Preschool: A Required Elective by Valentina

Preschool: A Required Elective by Valentina - June 2018 Scholarship Essay

I peeled open the heavy door and was hit by the sound of screaming children. I reluctantly rounded the corner to see chaos unfolding before me. I stepped, as if walking on eggshells, around the debris that littered the floor. I had to walk with caution, making sure not to run into one of the children that was running around manically. As the children slowly realized I was coming in, they slumped themselves around my legs, causing me to almost lose my balance. I watched this mess unfold before my eyes and felt at home.

Welcome to preschool.

During my sophomore year of high school I was in a class known as Early Childhood. The class was all about learning the basics of teaching preschool. The first few months of the year were spent learning about the different educational theorists like Piaget and Bloom. We went over how to create effective lesson plans that would engage the students and different classroom management skills. The best part of the whole class, however, was getting to put the things we learned into practice directly within our classroom that was a fully operational preschool. These are known as lab preschools, where students wanting to become teachers get the opportunity to work with real students in a real classroom environment. We taught in teams that rotated every week and wrote lesson plans from scratch.

The Early Childhood class I participated in goes hand in hand with electives like human development. I feel that electives like these should be required classes because of the valuable lessons you learn while in action. While learning about the science behind education and working with the preschoolers I not only learned a lot about education, I also learned a lot about myself. With just the knowledge I acquired during the few months at the beginning of the year before we began working with the preschoolers, I learned a lot about how I learn which, in turn, helped me change my study habits to better fit my learning style. Later, working with the preschoolers helped me develop my people skills and gave me valuable work experience that I would not have had access to otherwise. By requiring all students to take a class like Early Childhood, it would promote learning life skills outside of a traditional core class.