Early childhood class offers real-life skills to students

Early childhood class offers real-life skills to students

Have you ever wanted to learn how to deal with kids? Well you can right here at CM!

Family and consumer sciences instructor Angie Neilson teaches the Early Childhood Development Class. This class will teach students everything they need to know about kids and how to deal with them.

The goal of Early Childhood Education is to both prepare students for a career in early childhood, as well as give them basic tools for parenting in the future, Neilson said. In addition to receiving the Illinois Gateways ECE Level 1 certification, students also earn the ServSafe Food Handlers and Allergen Certificates (required by DCFS), Poison Control Awareness Certificate, and various other certificates that will make them more desirable candidates within the field of early childhood education. It also looks good to parents even if you’re just looking for a baby-sitting jobs!

Early Childhood Education is a course that focuses on the four areas of development (physical, cognitive, social/emotional, and language) as it pertains to children birth through adolescence. The focus is on younger children, and the class discusses discipline techniques, modification for children with special needs, safety, and positive reinforcement strategies. Students will also learn about meal planning and designing a preschool program/space that showcases developmentally-appropriate practices. In other words, students will learn about how a child develops as they grow up, how to teach them, how to keep them safe, and how to encourage good behavior. All of these aspects are very important and this knowledge will be needed later on in life, because there are always children around that need handling and guidance.

During this course, students will have to listen to lectures but will also get the chance to have small group discussions, participate in hands on activities, and read the latest articles regarding childhood development, Neilson said. Once a week students from this class travel to nearby
elementary schools to work with the children there and put into practice what they are learning in this class.

This course requires a good amount of work and students should be willing to learn. It is an amazing class for anyone! Everyone will need to know these things later on in life. This class teaches you real life skills.

Neilson said she really enjoys teaching the class. “ I LOVE this class because it’s a life skills class. I know that my students will use this information someday, whether they realize it now or not. I never have to answer the question ‘When will I use this in life?’ and I take my job very seriously. I have to feel confident every day that what I’m teaching will benefit future generations and make my students’ lives much easier one day!”

If you have any questions about this course, feel free to email Neilson or contact the counseling office.