Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 9, 1995 TAG: 9511090006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Not to worry, parents. It's not your high school children who're studying the finer points of Dr. Seuss.
Instead, it's the students who are doing the teaching, to a group of 3- and 4-year-old children in the school's new on-campus pre-school.
Debbie Stratton, who piloted the school's Early Childhood Education program last year with 57 high school students, has enrolled 60 first-and-second-year students in the program this year.
During the first year, students were bused to local day-care centers and elementary schools to get a first-hand look at how to care for children. This year, the children have come to them.
``There's something in the program for anyone who wants to work with children,'' Stratton said. ``A lot of the students are now trying to decide whether working with children is a field they want to pursue in college."
Stratton calls the room a child-care lab, because the students are also learning about different aspects of child behavior - physical, social and emotional.
``They're all important,'' she said.
When Stratton came to Salem High three years ago, she presented the school's administration with a 5-year plan for a new program, Early Childhood Education.
A lot of her ideas for the on-campus pre-school were developed during a seminar presented by Virginia Tech's child development faculty and a visit to the child-development lab at Virginia Tech.
The concept for on-campus pre-schools at the high-school level is fairly new, but a good one, said Andy Stremmel, director of Virginia Tech's child-development lab.
Many of his students at Tech enter the program there with no idea of what goes on in a child-care facility, Stremmel said. The early exposure gives them the understanding they need.
"They get a good opportunity to see what all is involved and that it's not simply baby-sitting,'' he said. ``They are learning how to care and work with children in a group setting, which is totally different from working with children one on one.''
During the program's experimental stage last year, students at Salem High were more like observers of outside day-care facilities and elementary schools.
Now, Stratton is teaching four class periods in the child-care lab, one of which is a two-hour block for students who were in the program last year.
``It's quite an experience - actually interacting with the kids instead of just learning about them,'' said Misty Parker, a sophomore and first-year student in the early childhood program. Parker is studying to be a teacher.
Angie Bryson, a first-year student in the program who also plans to be a teacher, said she was surprised to be getting so much experience working with children.
``It gives me an idea of what it's going to be like'' as a teacher, she said. ``My only regret is that I didn't take this last year.''
During the first four weeks in the program this year, Stratton said, the students mapped out a program for the children, who stay in the care of the students for three hours a day, three days a week.
The students decided on daily themes, what activities the children would have and even what snacks they would eat, Stratton said.
``They were really the directors of the entire program,'' she said.
The children's day is broken into different segments such as ``circle time,'' where the high-school students read from books and perform finger plays.
They take snack breaks and even take trips to a playground near the entrance to the Salem High campus.
The children walk in pairs to the playground, each holding hands with one of the high-school students and wearing a Micky Mouse name tag bearing the school's phone number.
The children are mostly City of Salem employees' and teachers' children, Stratton said, but the service has been opened to the community as a means of broadening participation.
The fee for parents is about $1 per day, which Stratton said goes to cover supplies and food expenses.
Seeing so many different faces as class periods changed was a little confusing to the children at first, Stratton said, but both children and students have since adjusted well. The pre-school is in its fifth week.
Stratton said she is also hoping to break the stereotype that this is a female-dominated class.
``There is such a need for males'' in the program, Stratton said, ``especially these days when family structures are changing.''
Chris Foutz, a junior in his first year of the program, said he eventually wants to earn a doctorate in education and possibly teach elementary students who have learning disabilities.
``I really am glad they are offering this,'' he said. ``It's the first school around that offers something like this.''
by CNB