San Benito High students interact with Little ‘Balers’
Tuesday morning, a group of about 30 San Benito High School
students arrived for the first class of the semester at 11 a.m. The
pint-sized students who are enrolled in Little Baler Preschool
visit the campus twice a week as part of a program run by high
school students enrolled in the Careers with Children program.
On the recent morning, the 3- and-4-year-old students returned
with plenty of energy after an extended break for the holidays.
Many sought out a favorite teacher, as all the teens are known to
the parents and children.
San Benito High students interact with Little ‘Balers’
Tuesday morning, a group of about 30 San Benito High School students arrived for the first class of the semester at 11 a.m. The pint-sized students who are enrolled in Little Baler Preschool visit the campus twice a week as part of a program run by high school students enrolled in the Careers with Children program.
On the recent morning, the 3- and-4-year-old students returned with plenty of energy after an extended break for the holidays. Many sought out a favorite teacher, as all the teens are known to the parents and children.
Diane Bates, the child development teacher on campus, said the program has been running for more than 20 years and most families find out about it from word of mouth. The families pay a small fee per semester, which Bates said is a donation to keep the program running.
“In a sense it is a way to see young children as an individual, not as a little brother or a little sister,” Bates said. “They are able to be a bright spot and they learn to teach.”
The high school students all had different jobs for the morning, with some helping check in children as they arrived while others spent time working one-on-one with children during the free play period at the start of class. The students had tables set up with play-doh, puzzles and a doll house, as well as tubs with trucks on a colorful carpet on one side of the classroom.
Dina Sims, a senior at SBHS, has been enrolled in the class for two years. She said her favorite part of working with the little ones is doing things for them, such as sending them a letter over the Christmas break.
“It’s all the little things we do for them,” she said.
Though she enjoys the class, she said it comes with challenges.
“When the kids are fighting, you have to take both of them apart, and not just pick one,” she said of separating the kids to ask what happened and why they were fighting. “When they don’t want to do something, you can’t force them, so we try to find something else – like you can ask them to read a book.”
For the children who are new to the preschool, Sims said the teenagers try not to overwhelm them with a big group. She said they get one person to work with the child to get them comfortable with class.
“All the kids are very different,” Sims said. “Some kids like this and some kids like that. Some might need a little help and some don’t want help. We are all responsible for making sure they are well taken care of.”
Sims enjoys her time with the little Balers so much that she is planning to study child development at Gavilan College next year.
Erika Arroyo is another senior who is working with Little Baler Preschool for the second year.
“My favorite thing is working with the kids, helping them get prepared for kindergarten,” she said.
As for the challenges, she said working with the younger students can be hard.
“The 3-year-olds are much younger,” she said. “It can be hard to get them to concentrate on the things we are doing.”
Her favorite activities are outside, where the kids are able to run around on a grassy area outside the classroom.
“I’ve learned being patient,” she said. “I think that’s pretty much what most of us get.”
Joyce Swett, the First 5 San Benito school readiness coordinator, is working with the high school students to link the curriculum they teach to what the children will be doing when they start kindergarten. Swett works with preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers throughout the county to help the educators coordinate their efforts. She holds monthly meetings for the teachers, and some of the students from Bates’ class have attended.
One of the things Swett has helped the teenagers incorporate is a method of teaching the alphabet that local kindergarten teachers also use. The children will be familiar with it by the time they get to kindergarten.
“The girls who are working, the teens, some are going on to early childhood education,” Swett said. “There is such a shortage of teachers, I am hoping to encourage it.”
Swett acknowledges that she has learned plenty about working with teenagers, a population she hadn’t worked with in the past.
“They have come a long way from when they started to where they are now,” she said.
Most of what Swett does is observe the students as they work with the children during such activities as circle time, when the kids listen to stories, practice the alphabet and learn colors or shapes.
“I will give them some suggestions,” she said. “But they come up with some great ideas on their own.”
The biggest testament that things are working is that most of the children smile and laugh as they interact with the high school students or their peers. Even the 3-year-olds stay engaged during circle time as they learn a nursery rhyme.
“It meets the community’s needs and gives my students a chance to work with so many little ones,” Bates said.
