Why does the Child and Family Studies program have a lab class in a nursery school?

     A nursery school is a place where children learn, certainly, but it serves a far more direct purpose for the Child and Family Studies curriculum.  The UL Lafayette Nursery School is a human relationships laboratory.  As an adult observing and working with the children, peers, and supervising staff you will learn many lessons this semester – some will be a joy, some may be painful because of the stretch in your growth which they will demand.

    In Child and Family Studies careers you will need to understand people, including yourself, if you are to be successful.  The quality of relationships with people in your personal life will also depend on what you know about people as individuals and as interacting  members of a family or community.

    When you first enter the Nursery School Lab you will find yourself in a new situation.  You will be expected to perform tasks about which you are uncertain.  You may not be certain what is expected of you.  Even simple tasks like getting the broom and dustpan or preparing tables for snack will make you feel insecure – watched – ill at ease.  You will receive instructions, but you will certainly forget details of the tasks.  Situations for which you will not feel prepared will happen – a child will spit at you; a child will become hysterical when getting a scratch; a classmate won’t show up and you will be left with an unexpected task.  You will question what you should do – interfere in activities,  stand back and watch, ask for help??

     When students experience this uncertainty, confusion and frustration, the common response is to become critical of what is happening in the program.  Common responses are:  "I will never let my children [or children in my class] act like that;" and "Why don’t these teachers do something about what he just said [or did]?"  You may even decide that you don’t like some of the children (they were so cute when you observed them from behind the mirror in HUMR 339!)  Inadequacy is not a comfortable feeling.  Often it leads to the tendency to blame someone or something so we can defend ourselves against these feelings.  Blame of others, or self, is a natural, but unproductive defense.

     It is, therefore, important that together we find a positive and productive way of learning in the laboratory.  The most important first step is to learn to accept any initial feelings of inadequacy you may have.  No one can fully prepare you for the experience. Part of working with people (of any age,  in any setting) is the uncertainty of what contribution they will make to the relationship – what they will say, what they will do.  With experience you will begin to have successes in applying principles of guidance, in having realistic expectations of the children and in making adjustments in your behavior which will, in turn, make changes in the children.  Therein lies one of the key lessons you will learn in the lab – Flexibility.

   Take a couple of minutes now to go back and re-read the last several paragraphs.  In the lab you will be experiencing many of the same feelings that children have when they find themselves in a new school or child care center.  You will experience some of the same feelings that parents have when learning their new parenting role.  Think about it – children newly in foster care, displaced homemakers in their first for-pay job, a frightened family in a homeless shelter, a pregnant adolescent in a group home …. all of those people you are preparing to help are having these same feelings of inadequacy and defensiveness.  How will you cope?  How will your experiences help you make their coping more positive, more successful?

     Remembering the lessons of your own feelings in the lab will help you understand someone else’s behavior in a new situation – resistance, insecurity, withdrawal, or attacks.  Your lab experiences will give you insights into the responses of others.  You will be increasingly capable of empathy, of feeling with others,  as you identify your own feelings through the lab experiences. In addition, remembering the excitement of feeling yourself grow and succeed will also encourage you to help others have these same feelings of success.

If all of  these feelings are what the lab is about, why can’t I just find an adult setting to experience my own feelings of  inadequacy and learn to deal with them?  After all, I’m never going to work with children.

     Children are very unique people.  They are new – just beginning to experience life,  relationships and emerging abilities to think, feel and act.  Their responses to situations are usually uncomplicated and direct.  Their actions come straight from their feelings.  When they are frustrated they cry, or hit, or push people away.  The adult tendency to cover up genuine feelings is not part of the preschooler’s behavior repertoire.  When you observe or interact with young children, you are experiencing authentic, honest behavior.  Because of this, interacting with young children gives you a true "concentrated dose" of human behavior.

