Holloway: Preparing young children for school and life is especially important in their first three to five years. I'm Jay Holloway. Join me as we go from Head Start to Smart Start, next on Black Issues Forum.

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Holloway: Good evening, I'm Jay Holloway and this is Black Issues Forum and we are here every Friday night at 11:00 on UNC-TV. This is Part 6 of a 13 part series and we hope it will help you discuss serious issues with your family and civic and community groups and most important, in the classroom. Or in this case in your community or child care facility.

This program is not only for blacks but to encourage everyone to communicate across racial lines. And this evening's program will discuss some of the best methods to prepare your preschoolers so that they come to school ready to learn. Now let's move to our discussion with our studio guest, Pam Hines. She is the director of Staff and Family Services with The Learning Center in Raleigh. Pam, thank you so much for coming today. We are delighted to have you.

Hines: Thank you for inviting me.

Holloway: Certainly. Now, first, tell me about this button. You say 'children first' and you have all kinds of children there on that button there, what does that button mean to you and what is it all about.

Hines: Well, we purchase these buttons at an NAEYC conference. NAEYC is the National Association of Education for Young Children. My director and I went to a conference, probably about two or three years ago and we purchased these buttons and we gave them to our staff because we wanted, as much as possible, for all of our staff and people who come through the facility to recognize that we are there to serve children first. And that children are children first, whether they have a disability or whatever their need is, that they are children first. Our agency is one that serves children of different disabilities as well children without disabilities, so it is good to push that along, that all children are children first.

Holloway: And it has a double meaning. Well, speaking about this, we are talking about a specific category of children, and let me get personal because I have a young son who is three in October and as a preschooler, he loves public television, but I am concerned about this topic that I think a lot of us are. Is it true that these first three to five or six years are the most important years and we call those the formative years.

Hines: Actually the first five years of life are the formative years. Children are very imitative. They hear, they see, they learn through touch, they learn through all their sensory motor skills, the sight and the touch and their nose and they are smelling, and everything is what children learn. And you, as a parent, very much so they are imitating everything that they see you do. And I tell my son all the time, your son imitates you all the time. All the time he imitates your mannerism, he imitates your walk, he imitates his mother's walk. He imitates everything he sees. So children are always learning. They are always in the process of learning, regardless of what they do.

Holloway: So it is important that at that early age these real young kids, when they are really learning in these formative years, that we are very careful, as parents and people in the community to watch what we do, watch what we say.

Hines: Yes, very careful. But also, it gives us some need to be very excited because we have a very, very neat role in that we are models for our children. We are very much models for our children. The children who see state officials and see what rules and guidelines they make are very excited because they are going to be able to model those one day.

The children who see a teacher in the public schools setting or in the preschool setting will be modeling those adults. The children who see the pastor get up on Sunday morning and bang their hand on the pulpit will model this some day. So children are always modeling what they see. I just think it is real exciting that we, as teachers, have been given that privilege and to help mold and shape. I really see it as a thrill, as my life is to teach. And I think for us, as adults, our role as a paren t is to be a teacher. We are to be a teacher first so that we can teach our children and train our children truly in the way they should go.

Some people say that that is a biblical statement. Yes, it is taken from the bible, however, it is a true statement of life. If you train your children in the way that they should go, they will do what is right. They will learn the things they need to learn, and especially in school setting, which is my focus. I'm always there for any school setting to make sure that our children, all children are learning what they need to learn. As long as they are living children are always learning, whether they are learning right or wrong, they are learning. So I'm excited about it.

Holloway: When we talk about teachers and schools and you mentioned state officials, parents, preachers and so forth. And we talked about Head Start and Smart Start at the opening of this program. And I need to say to this audience that we did invite someone from our state department of human resources, from Head Start and Smart Start, they were unable to make it.

And I do want to say that in this political season, when we have federal and state programs that they are political so we realize that it is pretty touchy, but we want our audience to be aware that these are programs out there for you. Head Start, of course, is a federally funded program to get kids off in the right direction. And Smart Start is a program here in North Carolina. And both these programs are pretty well funded throughout the state of North Carolina.

And let me say to our audience, those of you that have access to the Internet and the World Wide Web, check out our home page and we will give you more information and detail about Head Start and Smart Start. Where can our audience find out more information about this in their community. Can you give us some resources, or...

