Everybody benefits at this nursery

Children, parents, teachers and students are learning from each other in this downtown campus program

By Karen Herland

It is Noah’s second day at the nursery and he hasn’t asked about his mom once. He doesn’t know she’s watching him through a one-way window, either.

“This is the best part, being a fly on the wall,” said his mother, Rowan Smith, pleased that he was doing fine. “It’s hard enough to leave him alone. At his last day care, I couldn’t leave him for more than two minutes.”

The observation nursery was established almost 20 years ago within the university’s Department of Education. The large, bright playroom on the fifth floor of the library building is filled with toys and activities. Two educators are available for as many as 10 three- and four-year-olds.

It is the attached observation room where Smith, other parents, students and professors, can observe the activities that turns the space from a standard nursery into a unique teaching and learning opportunity.

“Parents can observe their children without being present, as they are in a playground,” said Harriet Petrakos. “This gives them a sense of security and another perspective as they watch their children play.”

For the last three years, Petrakos has taught Communication: Child, Parent, Teacher, which runs for nearly four hours on Thursday mornings. The course relies on the nursery and those who participate in it to teach how to observe and how to communicate those observations to parents.

Parents drop their children off three mornings a week from 9 to 11:30 a.m. They can stay and watch their children interact with the teachers and one another. That helps them learn how their children make friends and participate in activities.

Smith is surprised by how comfortable Noah seems. She is also able to visit him when he wonders where she is. At the last day care she tried, she felt pressure to leave Noah before either of them felt comfortable. They both also found the full-time commitment difficult.

With another child due in January, she’s glad to have found a flexible, part-time resource where she can be nearby, or not, as she chooses.

Smith first heard about the observation nursery a year and a half ago through a friend who was taking early Childhood Education. Noah was too young for the program and she forgot about it, until an ad jogged her memory. She is a student in Psychology, but the nursery is not exclusively for those attending or working at Concordia.

The program suits stay-at-home parents, and it has proved to be a great way for those who are new to the city to meet other families.

Parents meet with Petrakos’s early childhood education students once a week.

They raise questions about their child’s behaviour, and in this way, the students learn what concerns the parents.

“They start to see things not from an evaluating-teacher perspective, but through the hopes and dreams of parents,” Petrakos said.

The students watch the nursery teachers and can also ask them questions about how they organize activities.

Currently, there are four spaces still available in the nursery.

The nursery is also used by another observation course in childhood education during the week.

For more information, visit doe.concordia.ca/nursery.php.