TKW Consulting

Some implications for life found in a preschool year
By Barbara Donlon

It's almost over.

The last of the play dough has been scrubbed out of the rug; the clay pigs and cotton-ball chicks are nearly dry enough to be sent home in their barns made from clementine boxes ; the tadpoles are on their way back to the New Hampshire pond whence they came.

Little evidence remains of what we have done here in the past nine months.

And we've done a lot.

The 3-year-olds who bounded in eagerly last September (as well as those who hid behind parents -- Look, it's the Four-Legged Mom!) are different now. There are new sneakers on bigger feet and spring haircuts that always seem to carve an older edge into baby faces.

But it's more than that. I see children who have learned to use scissors ``thumb-up" and create block towers of dizzying dimensions. They can wipe their own noses and wipe up their own spills, put on their boots and snow pants (well, mostly; I am still grateful I do not teach preschool in Anchorage or Irkutsk).

All of them can write some letters; most can write their names. Several are emerging readers.

These are skills that I do not mean in any way to minimize. But when lawmakers consider whether universal preschool is a cost worth considering, they invariably focus on academic preparation, when the real value of a child's first school experience is less measurable, but more profound in its life long implications.

Preschool is about learning to negotiate the social landscape using language rather than fists. It's about learning to speak up for oneself . . . or for a friend who needs help. It's about waiting one's turn, sharing scarce resources so that everyone has an opportunity to benefit, listening when you'd really rather be talking. It's about respecting others and respecting yourself.

Of course, we do not have a standardized test to measure such things; we have only to pick up the newspaper each day to see what sorts of messes are made when adults have not managed to internalize these lessons.

In my profession, it helps to keep the big picture in mind. No one goes into preschool teaching for the money. And as for prestige? Meet someone at a party and respond to the inquiry, ``And what do you do?" with: ``I'm a preschool teacher," and wait for the response:

``Oh" . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . ``How fun!"

And mostly, it is. It's also the most challenging work I've ever done, and I came to this profession after doing other things for more than 20 years. Yet I know very well that many people with preschoolers of their own don't figure that someone whose profession is teaching them has a whole lot of furniture upstairs. (I still fondly recall the young father who, upon hearing I was enrolled in a child development course, responded, ``Good for you! You'll never regret getting a college education!")

But thinking that a love of kids is all it takes to teach young ones is like believing everyone who enjoys food should open a restaurant. It's not enough to love children; a good teacher is someone who is interested in them, and possesses the tools through education and experience to unlock the puzzle that each child represents. (There is no hubris here; I learn something new from every child I teach. Every time you think you have all the permutations figured out, they humble you.)

In my business there are heart-stopping moments (a 3-year-old, having cut through a piece of paper with scissors for the first time, looks up at me, his mouth a perfect ``O" of amazement, and asks: ``Can I do that again?") and heart-breaking ones (the boy with a change in behavior we couldn't figure out, quietly announcing at story time, ``My daddy's going to live in a different house.")

I was raised in a time before ``parenting" was a common verb. My mother and father did not concern themselves with car seats, bike helmets, bovine growth hormone in the milk, salmonella on the cutting board, melanoma at the beach, peanut allergy, R-rated television, or sexual predators on the Internet. It is dizzying to consider what the moms and dads of my students have to worry about now.

While parents are still their children's first and best teachers, it seems plain that most are no longer willing or able to go it alone until kindergarten kicks in. Good preschool education can give young children the tools to do for themselves and the expectation that they will do kindly to others as well.

We can give them the gift of self-esteem that comes from real accomplishment, no matter how modest. We can let them know that they are at the center of our hearts, but at the same time citizens of the world.

Next week, I will give each of ``my" 13 children a portfolio of his or her work, a certificate with a bright foil star, and a kiss on the cheek. It will be over, and it will be just beginning.

Barbara Donlon lives in Winchester and teaches preschool in Belmont.