It’s not odd to walk down a dorm hallway and observe students behaving like young children. But if you take a stroll through Living and Learning’s C building, you’ll encounter actual children who are students at the Campus Children’s Center.
Recently, the Children’s Center has been the focus of a bomb threat. Last week, somebody slipped a note under the door of a teacher’s office that threatened to “blow this place up.” The event is still under investigation, although no significant progress has been made. Director of Living and Learning, John Sama, stated that the “criminal element makes it a lot more difficult.”
Since 1973, the Children’s Center has been part of the L/L and UVM community. The Center started out as a half-day preschool, but in 1990 it assumed the form that it has today. To date, it serves as a full day/ full year facility. It’s 40 children range from ages six months to five years. The vast majority of students are the children of faculty and staff, the rest are children of UVM students or community members.
The Center employs both teachers and college students. Early Education majors can intern, and motivated Work-Study students, from any major, can participate. In addition, because the Center runs year round, students can choose to work for wage in the summer. During the year there can be anywhere from 40-50 students working.
The presence of the children in L/L typically has a positive effect on the atmosphere of the building. During the day you are very likely to run into a small group of kids going for walks around the building. The Center has made a definite effort to reach out to the community at large. On first-year move in day, the children of the center were in the Fireplace Lounge handing out cookies to new students.
At first glance, the Center resembles your typical daycare, save the fact that it is located in a college dorm. The lobby, or “piazza,” of C building is filled with different “set ups” that are specially designed for children to learn and play with. On one wall is a series of mirrors that distort the face of the viewer.
Other areas of the Center include an infant room, for babies ages 6 months to one year. It also has a young toddler room for children ages 1-2, and it has a young preschool room for children ages 2-3. Lastly, it has a preschool room for children ages 3-5.
The Center functions on a curriculum that emerges from a “cycle of inquiry.” Director of the Center, Dale Goldhaber, outlined the tasks the Center sets out to accomplish everyday.
First, the Center serves as an early education and childcare center; second, the center “prepares students” of Early Education for work in their field. Third, it functions as a demonstration site that “150-200 people visit from all over the world.” The Center has hosted faculty from Australia and Korea. And as recently as last week, the Center hosted observers from the Netherlands.
The Children’s Center program is “well regarded” and ranks highly on the teacher training scales.
The last goal of the Center is that of scholarship. The staff is constantly documenting the children’s learning so that it can be “woven into the academic program.”
The curriculum prescribed by the Center promotes “daily care giving skills, supporting child-initiated problem-solving, long-term investigations, the openness to children’s representations in many different forms. And also promoting pro-social behaviors,” said Goldhaber.
Teachers observe the children’s behavior and use their observations to work out patterns to base hypotheses on. In one example, Goldhaber described a situation in which a little boy was balancing blocks into a tall tower. From here, teachers could hypothesize that he is experimenting with balance, and plan other activities for this boy to explore this concept further.
