The Garden School Tattler

There has been a lot of yapping about more money going into early childhood education. The primary scream is "more money, more money." But it never gets any further than that. The whole push is really for tax dollars. Billions of tax dollars go into early childhood education and mostly for children whose parents can't afford childcare.

Last year there was a huge grant from the Welborn people that was given to the project for local childcare and so far it's gone into studies. That means nada to the kids. Unrelated people are receiving the funds earmarked for kids to do yet more studies about childcare. There have been so many studies on childcare across the nation, you'd think they'd be done now.

How many times can you study the "impact of early education on a child" and not know it has some significance?

It's hard to say what I would do with a 3/4 million dollar grant, but it sure wouldn't go into redundant childcare studies, and you can bet every cent of it it wouldn't go into pockets of unrelated people!

In the city of Evansville, the problem of childcare is an old one. The practices are archaic, the drive to upgrade it is battened down by the screws of an "entitlement" group who think they own childcare in EVV and nothing is going to change that.

The very idea that change is WAY PAST DUE is received as a slap in the face. Sorry, crack, crack. Since 1983, I've fought to change the face of childcare in my area by doing. I did family childcare for 8 years for which I am regarded as "out of the loop." I'm an advocate for family childcare because it is within the family that a child under three grows best. No center can begin to offer what a family does.

Edith and I started the Garden School with the idea that we would see what children could do. This is the whole theme of "child directed." We quickly nixed the naps because children over three don't want to sleep their lives away. We used the afternoon hours to go places and swim, to explore what we call afternoon subjects.

We've been accused of "inappropriate practices" because we teach children letters, numbers and about the world. Have you ever known a child who didn't want to own the power of writing his name or counting as high as he can or knowing stories about other places?

I think if I had $750,000. to spend on early childhood, I would have a big meeting of all the early childhood groups and begin to change things from the inside out. And it would begin with nixing the idea of separate rooms for children to languish all day. That has to go.

Here's what I mean. Instead of six day care rooms each with a "house station," I think I'd put all the house stuff in one room and call the whole room house. Then I'd station a teacher there. Then we'd do the same for puzzles, for library, for big blocks, for Lego's, and for art and any other toy area the teachers thought were doable in the center. Then the teachers would float and the kids would travel from room to room as they wanted. This gets kids out of the prison situation and allows them to begin to think about doing as a real part of their lives. And leave the doors OPEN!!!

$50,000. of the grant would go to new equipment for those places willing to make big changes. The rest would go to a separate fund that could be used to drain off the interest and help raise salaries so a more professional staff could be hired and kept. Better educated people are eager to teach children and children are eager to learn. That combination would raise the level of good childcare through the roof.

Not imaginative enough? It all begins on the inside - not in studies we already have. The last big grant in EVV went to new doors and paint. How does that help kids?

This picture is of my grandson. Everyone needs one of these around the house.