BRATTLEBORO-When Jen Ricker heard the news that she had been named the 2025 Vermont Early Childhood Educator of the Year by the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children (VTAEYC; vtaeyc.org), she "burst into tears."
"It's a great job," says Ricker, the lead teacher at the Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development.
Ricker teaches infants and toddlers and was recognized for her two decades of work supporting children and families, building warm and welcoming relationships between family and classroom and establishing parents and teachers as partners in each child's development.
She was also recognized for supporting fellow educators through mentorship and community leadership.
Ricker received the award on Oct. 24 at the VTAEYC Annual Conference in Burlington's Hotel Champlain, where hundreds of early childhood educators gathered.
"Jen Ricker knows the family values and culture of each infant and toddler in her classroom and helps families learn about their child's learning and developmental steps. This is what exemplary care and education looks like for our youngest children," says Sharron Harrington, executive director of VTAEYC. "She creates classrooms where children thrive, families build positive connections to their children's education, and colleagues grow as professionals. Her leadership and mentorship sets a powerful example for the field."
Ricker is known for her collaborative approach and ability to tailor learning environments to each child's individual needs.
In her classroom at Winston Prouty, infants and toddlers are encouraged to explore, grow, and build self-confidence. She also co-leads Family Circle, a monthly gathering that brings families together for shared meals, conversation, and peer support.
"Families are our partners in children's learning," says Ricker. "When we share ideas and observe together, we create the best support system for each child. I love working with the youngest children because there's so much growth that happens in that first year of life."
"She is the teacher every parent hopes for: empathetic, tireless, and dedicated to lifting up everyone in the classroom," says Dora Levinson of Building Bright Futures, who also has a child at Winston Prouty and nominated Ricker.
"Jen goes above and beyond to support children, families, and colleagues, and ensures the next generation of educators is empowered and inspired," says Levinson. "Through mentoring high school students and coaching teachers across Vermont, Ricker is helping strengthen the early childhood workforce and recruit talented future educators. Her philosophy centers on curiosity, independence, and collaboration as foundations for lifelong learning."
As Vermont Early Childhood Educator of the Year, Ricker will receive a $2,500 prize and all expenses paid to attend the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Annual Conference in 2026 in Washington, D.C.
A warm hug
Even in a short interview, it's not hard to see why Ricker was chosen for this award.
The first teacher of infants ever to receive the honor, Ricker is warm, calm, and speaks from the heart.
"It's really about creating relationships with them and helping them feel safe and respected," Ricker says when asked what does and what can someone actually teach an infant.
"Once you have a nice relationship like that with them, they're comfortable to explore, so then you can provide material and experiences for them," she continues. "It's really like the beginning of school: [giving them] all the building blocks they need to learn addition and reading and all that stuff when they get older."
Ricker, who has two twentysomething daughters, has been an early childhood teacher for about 20 years and at Winston Prouty since 2022.
She earlier worked at Early Education Services, a Brattleboro agency that runs Head Start programs in Windham County.
Having started her career with children ages 3 to 5 and then moving to work with toddlers and infants, Ricker found she "really loves" the younger set.
She works now in the infant room at Winston Prouty with six babies, ages 4 months to 16 months, along with another full-time teacher and an afternoon part-time teacher.
Some of the wee ones can't yet even roll over, others are just learning to do that, and some are a moment away from that first step on their own.
All, it seems, are quite curious about one another.
"They come up to each other and study each other's faces and body parts," Ricker says, and you can tell she's seeing the little ones in her mind's eye and smiling. "They're just learning how to gently touch somebody rather than yank on their hair. And they're looking at their faces."
To teach gentleness, not yanking, Ricker says teachers explain to the babies, saying, "Oh, I see she's smiling; she likes when you touch her gently like that." Or, "Oh, I see she's crying; she doesn't want you to touch her like that."
How do they get that at such a young age?
"There's some hand-over-hand stuff where you hold their hands and have them touch your face gently, so they get the feel for it," says Ricker, adding, "Wouldn't it be great if all the adults in the world could be respectful to each other and look at body language and pay attention to it? It's OK to express your needs, and it's OK to disagree, but if somebody's saying they don't like it, then you need to stop."
For Ricker, the best part of her job is "the excitement of the kids."
"They're just naturally curious and in awe of everything around them," she says. "If you pay attention to that and really be with them in that, it's an amazing experience."
Ricker takes a beat to express what, for her, is the most frustrating aspect of early childhood education.
"For me, it's the country's kind of unawareness or not understanding how important working with young children is - still," she says, noting a widely circulated graph that shows human development.
That graph shows that 90% of human brain development occurs within the first five years of life and 80% of it is in the first three years.
"And we spend the least amount of education the younger they are," Ricker says. "To me, that's flipped."
So much work with social and emotional development with preschool children, she observes.
"If we put our resources into really nurturing that, we'd be spending less money on prisons and conflicts and things like that," Ricker says.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.