Henrico's Top Teachers – Robin Davia, Canterbury Community Nursery School, pre-kindergarten

There are rainbows in space.

Well, sort of – these phenomena are reflected sunlight from interplanetary dust around the sun. Robin Davia is familiar with this as a former aerospace engineering major who even once worked at NASA.

Now, Davia teaches preschoolers in the “Rainbow Room” at Canterbury Nursery School. It was an unexpected career switch, but when her own children started out at Canterbury, Davia’s wonder and fascination for space shifted to a captivation with how children learn.

“I just always had a huge curiosity about the world where we lived, and I wanted to go everywhere and see every place. I just always had this wonder of things,” Davia said. “It’s pretty much a 360, but I found that I just loved watching everything click for these kids. I was drawn into it, like, this is so enchanting to me that these five-year-olds are learning.”

Since then, Davia “hasn’t looked back,” and has continued teaching at the school for 24 years. Other teachers at Canterbury joke that she “drank the Kool Aid” after becoming fascinated with Canterbury’s “learning by playing” model, where students go outside every single day, are pretty much screenless, and learn all of the important lessons for their age through play.

“Everyone is always like, ‘When are you going to stop [teaching]?’ And I go, when it stops being fun. And so far, it’s still fun,” she said. “It's kind of cool because I’m going to work to play. And what I really want to instill in them is a love for learning, that even when they’re in middle school and high school, and it’s tricky and it’s hard, that they still have that desire and curiosity.”

Preschool is the foundation for a child’s love for learning, Davia said, and it can be the beginning of someone’s passion for discovering the world. The next step is kindergarten, and for Davia, who teaches “junior kindergarten” – a class for four- and five-year-olds who need an extra year before starting elementary school – getting ready for kindergarten is a major focus.

But “kindergarten preparedness” usually is less about the academics and more about a child’s social skills and sense of confidence, she said. From the first day of class onward, Davia helps foster an independence in her students with little things such as students hanging up their own backpacks and getting their own lunch ready.

“When they get to kindergarten, I want their biggest worry to be, ‘who’s gonna be my new best friend?’ I don’t want it to be, ‘I can’t write my name, I don’t know how to zip my backpack, I don’t know how to get my lunch box open,’” she said. “I mean, just the things that we take for granted as adults, when you’re five, those are big deals.”

Davia has high expectations for her students each year. Every activity, every “scribble scrabble” has a purpose, whether it's teaching motor skills, handling scissors, gripping a pencil, or sharing with others. And students surpass expectations almost every year.

“Kids have this wonderful, innate ability to rise above to whatever you set,” she said. “I just think sometimes we undersell kids. I’ve never had anyone not ready for kindergarten, and that’s, to me, quite a success story in itself.”

For Davia, Canterbury is like a “beautiful bubble.” In her Rainbow Room, Davia and her students have dance parties every Friday. When it rains, she takes the kids out in their raincoats and rain boots to jump in the puddles and stare at the sky in amazement. One time, they planted Tic Tacs in the ground only to find that the next day, they had “grown” into peppermint sticks.

Another time, the students went outside and watched as Davia dropped seven Mentos pieces in a soda bottle, then shrieked in delight as a huge tower of fizz shot up past the school’s roof.

“When I walk in here, I want it to be about the kids and just the joy, the innocence, and the authentic fun,” Davia said. “Just to find the joy in all the things that we do, and I don’t want to lose sight of that. For us, so many things we adults take for granted, for kids, it’s wonder and amazement.”

Davia has the amazing skill of making each child feel special and loved, said one parent, and students never want to miss a day of school when they are in her class.

“Her passion for working with students in pre-k is more than I have ever seen. She has more energy than anyone I have ever met,” the parent wrote. “She adores the children she teaches, and the children more than adore her back. They have a mutual respect for each other, which is amazing to see.”

At the end of every year, Davia always asks her students what they learned in junior kindergarten. Their answers usually range from “no grabbing” to “be kind” to “easy peasy lemon squeezy” and the like.

But this year, Davia’s five-year-old students told her the most valuable thing they learned was: “words are the most important thing we have.”

“I was like, ‘wow, yes they are. Yes they are. Please carry that with you your whole life,’” she said. “My goal is for them all to find their voice. And another thing they told me: ‘we are all important.’ I mean holy cow, they’re five. Like, can we tell some adults these things?”

Every year, many parents and former students also come back to Davia’s room to tell her just how much she impacted them, setting the stage for a life of learning and wonder. Davia has watched some of the shyest, most timid kids become confident and determined high school graduates over the last two decades she has been teaching at Canterbury.

“Just to know that I am impacting kids, because sometimes we don’t see that. It’s just so nice to be validated. That yes, what I’m doing is important,” she said. “I mean, it’s not rocket science, but maybe there’s a little bit in there.”