Sixth and last in a series
By Donald H. Harrison
TECATE, Mexico — Not all the teaching that goes on at the Rancho La Puerta health spa here is by the ranch’s exercise instructors or professional lecturers. A lot of it occurs serendipitously. Guests who have the choice of sitting at large group tables or small private tables in the dining room have frequent opportunities to meet, to converse and learn from each other.
Such was the case when Nancy and I sat at a large table in a group that included fellow guest, Vicki Milstein, an expert on early childhood education who administers 22 preschool programs and 27 kindergarten programs for the Brookline, Massachusetts, public schools. After several pleasant mealtime conversations, we asked if she would be willing to describe to us in some detail the principles around which her district’s early childhood classes are organized as well as her recommendations for what parents at home can do to stimulate their children’s healthy development. She graciously agreed.
We learned that Milstein is a graduate of Wheelock College in Boston, which is known to educators for its Center for International Education and its programs for developing early childhood education techniques. After teaching in Massachusetts for 26 years, she was chosen in 1998 to become the coordinator of Brookline’s early childhood education classes, each of which serves 16 pupils ranging in age from 2.6 to 5 years old. Milstein went on to become the principal of the program, which regularly draws visitors from school districts around the world, including from Taiwan, Singapore and Israel. (In the latter regard, Boston and Haifa are sister cities, so there are many different kinds of exchanges).
About 30 percent of the pupils in Brookline’s inclusive pre-school classes have “identified needs” such as cognitive, visual or neurological impairment, while the majority of pupils in each class are “typically developing peers” without any known disabilities, said the schools’ principal.
Brookline’s program is based on a “research study that was done by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Harvard Medical School, the Brookline Schools, and the Austin Schools,” Milstein told us as we sat comfortably one evening in Rancho La Puerta’s central lounge. She explained that the researchers “were looking at the components of a quality preschool that would insure later school success.”
What they identified as being critical for later-school success “were the abilities to organize oneself around a task, and social competency,” Milstein said. Additionally, “we also know that it is incredibly important for the families to be involved in the education of their children, and for the children to be healthy and well.”
I asked Milstein for examples of a pre-school child organizing himself or herself around a task. She had us imagine that there were an area in the classroom set up for watercolor painting. A pupil first needs to scan the area to see if there is an available space for him or her. Then the child needs to determine what materials are needed. “Do you need to bring paper over? Do you need to wear a smock? Is there a paint brush there? Do you need to change the water?” And the child needs to learn “to sequence these things so you don’t rush over and sit down and find that you have none of the materials in front of you.”
What happens if children cannot so organize themselves?
“There is enough adult support so a teacher may refer a child to a visual cue of the sequence–so there may be a picture of the paint brush, a picture of the water, a picture of the smock — so a child knows what has to be done,” she said. “Even if they don’t speak the language–and we have a very international community–if they get a visual cue, it works for everyone. If that is not enough, an aide is at the ready to say, ‘What do you think you need first? Let’s see what the other children are using.’ So we are teaching the children to pick up environmental cues and cues from their peers and their friends. We know that children do better when they can function in a group experience and organize around that.”
Another example of organizing around a task is getting dressed to go outside for play, Milstein said.
“In New England we have a lot of clothing to get when we go outside, but what is first, second, third — and how do we do that? There are a lot of children changing their clothes, and it can be sensory overload for some children. Some children know that they are better if they get their things out of their cubby and bring it to a quiet place. We might also have a visual cue of take of your shoes first, and where do they go? It’s good to put your snow pants on before your boots. That kind of thing.”
“Similarly, when it is snack time, the children know that they bring their lunch boxes,” Milstein explained. “Our children all bring their own snacks and they know they need to take the things out and put them on the table in front of them. Then they put their lunch box down below, so that there is a clear visual for all the children to see one another and to interact.”
The organizing skills transfer to more complicated tasks, Milstein says. The children gain an ability “to organize in a way that helps them to access the general curriculum no matter what grade they are in. It is the kind of skill around remembering what book to bring to which class, remembering to get paper, remembering where the pencil sharpener is, or what teacher always asks you to do first. How to get your papers ready at the end of the day. Some of the things that really interfere with a child’s ability to meet with success have to do with the fact that they are disorganized. They forgot the paper, they didn’t remember their homework from the day before. As they go on the organization has more and more impact on the outcomes of their classroom work.”