Hines: I will say as far as Head Start is concerned, we are in the same facility, in the same building with Head Start. So, you can always, you can always look down in your directory and find out where the Head Start facilities are. You can also call first about United Way sponsors a resource location. You can look just in the phone directory and look up the facilities that are serving children. And if you are unclear, if you are not sure about that, you can always call one of the Wake County Public School representatives and they probably can give you some information on Head Start or even Smart Start, even though they might not be able to tell you full details, they probably can give you a little bit about what you need to know.

Holloway: So your public school system in your county or, even, you can call Raleigh, North Carolina, the Department of Human Resources, Division of Child Services can certainly put you in contact. But those are resources that are funded by our state and by our federal government to help us with preschoolers throughout this state and the country. Tell us about your program, The Learning Center.

Hines: First of all, we are called Learning Together, Incorporated and we have been in existence since 1969. We started out as a program serving children who were at risk or had developmental disabilities and started out in a little church, Fairmont United Methodist Church and it was called Fairmont Child Development Center. From there we moved into another facility called Forest Hills Baptist Church because we grew a little bit.

What happened is families who had children with disabilities who could not be served in a regular kindergarten classroom or Wake County Public School classroom were looking for services somewhere else. And so a bright lady by the name of Julia McLean Williams came up with this neat idea of serving children off-site, which is where Learning Together has come from.

Since that point, we have had children who have been in our services, we have now a population of about 85 children between the ages of 18 months of age to 7 years of age. 60% of those children have disabilities and the disabilities range anywhere from fetal alcohol syndrome, downs syndrome, speech and language impaired children. Children who come with cerebral palsy. Two children who typically developing, are just there for the day care experience and for having that one to five staff to child rati o.

Holloway: Let me ask you to pause right there because a lot of the statistics show that our community, the African-American community, appears to be affected by a lot of these other pathologies, more disproportionately than others. Now, when I say pathology I am thinking specifically you talked about the alcohol or the drugs and tell our audience what that really does to a child and how that affects them when they get to you.

Hines: Well, primarily, and we do know medically that alcohol does affect our children. Any child. And that also any kind of drug at some point will affect your children. I won't say any kind but there are certain drugs that do affect your children. Some of the children that we get at Learning Together do have fetal alcohol syndrome. Their parents were alcoholic or not necessarily alcoholic but did do extensive drinking and their child came with a disability or were born with a disability. That happens in a number of cases, where children either have the fetal alcohol syndrome or they have traits of it. Where children have hyperactive activity levels. There might be slight mental retardation. Other things may occur.

But that does happen and I think for parents in general, as I said, because our children are part of us and we very much are teaching them, that we do need to look at what we are doing to our bodies when we are thinking about raising children or having children or bringing children into this world. And in no way am I blaming or saying anything, but I'm just saying there needs to be an awareness. That what we do to our bodies does affect our children and so that is important to know.

Holloway: And so those now that are contemplating bringing children into the world, they are going to be faced with going to preschool, they are going to be faced with all these issues we just talked about it. And if you happen to have a child with a disability, you are saying that there are resources like your center and, I'm sure, throughout our state to assist parents and young children.

Hines: Right. And we're there, when we go back to talking about children who don't have disabilities. Several of the families who have had their children in the program have really talked about the importance of having their typically developing child what it is like to experience , to work, to be around children who were different than themselves. Because they want children to understand the difference, first of all, that they are children first. And then second of all, that we are very diff erent, but we all have special talents, special skills, special everything and that makes us important. So that was where Learning Together got its philosophy of education which is interdependency. We are there to be supportive rather than competitive with each other. And that we look at the strengths of the children and the staff and the families that we work with and we also look at the weaknesses or the things that they need to work on.

And those are areas that we address. And it is like a triangle. You have your children at the top, your families on the side and the staff on the other side and we are all there to work together to build a beautiful foundation for the children that we're working with. So, all children, again, it gets back to the whole thing of children first, the importance of that.

Holloway: Well, I like the triangle analogy because in our last week's program we talked about triangle it was pyramid, something at the top and the middle and the bottom. In this case you've got a balance, with the school, the children and the parents. And I like that analogy. What kinds of things have you found in your center that work best that are things that parents can also take home and extend the value of that at home.

