Stepping into Trinity Shining Lights Preschool in Shelby means stepping into an alternate world for a while: a world where playing dress-up with your teacher and drawing pictures of your friends are highly important parts of the day. It’s a world of which preschool director Sue Stanford is happy to be a part.
“The dual role of administrator and teacher pulls me away sometimes, but that’s where my heart is,” she said, pointing across the short hallway from her office to the preschool classroom where 22 students ages four and five were gathered reading books and singing songs. “This is the passion; if I could do anything I would be in the classroom all day long.”
Stanford has been with Trinity Shining Lights Preschool since its inception in 1999, although she admits it was not her initial career plan. A recent graduate from The Ohio State University in the winter of 1999, Stanford signed on merely to coordinate paperwork to start the preschool.
“Then as it got closer (to opening) the minister at the time said, could you maybe just start it out? And I said no,” said Stanford with a laugh. “I was just going to get it started, but I guess it was a good fit.”
With the help of fellow preschool teachers JoAnn Nelson, who has also been with the preschool since 1999, and Kenda Cornette, Stanford hosts a three-day class and a four-day class of preschoolers ages four and five, including a class specifically for three-year-olds. Classes are held Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday in the morning from 8:30 to 11 a.m. and the afternoon from noon to 2:30 p.m.
Stanford explained the number one goal of preschool is to prepare her students to take the next step onto kindergarten, with standardized curriculum from the Ohio Department of Education just like any other grade. She said her biggest approach is looking at a student from a “whole child” point of view, and not concentrating on one area over another.
“It becomes a very fine-tuned process of allowing time for those brains to develop because this is the critical time, but also understanding that in order for children to be able to do the writing and the letters and the comprehension, they have to be able to do things like jump on one foot,” explained Stanford. “All that is part of the brain work, it’s all part of the development, and we’ve got to get those in place before we start trying to push letters and numbers. Otherwise learning doesn’t take place in its normal sequence, and that’s why you get a lot of confused and frustrated kids because we expect them to do things their bodies aren’t ready to do yet.”
At Trinity Shining Lights Preschool, Stanford said they look at the social, physical, intellectual and emotional development of a child, while also touching slightly on the spiritual side. While the preschool does not necessarily teach the doctrine of Trinity United Methodist Church, Stanford said they teach their students to look at the wonder of God through nature.
“For example, we can’t make the leaves change colors, we can’t tell the birds to fly south, and this thing we have as a body, we have so much to be thankful for it and what it can do,” said Stanford. “Someone had to have a hand in all that. We try to teach them to understand and to be grateful for everything that they have.”
Stanford said springtime is usually when students turn a corner in their development, and when it becomes easier to tell who is ready to move on to kindergarten. For students who do not move on to kindergarten right away, Stanford emphasized there is no such thing as “failing preschool,” but rather honoring where a child is in their development.
“There are definitely times you come to that point in May and you have these doubts,” she said. “Are they going to go into kindergarten with the best foot forward, or are they going to be falling through the cracks a little bit and always trying to catch up? Our job is to try and get them ready with the best foot forward, with the confidence in themselves that even if they don’t know everything they can ask for help.”
Last year, the very first Trinity Shining Lights Preschool class graduated from high school, which Stanford said was a very humbling experience for her and her fellow teachers. She said she hopes to spark an excitement for learning at a young age that will last through the years.
“We always want them to be excited, to be lifelong learners,” said Stanford. “A lot of them don’t remember preschool and they don’t remember being here, but it doesn’t matter if they remember this place or us. What matters is if they remember if it fulfilled them in some way.”
For more information on Trinity Shining Lights Preschool, visit their Facebook page.
