An Experiment in Early Learning in Albany’s South End
An Experiment in Early Learning in Albany’s South End
By Susan Turben
Children learn most rapidly and creatively during their first three years of life. That is a fact. Their creativity peaks between the ages of three and five and rapidly diminishes thereafter. The value of early learning in these first years is of crucial importance to every child’s mental and physical potential.
Most middle-class parents begin the process of nurture and teaching from the moment their child is born – communicating, coddling, attending to basic needs, these come as naturally to them as a breathing. But in homes where poor housing, hunger, low income and uncertainty are the day to day facts of life, such infant stimulation takes place to a very low degree, if at all. My contention is that parents in these circumstances need and want to be known the ways and the reasoning for early education, for in fact, parents are the best teachers because of their constant contact with their children in these crucial years. This is not to say that pre-school programs are not effective, but in many cases they begin too late without sufficient parental involvement to make any difference in the overall attitude toward education set for that child by the home environment in which he spends the greatest part of his young life.
The crux of my experiment is to teach the parent to teach the child at home. The parent becomes parent-teacher, and is placed in the key role of motivating their young to learn. My job has been to provide guidance, ideas for creative learning, general support and helpfulness in a positive way. Each family receives one and one-half hours of my time, three days a week. Parents may borrow toys and equipment, and some make their own teaching games and toys. A survey that I took this fall, shows that there are many other families with children under five who are interested in this type of at-home teaching help. They think that their children could be learning more at home. And it makes the parent proud of his own children!
All possible methods of teaching are used—the exercise bar for muscle control, a fish aquarium to stimulate a baby to follow movement, “feeling” games, songs, mirrors, music boxes, swimming exercises over mother’s knee, and many other games and exercises to develop the child. The home is the classroom!
With a year’s research completed, I want very much to expand this service. I feel that there must be others who would like to train for and participate in this experiment. More toys and equipment are needed.
First Presbyterian Church, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Trinity United Methodist Church, and Westminster Presbyterian Church
Albany, New York
