"Just Preschool?" It's Anything But.

Teacher Trisha Short celebrating with kids in their handmade animals masks

    
Hiking in the woods.  Sculpting clay animals.  Building bird houses with scrapwood. Painting faces from homemade, berry-stained paints.  Making mud huts and growing grass on them.  Dissecting a fish.  Building a bridge in the woods with logs.  Yoga poses.  Measuring and taping out the size of a giraffe to determine whether it could be a class pet.  Crafting paper mache masks of woodland animals.  Blazing a trail with snowshoes. 

     This is Pathfinder preschool (also referred to as pre-k around here).  We've spent the past three years with Trisha Short, pre-k teacher extraordinaire.  Pretty safe to say you won't ever find Pathfinder's youngest squirming in chairs coloring a worksheet.  These kids get their hands (and faces, and -gasp!- new school clothes) dirty. They are not only permitted, but encouraged, to throw themselves fully into the learning process.  By way of best practice in early education, Trisha allows the children to construct their own knowledge on the topic at hand, crafting opportunities for exploration and discovery, guiding their understanding with keen attention and open-ended questions.  She even "wastes time" (read: invests time) by allowing them to make mistakes, letting them figure out for themselves what works and what doesn't - and why.  You'll hear her say something like, "So, what do you guys think?  How do we do this?"  And the kids, empowered by an adult who takes them seriously, will eagerly suggest idea upon idea - creative problem solving at its best.  And Trisha will respond confidently, "well let's try it!" 

     I've often heard this stage of education referred to as "just preschool."  At Pathfinder, or anywhere else, there couldn't be a worse label than this.  With all the brain development that takes place during the preschool years, it's like telling a pregnant woman not to worry about what she eats or does during those nine months, because, well, it's "just pre-natal."  See what I mean?  What could be more important than the foundation on which the rest of life's learning sits?  In my humble opinion, the preschool teacher should be among our highest regarded professions. 

     The other side of the coin is the "academic preschool."  Those two words probably shouldn't occur in the same sentence.  Please be in the know:  early education models that boast academic curricula are not following best practice.  On the contrary, play-based education creates the strongest foundation for later learning.  Trisha is committed to this, and as a result, her students play the leading role in daily activities.  She talks with the 8-10 children who are in her class that day, often with one or two of them on her lap, taking their cues on what intrigues them.  From this she pulls out the thread of a topic, and the exploration begins.  This is called emergent learning.  It will turn and twist in ways that she can't imagine and no two days are alike.  You can bet she has no file marked "September."  Every class is different, so every year is completely different. 

     Last year, for example, Trisha noticed that many of the kids were enthralled by horses.  Trisha brought a couple sawhorses up to the room, and the adventure began.  Through hammering and sawing, cutting and sewing, wrapping and painting, the 3-5 year old kids designed and built a horse that was big enough and sturdy enough to sit on.  They visited a horse ranch to feel (and smell) the horses.  They grated carrots, chopped apples, and stirred in oatmeal to make cookies that a horse might like, then baked them in the oven at school and ate them warm.  They found fallen branches in the Pathfinder woods as tall as themselves, and made hobby horses from old woolen socks, even sewing on their own buttons and ribbons.  They told cowboy stories, made clay horses, and eventually got interested in rodeo.   And so, naturally, they created their own bull to ride from a barrel strung up outdoors.  The kids planned a hoe-down, and all the families dressed in western clothing and brought a dish to pass.  There was a campfire, lasso-ing, square dancing, bull riding, guitar sing-alongs, and amazing camaraderie.  Oh, and that's" just preschool" at Pathfinder.  ;) 

--Tricia Moore, parent

Vienna, pre-k
Glenn, 1st grade
Mariah, 3rd grade
Sierra, 8th grade
Ariana, 2012 Pathfinder graduate