Chancellor Mark Emmert captured an audience Monday morning as he read storybooks to the children at LSU’s preschool in the Human Ecology building.
The school offers numerous possibilities for the children to develop skills. Toddlers participate in the program while helping train future teachers at LSU’s preschool.
As Emmert read to the children, they left their activities — from the garden where they grow vegetables for lunch to the costume area where they perform plays — to sit in a circle around him.
Open since the 1950s, the preschool has served as a site for students and researchers to study children’s interaction in a classroom environment. Students with family-related majors are required to observe preschool behavior and activity.
Unbeknownst to the preschoolers, researchers observe the children behind mirrored glass windows in observation rooms, where they can listen to children’s specific conversations by activating numbered microphones placed around the classroom.
Parents also have opportunities to observe their children’s development.
Both parents and the community support the preschool, Christine McCrory, assistant to the director of the Human Ecology Department, said. Funds from private donors and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center have paid for the garden, classroom furniture and other expenses.
The preschool is open to 10 three-year-olds and 10 four-year-olds every semester.
It consists of students of “all socioeconomic levels” and backgrounds, McCrory said. Instructors make sure that the makeup of the class fits the research.
There always is a set of twins to see how they interact with others, and students with learning disabilities also are in the class, McCrory said.
“These children are ‘model students’ of a very specific age group — everyone sees this school and it sets a trend for the whole state,” McCrory said.
There are presently six to seven student-teachers, an instructor with a master’s degree and two graduate students in the preschool program.
Teachers develop lesson plans according to the children’s interests and take the lesson beyond the classroom.
“[Preschool] students who are interested in learning more about animals can read a book about animals, visit the LSU farm, then make clay animals after the field trip,” McCrory said. “Only a small group of students goes so that they can focus on what they see, and all lessons are geared to their interests.”
Instructors also tailor activities to teach important social behavior. During lunchtime, the instructors teach the children about proper table manners. These lessons are centered around growing up and family, McCrory said.
“I think [the preschool] is fantastic,” said Lynn Kennedy, an agriculture economics professor. “There is so much for a preschool program. It’s not just good for the student [researchers] taking care of the kids.”