Alisa Tippie, MSEd, is the Early Childhood Educational Consultant to Kurtz Psychology. Alisa has been an early childhood educator for 24 years. She is currently the head teacher of a five year-old program in a private ISAAGNY school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Alisa has achieved mastery level in her training with Teacher-Child Interaction Training (TCIT) and has utilized her skills to work with Kurtz Psychology as an individual and group mentor for children with selective mutism, ages three through fourteen.
Alisa is trained in the Responsive Classroom approach, which she integrates with her TCIT training to create a classroom environment that is safe, positive, joyful and engaging. She is passionate about the Reggio Emilia philosophy of early childhood learning, which is based on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community. Within this constructivist approach, children learn through exploration and discovery in a child-centered, project-based curriculum. She has attended conferences lead by Italian and American educational leaders here in New York City (North American Reggio Emilia Alliance) and more recently, during a week-long intensive in the town of Reggio Emilia itself.
Alisa is trained in a number of Handwriting Without Tears programs, including Pre-K Readiness & Writing, Language and Literacy, and Handwriting K-5. She has continuously honed her teaching skills and understanding of child development by studying the latest research in the field and attending conferences such as Learning and the Brain, Mindfulness in Education and the WonderPlay Early Childhood Conference. She has studied American Sign Language for the past three years and integrates signing within her early childhood curriculum.
Alisa holds a Bachelor of Science from Syracuse University, a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education from Hunter College and an Advanced Certificate in Teaching Literacy from Mercy College. She has taken extensive special education coursework at Hunter College and has her New York State Permanent Certification, ages Pre-K through Grade Six.
Before becoming a wife and a mother, Alisa spent her free time traveling and volunteering in schools, foster homes and orphanages in Brazil and Costa Rica. She aided in the creation of a village library in Makuleke, South Africa and headed an ongoing cultural exchange between the village school and her New York City preschool. She now volunteers closer to home, working on local and national climate activism. She enjoys plant-based cooking, boxing, and having living room dance parties with her husband and young twins.
