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THE EVOLUTION OF AN EARLY LEARNING PROGRAM At first parenting had meant changing
diapers, hugs and kisses, taking walks, reading books, washing faces,
teaching manners, and sending him out in the back yard to play. But then you had read some articles about how much very
young children can learn, and you had liked the idea right away. So your picture of parenting began to include spending a
little more time with your child, remembering to use an adult vocabulary when
you talked with him, stopping on walks to look under rocks or watch some ants
or talk about how clouds are made. You could read more books to him, teach
him how to count, teach him the alphabet, maybe even teach him to read when
he was three or four! You were excited about it. It felt right. You knew you
could do it. You began. And it was
right. Some days went perfectly. He loved talking with you
about the stories you read to him; you knew the answers to the questions lie
asked about frogs; he was getting an idea of what counting was all about; you
kept it light and you stayed attuned to him; with your stimulation and
information he took a few more steps than he would have taken alone.
You saw how bright he was, what a inquiring mind he
had. It did go more slowly than you had
expected, though. Sometimes he would seem to have forgotten everything he had
known perfectly the day before. You would have time to play a counting game,
but he would be interested only in blocks; or when you were very busy, he
would insist on a story. Some days the repetition got to you, you couldn’t keep it light, and he was restless. Sometimes you
would get busy and forget to spend much time with him. Cleaning the house
began to seem more important. You needed to talk to other parents who were
working with their children, needed to get inspired again, get some new
ideas. Besides, there were other things you were thinking about—this book you’d read, decisions about the future. Then you came to Stelle. It was exhilarating—and a little
frightening. You saw three- and four-year-olds who read with expression. A
mother of a child between three and six would spend six hours a day in school
with her child. You heard that in the civilization we are working to create a
mother would teach her child before he is six a great deal of what children
now learn in elementary school. You got the feeling that mothers in
Stelle-you were expected to duplicate that feat. No
one told you how to do it, though. Oh, there were conversations with some
mothers, bits of advice here and there. But there
was no real training or help. It was up to you. You’ felt inadequate. But you pulled yourself together, worked on
self-confidence and a positive attitude, rearranged the family schedules, and
went to school six hours a day with your child. He liked a lot of it. He liked being with
the older children and thinking of himself as “big.” He picked up vocabulary
and concepts and behaviors from them which he
wouldn’t have learned if he had spent that time around other three-year-olds.
He worked in a lot of workbooks, saw movies every week, had a little art and
a little singing, took interesting trips to all sorts of places he wouldn’t
have seen otherwise, and he really was learning to read. But there were
aspects of it which you felt unsure about. You were with him practically
every minute of the whole six hours, right at his elbow correcting every
little mistake. If you got up to talk to a teacher, he didn’t
continue with his work; he played or drew or just waited until you put your
attention back on him. He usually didn’t seem really
absorbed in what he was working on. Sometimes the lack of interest resulted
in behavioral problems. You spent a lot of energy just keeping him still and
quiet. And you began to nag: “Keep your attention on
your work.” and, “Now, what do you want to do next?” and, “No more trips to
the water fountain until you finish this page!” and, “Come on, finish these
last three lines and then we can go work on a puzzle together.” You began to
sound to yourself like a recording. You were dominating him, and he was
becoming resentful of you and dependent on you both at once. You didn’t seem to be able to keep it light anymore. He was
learning; that seemed good; but something was wrong. How could
so much good and bad be so thoroughly mixed together? You thought
about it a lot. You knew now that your child could easily
be what this culture calls a genius. You realized that with the proper early training most children could attain that level of
intelligence; it took a lot of time and attention during a child’s first
years, but there was no mystery about it anymore. Yet, geniuses you had read
about, such as Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Edison, had shown a high degree of
self-motivation, independent thinking, and self-discipline very early in
life. The patterns of learning your child had been involved in lately seemed
not to be fostering those qualities. You seemed to be trading off
independence, self-motivation, and self-discipline in order to get early
academic advancement, but you flatly, strongly, wisely refused to choose
between those two alternatives; you knew the choice was a false one. You knew
that your child’s vast ability to learn went with his self
motivation, self-discipline, and independence. You’d
already come up against the temptation of, “Forget about all this early
learning. Let him go out in the sunshine and play. Let him have a ‘normal’
childhood; he’s smart enough!” You’d seen that for
the trap it was, and you wouldn’t settle for that kind of thinking. You
wanted the best for your child, not a piece of the best. You weren’t quite sure what the best looked like yet, but
you’d learned a lot about what it was and wasn’t. There had to be an answer.