Hines: I would say, for one thing, children really need some consistency in their lives. They need to know that if Mommy says this or if Daddy says this, then that is the law, that is what that means. They need to understand some natural consequences. A lot of times children don't understand that if I do this then this is going to occur until they are already in it. So those are some things that children can learn, from choices, learn to do appropriate kinds of things.

Children need to learn that it is okay some thing sometimes, but then they also need to know when it is not okay to touch. So parents, as well as teachers, can help them learn what it is appropriate and what is inappropriate to touch or to eat or anything like that. As a parent of three older people now, which I am very excited about, not that they're older people but the fact that I was given the opportunity to raise three children, one thing I have always said of myself is that I always wanted to be the best mom I could for my children. I always wanted them to feel that they were very important. That it did not matter the color of their skin or anything that they have.

Some of them may have felt a little bit inferior, not because of the color of their skin, but just because of their personality types, but I wanted them to recognize that they were very much important. That they were children who were created by our Father, by God. That they were very important. And so I think all children need to recognize that they are loved unconditionally. That they are not going to be slapped around because somebody gets tired of them the next day, but they are loved unconditionally. And that we, as parents, can continue to help them.

Holloway: I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to move into the discipline. But I'm glad you talked about the love and, I'm implying, the respect too for the children. Because they are children first. What about the discipline side of young kids that age, what do you all recommend in terms of discipline.

Hines: Our philosophy at Learning Together is called initiating self-control. And what we do is look at the fact that children need to learn through choices. That if they do something that is inappropriate then they are given a choice to do the right thing. If they can't do that then they are redirected to do something more appropriate. Say, for instance, a child throws a block across the room. You can say to the child initially, "so and so, you have a choice of going to pick up the block o r we can move somewhere else." You redirect to them to another location. If ___ ___ and the inappropriate behaviors continue to persist, then you may just want to guide the child through what would be appropriate behavior. There are times when time-out occurs with children.

But I think the big thing is being consistent. If you say it, mean what you say, because if not then they will go from teacher to teacher to teacher and if they can find one who is going to give them either way out, then that is what they'll do.

Holloway: What about the home, to the parent. You have to deal with those different methods, I'm sure, between what the parent says and what you all do.

Hines: And typically most of the parents in the center work along with the staff and the staff work along with the rules of the parents, so we see it as a collaborative effort, that parent and teacher need to work together and not something we do separate.

Holloway: Well, let me ask, we're on television and, of course, public television, North Carolina, I think, is wonderful. But a lot of people talk about television as bad, how do you all deal with the television in the child care environment and how do you expect the parent to deal with it.

Hines: Well, for one thing, I know we just recently received some training through your agency, through UNC-TV. We had the Sesame Street Pet Program to come out.

Holloway: Tell our audience what that is, I know what it is but...

Hines: What it does is look at the Sesame Street characters and programs that the Sesame Street does and you can either look at it yourself and then do a reinforcement of activities from that, or you can video tape particular segments and then use it as a reinforcement of things in your classroom, and that is what I like about it.

TV can be great, if it is used the right way. It is like anything else. It can be good when used correctly. But if it is used as a baby-sitting tool all the time and there is no reinforcement of the skills that you want the children to learn, then you can leave the TV on all day long and a child might pick up some things that you might not necessarily want them to pick up on.

So I think TV is good if it is used as a guiding tool, but not to just be used all alone. And that what was so neat about when Ms. Casselberry came out and worked with us, it was great. And we got a chance to act silly and learn as we were doing it. And that is what TV should be is a reinforcement of a skill that you are learning.

Holloway: We have just less than a minute. Any final concluding comments that you would like to make about our children.

Hines: Well, I can say this. We initially wanted to talk about children from Head Start to Smart Start. I think that children can get a head start from starting off in school and starting off in life with some good role models they will do okay. When there are programs in the community such as ours and other agencies that can teach children what they need to learn, I think that is great. And then it is a smart start for the parent to look at the fact that there are agencies available that can serve their children, as well as they themselves, are the best teacher for their child. So I think if nothing else, we have gone from Head Start to Smart Start in a nice way.

Holloway: You've been a wonderful guest. Thank you so much for coming.

Hines: Thank you for asking me.