Besides organizing for tasks, preschoolers in Brookline learn social skills, Milstein said. “We teach what it means when someone’s face looks disappointed, or sad, or angry, and how to use words to say that before they use some other means to express frustration. It is very easy for a child who doesn’t have easy access to language to feel frustrated and to tear a paper, throw something, or knock over something. And we want children to understand that cause and effect.”
“We are not at all punitive,” the principal added. “We don’t ever discuss ‘nice things’ or ‘not nice’ — we don’t ever put those kind of judgment words on it. We might say, ‘That was hard for him to have built that building and see it knocked over. What do you think we might do to fix that?’ Again, we are asking for that child to organize around that social problem. “What could we do?” We talk about all the ways we could help a friend if we have done something by accident or if we didn’t know.”
Milstein said there are “social stories” which a teacher or aide and a pupil can read together “about when we hurt a friend’s feelings, what we might do.” Sometimes, “the children might help us write it; we might generate a list of things that children could do in the class to be a friend to somebody, or to help when something has gone wrong.”
If the child knocked over other children’s block building, “you can help them rebuild it” or “you could see if they want to do something with you,” Milstein said. “We know that children who feel socially connected feel better about themselves, and later on in life have less depression and less anxiety.
“Anxiety can interfere with the child’s ability to do well in school if they are worried about how they will fit in with a group. We try to build on that at the earliest ages so when they go off to kindergarten, it is with a repertoire of skills and strategies so they can be good friends and they can receive good friends.
“One of the ways an inclusive classroom (serving children with disabilities as well as their typically developing peers) can help is that the children know right away that everybody is different in the class, that there are children working on all kinds of things, children good at all kinds of things, and that no two people are alike. Sometimes (a child learns) we have to help somebody who can’t do a particular thing, like maneuver a crutch while they are trying to carry their project over to the window sill. So how can we help them by being a problem solver and noticing the needs of others? We develop empathetic friends in a classroom. Very often the children who come out of our program are wonderful role models.”
What do teachers do if there are pupils who continually disrupt the class?
“There might be a child who has a low frustration level because they have difficulty screening out sensory distractions, commotion, noise, bodies too close to them — that might be hard for them,” Milstein responded.
“If they are very upset, if they are crying or yelling, we help children in the classroom see that they are trying to get through a problem and that meanwhile we need to take care of ourselves and go on our own way. If someone needs help we should offer it, but not to make a judgment like ‘oh he’s not being nice.’ We want to turn that around to ‘he or she is working on something right now’ and not that that is a malicious activity.
“Might a child see negative behavior in the program?” she asked rhetorically. “Yes, but in the world they may see a lot of things that we don’t want them to anyway. At the earliest ages , if they can see that we can make decisions even if we are young people, we can make decisions for ourselves, and we can choose one activity or another, one road or another, and not to make a judgment about a child who is learning something we already know.”
What if frustrated children become violent toward each other?
“Our first rule is that everyone has to be safe in the classroom, so our job is to make sure that everyone is safe,” she said. “We do have enough adults in the classroom, so we can if we have to, stay close by if we worry about that. We do a lot of work in preparing, previewing for a child who is going into blocks, for example, who has a sensory sensitivity, so that sometimes the noise of the blocks, or the proximity of someone coming near the blocks, or not getting the blocks they wanted might trigger something.
“So before they go into the blocks, it might be previewed,” Milstein continued. “‘What will we do if…’ ; ‘How should we ask if we need something?’; ‘What will happen if…?’ We practice a little bit before we go there. For some children, we know if they are in blocks they should be separated a bit from a friend, so they have plenty of room for their block building.” She said teachers and aides in each classroom are “doing an enormous amount of observation of children, writing down our observations, sharing that among the teaching team and determining each day, who is going to be in each area, what should we watch out for the next day, what do we need to preview. All of that becomes part of the child’s individual education plan.”
Preschools meet on weekdays. We wondered whether Milstein had recommendations to pass on about after school and weekend activities for the children. For example, what are her thoughts about little children and television?
