Open Letter from Joanne Labish Taylor, instructor for Foundations of Early Childhood Education, in the Early Childhood Education Program, May 27, 2004

The service learning project on Homeland Security was introduced in the course, Foundations of Early Childhood Education within the AA program in Early Childhood Education. Students in this program are generally not currently working in the field. but are planning to transfer into 4 year programs and get teacher certification in Preschool to Grade 3 Our AA program provides only an introduction to early childhood, a total of 6 credit hours, although our AAS program provides a comprehensive preparation for students to work directly in community programs after and even during completion of the AAS degree.

One of my goals for the students conducting the service learning project was to help students become more familiar with the early childhood education community-based programs, rather than public school-based programs. Although some of the community based programs contract with public schools, the regulatory authority for the programs differ, with public school programs being more stringently regulated. Public schools have already addressed disaster plans and homeland security issues, whereas, the community based programs, have just recently added regulation to require written disaster plans for child care programs.

The theme of Homeland Security was resisted by students. The concept itself seemed to instill fear and opposition within college students. Even when viewed conceptually and called Disaster Planning, some students were slow to warm up to the project. The project was geared to provide resources to the community programs so that the community could and would develop disaster plans specific to the community center, based on the individual resources, needs, and location of the community based center.

The students reached out to approximately twenty child care centers in the community. Anecdotal reports from the centers, showed that only one center had a written disaster plan in place. The centers seemed mostly complacent, that the odds were against anything happening “again”. For the centers that did react to 911, the quick fix steps they had put in place ended at the end of that school year, because “nothing happened”.

Young children do not need to understand the Homeland Security threat itself, terrorism is only one form of disaster, but they need to understand and cope with categorical issues. We geared our work toward the social and emotional well-being of children during disasters. The teacher and director are the ones that provide the comfort and sense of well-being for the child. Analogies were made to fire drills and the threat of “stranger danger”, which are currently included in most early childhood curricula. The students brainstormed the types of situations that might be stressful to young children during or following a disaster, such as, having to vacate the building, being restricted to the interior of the building, separation from a parent for an extended period of time, or even a missing parent.

Students worked in small groups and designed lesson plans or activities based on the input from the community centers. Since the course is not specifically geared to designing lesson plans, some of the plans may need revisions. However, the role of the teacher to support children’s social and emotional needs and help children cope through preparation and planning was reinforced.

I hope that this project can continue in the AAS program, through the Early Childhood Curriculum course where the activities and lesson plans can be refined, expanded and further disseminated in the community.

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