     Also, you will learn about human behavior and relationships more quickly from young children than from adults because of their tendency to experience rapid behavior changes.  What you do with and for a child gets an almost immediate response.  You will learn quickly what techniques work best to help a person feel secure, feel relaxed, feel less frustrated, feel enthusiastic, or feel less defensive.  Trying these same techniques with an adult would yield similar results, but would take time – time for your action to be accepted, to be weighed against alternatives, to be considered in relationship to consequences.  Letting helping techniques filter through a long lifetime of experiences, mistrust, fear, and -- let’s face it, ruts, can be a long, tedious process.  Even when the process is over lessons learned may be confusing or even  misleading for the student of human behavior.  The Nursery School Lab, instead, offers you direct, honest, and efficient lessons in human behavior and relationship development.

I am going to help other people.  Why are you talking so much about me?

   Understanding other people begins with understanding ourselves.  We do, after all, have many things in common.  One of our commonalities is that we were all children at
one time. What happened to you as a child is an important part of who you are right now.  It is a part of how you will interact with the children and how you will respond to directions and suggestions from the staff during your lab experience.  Likewise, what happens in the Nursery School to our children will be an important part of who they will be as adults.

     Another experience we share through our humanness is our membership in a family.  Family structure, values, traditions, attitudes, power systems, experiences, will vary, but will impact each of us in our feelings about and behaviors toward children in the lab.

     To understand others we must also examine other common human experiences: our frustration (there’s no way I can get both jobs done); our tendency to resist change (this is the way I am, this is the way I’ve always done it); our need to find effective ways to release negative feelings (I’ve got to talk to somebody!); our dealing with negative feelings (why does Mary’s whining drive me so crazy?); having and accepting all kinds of feelings in yourself – and others;  having problems that must be faced. Everyone in the lab has these experiences – students, children, parents,  staff members.

     A big part of what you learn in the lab will be lessons about yourself.  The better you know yourself, the more comfortably you can grow, learn and change.  You will see strengths and areas with room for growth.  The better acquainted you are with yourself, the better you can help other people move through times of need, and of dependency, toward independence, success, self-respect, and  positive relationships.

     Young children are the best teachers.  They are honest. They reflect even the most subtle environmental changes, and they exhibit growth at truly astounding rates when placed in a nurturing environment. You will feel yourself grow right along with them as you become increasingly able to let yourself be taught by them.

Why are you telling me all of this stuff about feelings?  What I want to learn is how to teach little children.

     Working your way through feelings is the first step toward your goal.  Be assured, though, that a lot of your time in the lab will be spent working with the children in activities designed to enhance their learning experiences.  You will also learn that a significant part of the young child’s group learning experience comes from the daily routines with  which you will assist – toileting, snack, moving from one point in the daily schedule to another.  You will learn how simple rules in the Nursery School are application of principles of human development.  HUMR 417 is concerned with the total nursery school environment. Formal group teaching/ curriculum is only a small part of that environment.  HUMR 429 is the course which emphasizes development of formal learning activities.  It is available for those students who are serious about becoming teachers of young children.  The class in which you are currently enrolled provides opportunities for you to learn and practice general interaction skills which will be helpful to you as you work with people of a variety of ages and in a variety of settings.

    A secondary purpose of this course is to provide students with an opportunity to
identify some personal talents, skills and interests which may have not been explored before.  You may identify a real gift in yourself for working with children. Of course this opportunity works both ways.  Sometimes students who think that they really want to work with children complete the course with the realization that they are better suited for and more enthusiastic about working in settings with people of other ages.

A word of caution to you.

     Yes, the UL Lafayette Nursery School has, as its primary function, to provide a learning experience for you. However, the program and each adult in that program (including each staff member and university student) has a professional and ethical obligation to place the welfare of the children first. The needs of the children (physical, emotional, social, cognitive) must take priority during the time the Nursery School is in session. All decisions made by staff during the program will be made with first consideration to the needs of the children.  Issues of personal concern to the adults (frustration, conflict, physical needs, absence) must be dealt with  apart from the children.  HUMR 417 class time and individual conferences will be used to deal with adult issues.

    You will note that safety concerns for the children are discussed in your participation manual.  Privacy is another concern in a lab setting.  There will be no discussion of the children or families which you may meet at the lab in any places other than HUMR 417 class and individual conferences with the instructor.  You will refer any questions from parents to the staff.  Breech of confidentiality is totally unacceptable behavior.