Holloway: And let me say to our audience that if you would like to know more about how to use some of our public television programs, stay tuned at the end of the program we'll tell you how to get in contact and you can use all the things you see on public television to help you in your home and in your day care. But first, I want to share with you, in Winston-Salem, Jefferson Diggs elementary school is implementing a new pre-school program with an Afrocentric curriculum. Let's take a look at t his feature produced by North Carolina Now reporter, Maria Lundberg.

Lundberg: The beginning of a new school year is a time filled with anticipation for young children. For kindergartners it is just the beginning of a life-long journey in education. Starting school for the first time is an exciting adventure for any young child. But for members of one kindergarten class here in Winston-Salem it also means being pioneers in brand new program.

(TEACHER AND CHILDREN SING)

We are Africans, mighty, mighty Africans. Everywhere we go people want to know who we are, so we tell them, we are Africans, mighty, mighty Africans.

Lundberg: This is the Afrocentric kindergarten class at Jefferson Diggs elementary school. A voluntary program selected for these 20 children by their parents as an effort to help African-American students be more successful in school using positive messages and role models.

Female: It is aimed at making the African-American child the center of all the information that is coming in, that is being taught. For instance, in teaching the alphabet. We don't say A is for apple, we say A is for Africa or A is for Anderson, Marian Anderson, someone who has contributed to society and who is an African or an African-American.

Lundberg: This program is essentially a school within a school. After being closed for several years, Diggs reopened in 1995 as an academic and arts magnet school.

Female: After working with our students for a year, we noticed that they did lack self-esteem. They were not turned on to learning. We did not have a lot of parental involvement. So we saw this as another strategy or another idea of how to get kids turned on to learning and how to get parents involved in the school.

Lundberg: Along with teaching academics and the arts, Anne Jenkins incorporates Afrocentric materials and lessons. On this day the children are drawing pictures of their families. An important part of African culture.

Female: In the beginning we will be talking a lot about family and the importance of being in a family and contributing to that family, showing responsibility. So they will be taught in terms of what does it mean to be responsible, what does it mean to be productive, what does it mean to work in unison and cooperatively. What does it mean to be creative. Those kinds of things will be emphasized time and time again throughout their work.

Lundberg: For those concerned that a program like this promotes segregation, teacher Anne Jenkins believes it is just the opposite.

Female: The whole idea of being a part of a community and being a part of society will be addressed in terms of the fact that we all have a place in society and one person is no more valuable than another person because of their skin color. So it is not about hate at all, it is just the opposite, it is about love for self, family and love for humanity.

Lundberg: Anne Jenkins sees this program as a way to provide an enriching educational experience for African-American students. She also believes it will give them a strong sense of self and where they belong in the world.

Female: I want to hear that they are signing up for plays or that they signed up for the safety patrol or they are doing some community work with the Boy's Club or they are in scouting, or something of that nature. That they are doing something with the gifts that they have to make society better. Even at this young age they can do something.

Lundberg: The goal is to help these children to be more successful, not only in school, but in life.

Female: The gap has widened between the achievement of African-American kids and others. But my goal is that these kids, at the end of three years, there will be a narrowing in the gap. That these kids will feel self-assured, self-confident, self-motivated, good about themselves and know that they have a rich heritage to uphold and will go forward and can do anything.

Female: I want them to be excited about learning. I want them to be excited about who they are and where they came from and what the possibilities are for them in the future. And if I can do that, then I will have been successful. I will feel happy about that.

Holloway: Me too. Thank you to North Carolina Now and Maria Lundberg for that feature. That is the first public school in North Carolina with an Afrocentric curriculum. It is a three year pilot project and will run through the second grade. And in closing we hope that you are more aware of resources available in our state to help prepare our pre-schoolers to become or to come to school ready to learn.

Thanks again to our studio guest, Pam Hines, and she said it best when she said, "get the kids off to a head start, and parents, you will make a smart start." We'd like to hear from you about your suggestions and comments on helping to make this program the best it can be. It is here for you, call us at (919) 549-7167 or write to us at Black Issues Forum, PO Box 14900, Research Triangle Park, 27709. Thank you again for watching another episode of Black Issues Forum. Join us next Friday evening at 11:00 when we will discuss our children's education in K through 12. I'm Jay Holloway, have a blessed and peaceful evening.