You were going to find it. About that time
there was a change in the school’s administration; there was openness to new
ideas; and a Montessori teacher joined the group. Her name was Ann. You
talked with her a lot, and you read about Montessori concepts. The answer
began to come clear. You learned about children from slums who
learned to read and write and work complicated math problems when they were
four. You learned that these children worked individually, at
their own pace, willingly, with eagerness. They learned to keep at a
job until it was finished—on their own, without a teacher hovering over them.
You learned that these children concentrated because they were interested in
what they were doing, that they considered their learning its own reward that
they kept on working when the teacher went out of the room. You began to see
that a four-year-old could learn third-grade math without getting near a
workbook, that there was equipment designed to fill a young child’s need for
stimulation while teaching him. And you began to
wonder; if children with no early training could progress so far, what would
happen if children with a lot of early training were taught in the same
environment? You began to feel excited again. You were on the right track. Other parents thought so too, and Ann
began teaching some three- and four-year-olds in what was
called an Early Learning Program. She started with virtually no
equipment and an unsatisfactory setting. Even with so much working against
it, the parents could tell it was the direction they wanted
to go. They began accumulating money to buy
equipment. Then they learned it wouldn’t
be that simple. Ann’s husband had decided to go to medical school, and she
would leave to go with him. The last few weeks she was here
she spent training the parents and making equipment. Marge volunteered to be the teacher for
the program. She wasn’t trained, but she knew the
program was valuable for the children. And she knew
no one else was available to do it. The parents were grateful, the children
adjusted, and another start was made. It took only a few weeks, though, for
Marge and the parents to know it wasn’t working.
Nothing could have convinced them more surely that
for the concepts to work there had to be a well-trained teacher, along with
the right equipment and right setting. Halfway measures wouldn’t
work. So Marge stopped
teaching and the parents started meeting, regularly, with determination, in a
businesslike way, with enthusiasm, and, most important, with a knowledge of
what they wanted. In quick succession
several elements were put together. The Early Learning Program became an
official part of Stelle’s Department of Education, and the parents’ choice of
administrator was confirmed. The projection room in
the school was turned over to the program, and the
Department of Education agreed to send two teachers to a summer training
session. The trainee/teacher positions were made
known, persons applied, and two persons were chosen. Meanwhile plans for what was to be called a lab school were under way. The parents found a
Montessori teacher in Then on March 1, 1976, the lab school
began, the trainee/teachers working with the three- and four-year-olds whose
parents were evolving the program. The program was for two hours a day, four
mornings a week, a small start,
a time for the teachers to get experience with the children and to test their
newly learned skills. Some equipment had been made;
some had been ordered. The room had been made as
workable as possible. This third start was a sound, well-thought-out one. It
was working. Now for the next steps.
Stelle’s City Planning Board had agreed to consider plans for several Early
Learning Centers in each neighborhood. The centers were to be in residential
areas, to look like houses, and to be located so that all
three-to-six-year-olds would be within walking distance of a center. The parents realized that work had to be started immediately on the first The parents paled a bit at the prospect
of getting a building built. The job was more technical and complicated than any
they had yet tackled, and it was an almost unknown area to most of them. But there was no one else to do it, so they began. One decision was to ask The Stelle Group
to donate an existing house slab to the program. Then someone suggested that
perhaps members of The Stelle Group might consider construction of the
building a community project and might donate the labor It seemed like a lot
to ask, but it might make the project feasible. One of the teachers worked in
accounting and was able to estimate what costs would be for just the
materials needed to build the center. The estimate was thirty thousand
dollars. All right, the parents knew where they
stood. For several months they had been donating to
the Early Learning Program above the amount of their tithes, and those
donations, plus gifts from other interested persons, had paid for all of the
program so far. The parents didn’t know how they
would come up with thirty thousand dollars, but they knew they had to, so
they would. Well, that’s the
situation so far. You’ve come-a long, long way. And maybe it was necessary, the evolution. Maybe if
someone had handed you the answer when your child was born, you wouldn’t have recognized it. Or
maybe you would have sent your child to a trained teacher in a perfect
setting and never learned your part of the process. Now you’ve
put the pieces together for yourself You know what he needs and why. You know
what your part of the job is, and you’re learning
how to create the other part. You’ve stuck with it.
You haven’t settled for an easy out or for half of
the answer. In the process you’ve learned as much as
your child has—maybe a little more. Oh, there’s more
of the trip up ahead. You know that too, though, and you’re
ready. You’re even glad. |
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