Educators make sure kids get real Head Start

By Cathy Spaulding
Phoenix Staff Writer

November 11, 2007 03:13 pm

— Jana Dunlap has taught for nearly two decades; Lori Deniston is in her first year of teaching.
Both have a lot to learn from each other.
Dunlap, who teaches at the Early Childhood Center and Deniston of Muskogee County Head Start are working together to help preschoolers get ready for kindergarten.
Early Childhood Center Principal Deborah Horsechief said her school is collaborating with Head Start three Muskogee sites to improve teaching at each school. One improvement has been certified teachers for all four-year olds at all three Head Start sites in Muskogee — Youth Central at 301 N. Sixth, 3900 E. Eufaula and 520 S. Third St.
“We’re planning with each other. Our vision is that all our children be ready to start school,” Horsechief said. “Their teachers come and watch our teachers and we come and watch them.”
Head Start director Leslie Porter said she hopes the collaboration, now in its second year, “will help make the transition easier.”
Dunlap and Early Childhood Center teacher Cassandra McElmurry spent a morning last week observing classes at the Head Start at Youth Central and planning with their teachers. Dunlap stood in a Head Start classroom and wrote in a notebook as she watched Deniston teach a circle of four-year olds how leaves change color.
“I’m just kind of walking around, seeing what she does with her classroom,” said Dunlap, who serves as a mentor for Deniston during her first year teaching.
“Even though I’ve taught for 18 years and this is her first year, we’re learning from each other,” Dunlap said. “While observing her class, I’m writing ideas for my own classroom.”
Some of the ideas she said she found include Teaching Tiles to help math and reading and beakers of different colored liquids in the science area.
Deniston said she appreciates the help she gets working with the Early Learning Center.
“I graduated from college in December and I’m working on my year residency,” she said. “They give me lots of suggestions and help me with my classroom management.”
Carol Cole, education manager for Muskogee County Head Start said Deniston seems especially strong in science. Deniston’s classroom features a three-foot wide bin full of dry leaves, sticks, pine cones and nuts.
“I found an acorn in it and I asked a little boy ‘who eats those acorns,’ and he said squirrels,” Cole said.
Pupils at Head Start and the Early Childhood Center soon could do things together, Horsechief said. She said Head Start children have been invited to join in the school’s Native American Week festivities this week. She said that because 4-year-olds in the Head Start program count Muskogee Public Schools students, all teachers of 4-year-olds must be certified.
Porter said seven Head Start teachers graduated in May with certification. Head Start also is strengthening its requirement for those who teach younger children. Teachers of three-year-olds now obtain associate’s degrees, Cole said.
Porter said certified teachers also are working in the infant and toddler program.

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