by: Adison Poole
For several years students at GS have run a preschool for younger children through a class called child development; for the first time, students are responsible for teaching without the help of a teacher.
This year child development teacher Dr. Tiffany Smietana-Lysell is out of her classroom due to maternity leave. Therefore, she is missing all of Cubs’ Den during the first semester’s time with the kids.
A painting above the door in the Cubs’ Den room. Photo by: Adison Poole
“As much as I love being home with my newborn,” Dr. Smietana-Lysell said. “I definitely miss being at GS with the high schoolers and preschoolers.”
Cubs’ Den is a preschool at GS that is almost entirely run by high school students. Mrs. Smietana-Lysell helps students prior to Cubs’ Den’s first day prepare lesson plans and teaches students ways to interact with their kid.
“I have 1000% confidence in all my students this semester,” Smietana-Lysell said. “The high schoolers enrolled in the course this year are awesome.”
With Smietana-Lysell being gone, GS graduate Sejah Franklin was offered an opportunity to come back and help students this year with preschoolers. She is there to be more of a supervisor rather than a teacher but is willing to help high school students with lessons and help if there are any situations involving the younger children.
“Mrs. Smietana-Lysell was worried things wouldn’t go as smoothly,” Franklin explained. “We discussed that if it fit in my schedule, I would come down and help out.”
In child development students are in charge of creating their own lessons and are responsible for preparing the preschoolers for kindergarten. The students are graded on lessons based on how well the lesson goes and if it reached the specific learning target the lesson was aimed toward.
“While I’m not there to witness them teaching and interacting with the little ones directly, it was a joy to watch them prepare for their lessons before my leave,” Smietana-Lysell said.
Students are given the choice to teach one main lesson that falls under math, health, English or science along with one special lesson such as art, music, library or gym. Smietana-Lysell has emphasized the lessons “shouldn’t be complicated” and instead encourages fun activities to get the preschoolers thinking a bit.
“I was one of the first groups to teach,” junior Rachel Kuhn said. “I think the kids had a lot of fun with our lesson.”
Mrs. Susan Houser is currently the permanent substitute for child development until Smietana-Lysell is back from her maternity leave. That being said, Mrs. Houser will be the only adult in the room for the entirety of the first semester’s Cubs’ Den experience.
“The thing I did in preschool was to work with kids going into kindergarten and get them ready for it,” Houser said. “I did that for three years.”
Houser herself has not taught child development before, but, because of her prior experience working with younger kids as well as the time she’s spent as a substitute, she feels that she’s doing a good job filling in for Smietana-Lysell for the time being.
“I was a little worried going into the first day of preschool,” Kuhn explained. “I’ve never taken this class before, so I didn’t know what to expect especially with Mrs. S being gone.”
The first official day of Cubs’ Den was October 3rd and students such as Kuhn have expressed that they think things are going very well with the kids. The kids will be in Cubs’ Den every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this semester from now until December 5th.
“I think Cubs’ Den is going very well so far,” Franklin said. “There is so much progress being made with the kids and the way the high schoolers are with the kids this year is amazing.”
All students in the class have prepped and prepared everything they needed to before time with the preschoolers actually started so the students should be able to get through all of Cubs’ Den without worrying about lesson plans or work.
Smietana-Lysell expressed her worries with the classes before she left for her leave but since the beginning of Cubs’ Den, she feels confident in all of her students to do great work in the class and teach the kids well.
“I have the best job,” Smietana-Lysell explained. “There is such a wonderful group of high schoolers and faculty this semester that makes me feel completely at ease not being present in Cubs’ Den.”
High school helpers Grace Shrum and Marissa Denezza teach the letter of the week.
Photo by: Adison Poole
The Lions' Den 