Jean Hannula speaks so softly, you have to lean in a bit to hear her. Listen carefully. She holds decades of wisdom about the big lessons small children can teach us.  

For the last 23 years, Hannula has been a mainstay as a lead teacher in the Montana State University Child Development Center, a laboratory preschool of the Early Childhood Education and Child Services program in the MSU College of Education, Health and Human Development.

Hannula will say goodbye to the “countless little faces and families” she came to know from working in early childhood education for 40 years when she retires from MSU in August. Throughout her time in classrooms over four decades, Hannula said she “hasn’t seen a single carbon copy of any one child” and that “not a day went by” that she didn’t learn something from children.  

Originally from Great Falls and from a family of educators, Hannula holds a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Montana. Before joining the CDC, she worked at several preschools in Massachusetts and then started a parent co-op preschool with colleagues there. She moved to Bozeman in 1992 and worked at a private preschool before joining the CDC in 1995.

 “It just fits when you find your niche,” Hannula said. “I’ve learned so much from the children over the years. Mostly about how to be a human being.”


The philosophy that effective teaching comes first from learning is something Hannula has applied in more than one kind of classroom. A 40-year student of Aikido, a Japanese martial art that’s a blend of philosophy, religious beliefs and martial studies, Hannula holds a third-degree black belt and practices weekly at age 66. She attributes Aikido in her approach to “teaching as a form of spirituality.”

“Aikido is about staying calm in chaos and finding a certain peace, a kind of focus,” she said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of parallel to that in a classroom full of 3- and (4-) and 5-year-olds.”

Other Aikido tenets Hannula says she incorporates in teaching are an openness to learn, respect and reflection.

“You get back what you put into children, the same way you do in just about everything else,” she said. “If you give them hate and anger, that’s what they reflect back. If you give them patience and love, that comes back, too. So much of that begins with respecting them as individuals.”

Hannula’s calm nature and ability to connect with young learners earned her a distinguished staff award from the MSU College of Education, Health and Human Development and the MSU Alumni Foundation last year. Colleagues also nominated her for the university’s Pure Gold award program for her contributions to the CDC, and she received that award last fall.

CDC Managing Director Miranda Wheeler said Hannula’s career longevity, patience and reverence with children are traits hard to come by.

“I’ll miss Jean and everything that Jean represents,” Wheeler said. “This program is truly known for her and in some ways built around her emotional intelligence and her ability to connect with children. She has focused on the value of relationships throughout her career, which has made an enormous impact on this community.”

Calling Hannula one of her own mentors, Wheeler said Hannula has helped countless families and children navigate the transition to preschool and kindergarten, always “providing a sense of calmness and kindness and working with each child exactly where they’re at.”
Miranda Gilham, a recent MSU alumna in elementary education, attended CDC as Hannula’s student 18 years ago. Gilham returned to the CDC in 2015 and worked there as a teacher’s aide before graduating from MSU in May.

“As a child, I vividly remember Jean’s gentle and caring nature,” Gilham said. “As an adult, watching her passion and her creativity in the classroom was a privilege.”  

The support of MSU’s early childhood education faculty, directors and student aides over the years have been especially valuable, Hannula said, as she was able “to experience the gamut” of early childhood education curricula and programs.  
Less concerned about a child’s academic achievement or meeting curriculum standards, Hannula says the most important skill for young children to acquire is emotional capacity. To build confidence and emotional resilience, Hannula said, children need to be given “the good kind of challenges” to work through.

“I think our culture kind of removes the opportunity for young children to understand their feelings and to find their own way through them,” she said. “I was never concerned about getting a child to perform academically. What I always worked on, with every child, was negotiating their own feelings and with others.”

After all, Hannula said, these children are the “people of the future who are going to have to engage with friends, teachers, workplace colleagues and family. They’re going to need a foundation that’s more than skills-based.”

The learning happens in what Hannula calls “lightbulb moments” for the children.

“If a child is crying and upset over something small – that’s very real for them in that moment,” she said. “It may not be real to us, but it’s very real for them. I always tried to use these moments to help them find a way forward. That can be pretty powerful.”  

Waiting to retire until she felt the CDC was in “a good place,” Hannula said she feels confident leaving the children under Wheeler, her fellow lead teachers and within a project-based curriculum.

“Right now, the school is at its very best,” Hannula said. “There have been strong directors in the past, but now there’s a creativity, a joy and a consistency that I feel good about leaving the children with.”

An avid biker and hiker, Hannula says her retirement will be spent quietly and in nature. Responding to the notion that it takes big hearts to educate small children, Hannula said teaching has been a personal calling for her.

“I’ve been so blessed to have received so much love over the years,” she said. “I feel very humbled and honored for that.”

An open house celebrating Hannula's retirement will be held on Thursday, Aug. 23, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the CDC. The public is invited to join.