Working with the little ones can be scary, even for high schoolers who love youngsters and know they want to be teachers.
But a program that brings tots and teens together to learn is helping both groups.
Mollie Warren, a junior at Richards High School in Oak Lawn, said her school’s Early Childhood Education Program helped her ease into her new role as a potential preschool teacher.
Recently she did group activities with 3- to 4-year-olds, making slime for their science studies, working on language skills, math and motor skills, playing bingo and listening to stories.
“At first I was kind of scared because of how young they were,” said Mollie, who lives in Oak Lawn. “When we are able to do something small, they get so excited.”
She wants to see more of that in a career working with either second or third graders. Having a teacher who supports and encourages her, has made the decision even easier.
“I want to be able to bring that excitement to other kids,” she said.
The education class is part of the school’s four-year Family and Consumer Sciences program, which includes instruction in personal development and family relationships, food and nutrition, helping children with special needs learn life skills, child development and parenting and an internship. Students also learn CPR, first aid and how to work a heart defibrillator.
Geared toward students who want to work in education or child care, but also helpful for any career that involves working with kids, the program has been part of Community High School District 218 for several decades.
Students practice writing lesson plans, learning what they are doing well and where they need improvement.
The experience was invaluable to Christie Conroy, who graduated in 2011 and is now teaching at Primary Learning Center in Markham.
“It definitely opened my eyes to show me what I wanted to do,” Conroy said. “I had a lot of experience just going into college, so that was super awesome.
“When I was job searching, they liked seeing that on my resume.”
The program has been as big a perk to Darcey Reczkiewicz, the Early Childhood Education teacher at Richards, who has been in the job since the 1990s.
“I love this program because it gives students the opportunity to see if this really is what they want to do without wasting time in college classes or programs,” she said. “When they say they know they want to be a teacher, I say, ‘You need to explore the program, so you know if you want to work with younger or older children.'”
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Deisha Marshall, who teaches the program at Shepard High School in Palos Heights, said she has seen students gain confidence after starting out nervous about teaching.
“I have one student from about three years ago who was just getting her feet wet — she was really quiet, didn’t say much, was hesitant with kids,” Marshall said. “Towards the end of the program, she really started to open up, got along better with kids, her lessons progressed.
“I really saw her bloom.”
She has also had students tell her they are now teaching and how much the program helped them.
“I had you as a student and now we’re talking teacher to teacher!” Marshall said of one student.
Like Marshall, Jennifer Serpe, who teaches the program at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, said she wished she had a similar program when she was in high school.
“In high school I knew I wanted to be a teacher and loved kids, but didn’t know something like this even existed,” Serpe said.
Serpe also said preschoolers gain solid foundation in learning and social interactions.
“I think a lot of people don’t understand the importance or benefits of preschool — especially in the Eisenhower community, many families maybe don’t have the money to look into and pay for preschool and we offer a very affordable option,” she said.
“You can see within a week how much this benefits preschool children.”
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.