The Emergency Nursery School--A Community Agency

Grace Langdon

Here is another aspect of the Administration's program of recovery. Miss Langdon tells what a nursery school is and its development among Negroes under the auspices of the FERA.

--The Editor.

THE Emergency Nursery School is functioning as a community agency and as a supplement to already existing community agencies in hundreds of localities in the United States. Through its services thousands of children between the ages of two and four are receiving health care; being given guidance in the formation of good habits; and having the opportunity for wholesome play with other children of their own age. Through the services of the Emergency Nursery School the parents of these thousands of children are being helped to give more adequate care to their children than they may have given before. Many are being helped to learn for the first time what care is needed and to take some responsibility in providing it. They are being helped to give guidance of behavior which often before they had little understanding of how to give. Many parents are being helped to want to do more for their children than they have before been interested in doing. Many parents who have been interested in their children but who have not known how to give the right care are being helped. Many parents who have been discouraged with multiple responsibilities are being given new courage through the help of the emergency nursery school. Through the services of the Emergency Nursery School the communities in which the: are located are receiving the immediate benefits which come with the improved health or morale of any portion of the inhabitants as well as the more ultimate benefits which come from the building of good habits in children and of more intelligent guidance on the part of parents.
At the present time there are about sixteen hundred emergency nursery schools scattered through forty-seven of the forty-eight States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. These nursery schools are to be found in rural areas, in crowded city districts, in lumber camps, in mining districts, in all sorts of places where young children and their parents need their services, though it has been a practical impossibility to establish enough to reach all of the children in need.
Complete reports are lacking as yet but from those which are available one finds that many of the emergency nursery schools exist for colored children exclusively while in others the group is mixed. North Carolina reports 13 nursery schools exclusively for colored children with 39 for white children, this being approximately the same ratio to be found between the white and colored population in the State. North Carolina has the largest number of colored nursery schools, Alabama and Georgia being next with 11 each. West Virginia has 5 as does also the District of Columbia, while Maryland, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee have 4 each. Nursery Schools existing for colored children exclusively are found also in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Mixed groups are to be found in various towns in Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania and probably in a number of other States from which reports have not yet come in.
Emergency Nursery Schools were first authorized in October 1933 as the sixth of the emergency education projects, and approximately three thousand were opened during the first year following their authorization. With the beginning of the second year many of the units which fell far' short of the standards for a good nursery school were closed; some new units have been opened and an effort has been made by the various states to keep those now in operation up to a high standard. Practically all of the states have a state supervisor trained for and experienced in nursery school work whose function it is to administer the emergency nursery schools of the state. Obviously, however, no state supervisor can possibly take the full responsibility for maintaining the standards for each of the nursery schools within the state. That duty devolves rather on the local community. It becomes the responsibility of each community to see that its nursery school is properly housed and that its equipment is such as adequately meets the needs of the children. True, provision has been made that certain materials and the labor needed for making necessary equipment can be furnished by Works Divisions under the Relief Administration, but the community that understands the needs can furnish supplementary pieces of material making it possible for the nursery school to give wider service to the children. It devolves upon the community, too, through its various agencies to make the services needed by the children and their parents available to them. In many instances, the nursery school has functioned as the agency for coordinating these services. It devolves upon that part of the community which understands the nursery school program and its contribution to interpret that program and to make its services known to the community as a whole. It devolves upon the community, also, to organize such individual or groups services as are ready to provide needed supplies or services.
What, one may ask, has a community a right to expect from the nursery school? What should a nursery school do for the children and the parents and through them the community? In short, what is a good nursery school?
First of all, a nursery school is an educational institution. True, education in the nursery school is thought of in terms of habits of health, of habits of independence, of habits of living wholesomely with other people, rather than in terms of the three it's, but it is all the more truly educational. The nursery school cares for children below the regular school age. In the case of the emergency nursery school the age range is 2 to 4 and the services of the nursery school are confined to children from needy, underprivileged families. Parent education is an integral part of the program of a good nursery school and in such a school opportunities are utilized for many contacts with the parents. The teacher visits in the home and arranges for parents to visit in the school. She keeps the parents informed of the child's progress in the school and keeps herself informed of the progress at home. She arranges for such meetings as seem useful and in every way keeps a close contact between school and home.
