The Story of Our Name: Why Happy First Steps?
No question a child asks is a coincidence. Children wonder, ask questions, and take their first steps towards life with the questions they ask. What do those questions bring them? Joy, sadness, wonder, disappointment — or perhaps nothing at all. Children don't always need an answer! What matters is setting out on a journey to learn, to discover possibilities that feed their curiosity with every step they take. These first steps that a growing child takes with courage and a touch of bewilderment are the building blocks of their future pursuit of happiness. We believe that growing up by living, discovering, and knowing yourself is happiness — and there is room for every color of life.
Our Educational Philosophy: The Reggio Emilia Approach
Respecting the child's endless creative, intellectual, and communicative potential, MIA Kindergartens adopt the Reggio Emilia approach. The Reggio Emilia approach advocates curiosity-based project work that arises from the child's own dynamics, transforms over time, and considers cultural differences. According to Piaget, "No mistake made by a child is a coincidence." All children who are given the opportunity to try, research, and make mistakes learn through those mistakes. They develop themselves in areas where they are curious, ask questions, work on projects, and explore. The aim in these projects is not to produce a superior work, but to open the way for the child to research topics they are interested in through their own methods and to express themselves through a unique artistic language. A school that adopts the Reggio Emilia approach does not have a fixed curriculum. The program constantly changes and transforms under the leadership of children.
Our Dream: An Urban School Inspired by Nature
The Reggio Emilia approach takes its name from a town in Italy. The work begun for quality preschool education in a school established in the town of Reggio Emilia after the Second World War inspired the whole world with its extraordinary archive recording the creativity of the children. The Reggio Emilia approach is never a fixed curriculum. It is shaped according to the needs of the time, place, and environment it is in — because it believes in the creative essence of all children of the world. The Reggio Emilia approach is an inspiration that follows the footsteps of children who ask questions and research in the conditions into which they were born.
For a teacher inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach at MIA Kindergartens, what matters is the child — not a lesson topic or a skill. Our dream is for all children growing up with us to establish healthy bonds with the city they live in, to nourish their creativity with urban culture, and to become aware of nature — which is so extraordinary that it is even an inseparable part of the city. We are here to follow their footsteps on their growth journey, to open the way for them to discover new horizons, and to learn from them. Our aim is to interpret the Reggio Emilia experience according to the social and cultural conditions we find ourselves in, and to continue preparing our own unique learning programs under the leadership of children as an urban school inspired by nature.
Our Teaching Staff: Curious Educators
Board of Directors
Hakan Barslan — Founder
Our Advisors
Hakan Türkkuşu — Mia Education Advisor
Elif Kalkan — Mia Education Advisor
Prof. Dr. K. Sinan Özmen — Mia English Advisor
Prof. Dr. Cem Balçıkanlı — Mia English Advisor
Yasemin Anderman — Mia Music Advisor
Our Directors
Ilgın Çakmak — Mia Emirgan School Principal
Duygu Tonguç — Mia Ataşehir School Principal