“Not too much of it,” she advised. “A nice episode of Sesame Street is a beautiful thing but too much Sesame Street does not take the place of social interaction. It doesn’t build on a child’s interests, it doesn’t expand on their wondering. They need to have social connection with their parents, other adults and other children. It is very important not to just look at the cognitive side of childhood. Children should be running and jumping and experimenting with their bodies and growing into healthy, strong, physical beings. They should be creative and exploring the arts and music, and seeing new sights and having rich conversations and having a slow enough life that they can sit down with an adult and talk about something in great detail.”
She added that “a lot that can be done is the simple reading of books. We can take a child anywhere through good children’s literature. I believe you should be reading to children every day. You should not stop reading to them even when they learn to read to themselves, because they can always understand at a higher level than they can read. Many parents think when their children learn to read, ‘I don’t need to read to them anymore.’ Not true! Books are wonderful experiences, as are taking long walks, finding what children are interested in and exploring that with them. Letting them lead the way sometimes. It is a very hectic world they live in and sometimes it is good to slow that down.”
On weekends, she suggested, “if there is something that a child is excited about, it is a wonderful thing to engage in. Some children love a science museum, some children in the northeast love ice skating, or they may love the pool. So if there are things that they love that they can engage in, I think that is wonderful.
“At home, if there is an area where they can engage in creative expression, where there are paints and markers and crayons and those kind of art supplies that are neatly organized and accessible, I love that for children because they will make the most of that. I adore blocks, things that children can construct and take apart always are a value, and places where children can take on the roles of others. ‘You be the mommy, I will be the daddy’; whatever role they want to be. ‘You be the king, I’ll be the emperor,’ or whatever it is, that they can take on, it is wonderful from perspective taking and imaginative play.”
Additionally, she said, “I think it is great to cook with your parents. I think making breakfast together can be great fun, going grocery shopping can be an enormous learning experience. There are all kinds of things to talk about at the grocery store. It is a huge organized environment for children to see, and if you talk about it with them, they get rich, wonderful vocabulary. There are hundreds of math opportunities in a grocery store.” Activities planned for children “don’t have to be big: cooking, grocery shopping, doing errands together, having time to read, having some down time.
“There is nothing like building a fort, throwing a big sheet over a small table and making a fort is the beginning of a wonderful day of activity,” Milstein said. “Taking a big old box and turning it into something — so there are simple things that are great. Children love to spend time with their parents when it is something that they are both interested in and engaged in.”
“You can sit down and enjoy childhood with them; it goes by so fast,” Milstein advised.
When you look back on it, it is a minute in time. It is enchanted.”
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Also “enchanted,” Nancy and I later reflected, was our week-long visit to Rancho La Puerta, in which we got to know fellow guests like Vicki Milstein and Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, learned about the art of Mexico, enjoyed picking, preparing and eating vegetarian cuisine, exercised, and soaked up the history and philosophy of the remarkable Szekley family.
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This concludes the six-part series on Rancho La Puerta by Donald H. Harrison, editor of San Diego Jewish World, who may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
Links to previous stories in the series are listed below:
1. Rancho La Puerta visitors harmonize with land and their bodies: https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2012/08/17/rancho-la-puerta-visitors-harmonize-with-land-and-their-bodies/ San Diego Jewish World, August 17, 2012
2. Rancho La Puerta vision spreads over landscape and Tecate: https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2012/08/20/ranch-la-puerta-vision-spreads-over-landscape-and-tecate/ San Diego Jewish World, August 20, 2012.
3. ’Trees of Life’ provide window to Mexican culture: https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2012/08/22/rancho-la-puerta-art-provides-window-to-mexican-culture/, San Diego Jewish World, August 22, 2012
4. Celebrity Indian Chef Discloses Secret for Matzo Ball Soup: https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2012/08/24/celebrity-indian-chef-discloses-secret-for-matzo-ball-soup/ San Diego Jewish World, August 24, 2012
5. Theologian urges interreligious dialogue among women: https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2012/08/26/seminary-president-promotes-interreligious-dialogue-among-women/ San Diego Jewish World, August 26, 2012