A good nursery school takes account of and tries to meet all of the child's needs. Attention is given to health care. Nourishing food, properly cooked, is provided and such guidance given as to help a child to learn to eat what is good for him and to eventually feed himself. Sleep and rest are provided for, including comfortable cots with such coverings as needed, together with the guidance necessary to help a child to learn to rest and relax independently. Attention is given to each child's eliminative habits and regular time for elimination provided according to a child's individual rhythm. A regular daily program is provided, which is so flexible that it can be changed as needed but which allows regular times for eating, for sleeping, and for play. The children are protected against any hazards which may exist in the situation such as traffic hazards, open stair wells, high windows, etc. Provisions are made for protection against communicable disease through securing service for vaccination and immunization as well as through daily health inspection which provides for the detection of any signs of illness. Sanitary conditions are provided, including proper toilet facilities and general cleanliness in surroundings. Provision is made for play in fresh air and sunshine which means that there is space for running and playing without crowding. It is expected that at least a part time trained nurse will be on the emergency nursery school staff to insure adequate health care.
In a good nursery school, care is taken that from their every-day experiences the children shall learn wholesome habits. They are helped to learn how to care for themselves; how to keep themselves profitably busy; how to give and take with each other; how to settle their own difficulties. They are given experience with music, with literature, with play materials of all sorts. All of this means that in a good nursery school the set-up must be planned so that children can be independent, so that they can have a variety of experiences with materials, with other children, so that they have wise guidance in their [earnings. To this end the equipment must be adapted to their size. Many times furniture too tall for the children has to be used. Adjustment can be made by providing low stools for feet to rest upon instead of leaving them dangling, or by having a low platform which the child can stand on to reach the lavatory or toilet independently. Hooks can be within reach. Shelves and lockers can be built low or stools provided for children to stand on to reach them independently. To this end, also, there must be a sufficient variety of play materials and apparatus so that they can do many things. The play equipment need not be expensive. Indeed it is better that it should not be. All sorts of discarded materials can and should be utilized, just the sort of thing the children can have at home. Above all there must be a teacher who not only understands and likes children but who has been trained to know what little children need in the way of care and guidance as well as to know how to give that care and guidance properly. As a matter of fact, the teacher is the keynote in the whole situation. Without a teacher who has had some special training for work with little children there can be no real nursery school. One often hears of play groups carried on by untrained persons or persons who have been trained for work with older children. Sometimes these are even mistakenly called nursery schools. A play group may serve a good purpose but no organization should be called a nursery school unless there is in charge a person who has had some of the special training which makes it possible for her to carry on the kind of educational program which has been described above. It is the teacher who must be alert to all of the personal characteristics of each child, who must understand that child in his relationships to other children and to his own family. It is the teacher who must know how to guide him so that he learns the most desirable kind of behavior. It is the teacher who must understand the various stages of development through which a child grows and it is she who must know how to set up the nursery school and to plan the day so that each child has the opportunity for the very best development of which he is capable. It is the teacher who must be alert to all of the child's health needs, providing for the health care which means the best physical development. It is the teacher, too, who must understand the home problems and who must be ready to help the parents with those wherever she can. Obviously this means that the teacher must have training. In the emergency nursery school provision has been made for a short period of training before the teacher begins her work. When one realizes the magnitude of the task with which she is confronted one recognizes how inadequate this short period of training is and how important it is that she shall continue reading and studying all the while she is working in the nursery school.
It is perfectly clear that some nursery schools are better than others, and probably all will never be equally good. There is no reason, however, why every nursery school should not become better and better as the months go by, and there are many, many things which individuals and groups in a community can do to help make it better. They can work with the teacher in providing more of the kind of equipment which little children need. They can help to keep the equipment which is already available in good repair. They can work with the teacher in seeing that the children have suitable clothing. Various groups in the community can help in securing not only equipment and clothing but services of various sorts which the nursery school needs. They can help to provide transportation where that is needed. They can help to provide for health service. Those who understand the nursery school program can help to interpret it to the rest of the community. By such means the nursery school becomes a real community project, something to which everyone can contribute and from whose services everyone can derive benefit.
From the beginning communities the country over have given all sorts of help and support in building good emergency nursery schools. Many communities are already planning how the nursery school can be kept as a permanent institution for meeting the needs of young children and their parents. Many feel that through the emergency the nursery school has demonstrated its service in meeting a social need and that by one means or another that service should be preserved for the future.