition of her books about young children, the Erikson Institute Award for Service to Children in 1987, the American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1998, and the John Dewey Society's Outstanding Achievement Award in 2000. In 1997, Paley's book, The Girl With the Brown Crayon was awarded the Harvard University Press Virginia and Warren Stone Prize for the outstanding book about education and Society. In 1999, the National Council of Teachers of English awarded her the David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Teaching in English, also for The Girl With the Brown Crayon. In 2004, Paley was named Outstanding Educator by the National Council of Teachers of English.

After receiving her M.A. from Hofstra University in 1962, she returned to Chicago, where she dedicated the rest of her teaching career. It was during the 1970s that she began writing the books on early childhood learning (see below) which have made her so well regarded in early education circles. Despite her status today, however, she described the first 13 years of her teaching career as being an "uninspired and uninspiring teacher."

Vivan Paley was born in Chicago, Illinois. After receiving her Ph.B. from the University of Chicago in 1947, and a B.A. in Psychology from Newcomb College in 1950, she began her teaching career in New Orleans in the 1950s, and later in Great Neck, New York. It was during her time teaching in New Orleans that she began to reflect on some of the ways in which childhood learning at the time was being choked by an overemphasis on strict learning boundaries (e.g., that children could only be allowed to learn how to write in capital letters, not lower-case) and perfunctory memorization.

Vivian Gussin Paley (January 25, 1929 – July 26, 2019) was an American pre-school and kindergarten teacher and early childhood education researcher. She taught and did most of her research at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, as well as the author of numerous books.