How Are Kids Annoying And Sweet At The Same Time? An Overview of the Child Development Course

By: Abrielle Kornele

People either love kids or hate them. While loud, opinionated, sticky, and gross, they can also be sweet, playful, and caring. It takes a special person to be able to take care of kids, especially ones that aren’t even their own. Our Child Development class takes a dive into the development of children and possible job opportunities.

This course gives an overview of the intellectual, emotional, and physical development from the prenatal stage to the age of 6. It teaches students about the preparation for parenthood or future jobs working with children.

Nicole Henry, child development teacher, shares the different assignments and projects they have the privilege of doing. An ongoing project she is personally working on is creating a sensory closet.

“I got the idea last year when I took a trip to the ‘Little Light House’,” said Henry. “They had a room with things like sensory bins or relaxing lights.” She then took the idea and is actively putting it into action.

She believes it will be a great learning opportunity when the class learns about the preschool age and possible education job opportunities.

Ms. Henry adding beads to her sensory bin.

A big project in the course is getting to take home a ‘Reality Works’ baby, which is a realistic baby simulation doll. Students get graded on feeding, changing diapers, and rocking these babies until they stop crying. It is a 48-hour project that is loved and hated by many.

“Taking the baby home gave me an understanding of how difficult babies are,” said Carter Jackson, 11, who took child development last year. “Sometimes it would cry for no reason and would wake me up in the middle of the night. It definitely got old fast but overall it was a good experience.”

Reality Works baby cupboards.

They also learn about the seriousness of child abuse. As a class, they read the autobiography A Child Called “It,” which tells the story of a boy who dealt with abuse on a scale so extreme, that it made many students question how a mother could be so cruel.

Danielle Marwedel, a 2023 Jenks graduate, who is currently working full time at Early Childhood Center said, “To every good thing there is a bad thing, and it’s beneficial to read about things that I could face. But that book was a great eye-opener and I think it let a lot of people in the class emphasize with children.”

The class has changed and evolved throughout the years, it isn’t what it used to be.

Henry said, “At first the Child Development class was just one semester, but we were able to add a second semester and that opened a lot more activities.”

One of the things that was able to be included in this second semester was visiting the Early Childhood Center.

The Early Childhood Center is a “full-time, tuition-based program for children from six weeks up through three years of age”, (Jenksps.ce.eleyo.com) and it is located on our high school campus.

When asked about how the idea was brought to life, Henry said, “We talked to administration and approached the administration of the Early Childhood Center about what we do in our class and how it would be a really beneficial opportunity for our students to observe and interact with the students and teachers.”

The idea was approved, and many students have had extremely positive experiences since. In the Spring semester, the class is able to go to the Early Childhood Center once a week.

“It was fun interacting with the kids and getting to observe how each teacher responded to certain situations,” said Jackson. She loved getting to be actively involved in each of the classrooms and noticed all of the different teaching techniques. One specific thing Jackson found interesting was getting to see the precautions taken for dealing with kids with allergies.

Henry loves being able to bring students to the Early Childhood Center and said, “Over the course of time we have students who go over there and observe and help the teachers and they end up getting internships through the college and career office, so they can get credit or get paid to work over there.”

She actually has several students who graduated from Jenks last year and are currently working over there full-time.

Marwedel said, “Honestly, there was a period of my life where I didn’t think I liked kids, I didn’t see myself being in an education role until I took this class. So even if someone is a little more adamant that they don’t like children, I think that it’s a good experience to see if this is an avenue you’d wanna go down or I think it’s a good tool for people that want to go into education and have never had experience around children. It’s a good reality check”.

“It’s been a snowball for the kids to have job observation into a job opportunity for their future,” said Henry.

Henry talked about how most students think teachers just show up in their classrooms and all of the work is done and ready. But she thinks it is an amazing experience to be able to see what kind of work really goes into preparing for lessons and clean-ups.

“It’s really intriguing to see how different lesson plans change from room to room and how much involvement goes into it. I find joy in all of the rooms, every age has its own milestones that make them very unique.”, said Marwedel.

Getting to learn all about kids, jobs, and parenthood is something Ms. Henry loves teaching about. Students get to learn a detailed overview of so many things throughout the school year.

“I think Ms. Henry did a great job of teaching, it was just a really fun class,” said Jackson.

Year after year many students absolutely adore this class and all of the unique experiences that are included.