Not Just Child's Play
Early education has been serious business at the Elisabeth W. Amen Nursery School for nearly 75 years.
By Hannah Benoit
The year was 1931. Herbert Hoover was president, Al Capone was sent up the river, and the Empire State Building opened for business—as did the Wheaton College Nursery School.
It took gumption to start a new enterprise at the height of the Great Depression, but the school has proven to be one of the college's most successful endeavors, serving for more than seven decades as a laboratory for the study of early child development and an educational resource for hundreds of local families.
Looking forward to celebrating its 75th anniversary next year, the nursery school is making plans to bring a distinguished speaker to campus and to host the annual meeting of the Council of Child Development Laboratory Administrators in the spring of 2006. The weekend celebration will include a community-oriented event and a possible reunion of nursery school alumni. The staff also plans to invite the participation of Wheaton alumni who have worked and studied at the preschool over the years.
The nursery school owes its beginnings to Elisabeth Amen, who joined the faculty of the Philosophy and Education Department in 1925. The following year, Wheaton formed a separate Psychology and Education Department, appointing Amen as chairwoman. With a special interest in early childhood development, Amen traveled to Great Britain in 1930 to research lab school practices there. Upon her return, she proposed that the college start a laboratory nursery school of its own. (Pictured at right: Elisabeth W. Amen)
"It seemed pointless to be teaching child psychology without any children," she later remarked.
Opening in October 1931, the school was one of the first college-sponsored laboratory nursery schools in the nation. Tuition was set at one dollar per month, "with the hope that if there are people who cannot afford that, that help could be given them," according to a college memo from the period. Housed in a newly built cape-style house set back from East Main Street, the school enrolled more than 20 Norton preschoolers. It also gave Wheaton psychology and education students the chance to study children firsthand and gain practical teaching experience.
From its onset, the school was a link between town and gown, enrolling the children of faculty and staff as well as youngsters from Norton. In the 1940s, Professor of Philosophy Holcombe Austin and his wife Ethelind sent their three children to the school.
"When we came to Wheaton in the fall of 1941, we didn't know anyone," Mrs. Austin recalled many years later, "and here was a wonderful way to get acquainted.... We met not only faculty parents but also townspeople, and we felt integrated into the community much sooner because of the nursery school."
In 1965 the college built a larger and more modern building for the school, rededicating it as the Elisabeth Amen Nursery School. The original building next door became the Alumnae Guest House.
With two classrooms and a spacious observation room equipped with one-way mirrors, the current facility is "state of the art," according to Marge Werner, director of the school since 1993. "I feel very fortunate," she says. "I've never seen a lab school as nice as this one."
Today the nursery school remains true to its threefold mission of serving young children, training early childhood professionals, and conducting research in child and family issues.
"It's that richer mission that makes a lab school different from the really good preschool down the road," says Professor of Psychology Grace Baron, who directed the nursery school for 11 years.
The school now serves 72 children ages 3 to 6 in five morning and afternoon sessions. Each class is taught by a head teacher assisted by two Wheaton students.
"The teachers are amazing," says Jessica Allegra '05, a teaching assistant at the school for two years. "So are Marge Werner and [Assistant Director] Deb Barac. I learned so much from them about working with young children and with other adults. The school is a great asset to the community. If I had a young child and I lived around here, that's the first place I'd send them."
As it has from the beginning, the program today emphasizes creative play as the primary medium through which young children learn. The school does not have a formal academic curriculum but makes use of subject themes—such as winter and outer space—in an environment that is rich with opportunities for dramatic play, painting and crafts, block play, outdoor activities and group time.
"It's an informal way with academics that we feel is very effective," says Michelle Mason, one of the Amen teachers. "Most children know their alphabet, upper and lower case, by the time they leave. They get that in a very natural way."
Marge Werner asserts that even young children are put under too much pressure in today's world. "I know third- and fourth-graders who are having stress headaches because of MCAS," says Werner, who also teaches in Wheaton's Education Department. "We try to create an atmosphere here of: Have fun. Relax. Enjoy. Share."
The school is also a rich learning environment for Wheaton's students, including those in Derek Price's "Developmental Psychology" course, who collectively spend some 1,000 hours a year making observations of the children. Coordinating the student lab time is the job of Debbie Barac, who is in her 25th year at Amen. "It's a wonderful place to work," she says.
Senior psychology majors have based their honors-thesis research at the lab school, exploring topics such as religion, children's concepts about animals, everyday physics and Piagetian conservation tasks.
Hundreds of other students have participated as interns, work-study employees and guest teachers in disciplines such as music and math. Whether or not students are planning a career in the field of early childhood education, the nursery school opens a window into the world of the young child.
"Many students sample the world of teaching by working over there," says Grace Baron, who calls the school "a jewel" among campus resources, beloved by generations of college students, parents and preschoolers.
