At UM-Dearborn, the Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC) provides children and families with expert care while training a new generation of educators.
An auxiliary program within UM-Dearborn’s College of Education, Health, and Human Services, the ECEC serves as a learning center for toddlers through kindergarten-age children.
“Our mission is to ensure that the children in our program receive an appropriate, child-focused education [and] early childhood experience,” says ECEC academic director and UMDearborn alum Catherine Stone, ’06, MED’08.
But the ECEC is also a training site for UM-Dearborn students focused on early childhood education.
That means that alongside the regular teaching staff, you’ll find practicum students learning about early childhood and best practices, as well as students serving in internship roles.
“We work with not only the community members — children and families — but we also work with future teachers and … people who are going into professions related to education,” Stone says.
University students engage in activities that range from classroom observation and interviews with parents to teaching lessons themselves, depending on where they are in their own learning. All these activities occur under the supervision of a teacher.
“[This] will give the student and the teacher a chance to reflect afterwards on how the lesson went, what went really well, and … what they could do differently in the future,” Stone says.
The ECEC ascribes to the educational philosophy known as the Reggio Emilia approach. The curriculum emphasizes “explorations,” which are focused on how children can use different materials for learning around the classroom.
“You’re not going to see a lot of flashcards or worksheets or anything like that,” Stone says.
Instead, they try to get outside as much as possible and incorporate values centered around nature and the natural world. Lessons also incorporate project-work and play-based activities.
“Our job with the children is to ensure that they’re receiving an education based on the whole child, taking into account not only… academic goals, but also social [and] emotional [skills].”
Their approach also creates a relationship-driven environment in the classroom: “Relationships that teachers have with children, that teachers have with the families, that families have with each other, and that we have with our local community, to ensure that everyone’s working together to meet the needs of the children in the program,” Stone says.
That’s what makes the ECEC unique — the priority placed on relationships, the emphasis on play, and the quality of the care and education offered. The ECEC is also one of only 10 percent of early childhood programs accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
For Stone, there’s a personal aspect to all this. She isn’t just the academic director of the ECEC, she’s also an alumna of the program.
As a child, Stone was enrolled in the program and her mother taught at the ECEC. She still remembers some of her teachers there, some of whom she kept in contact with through adulthood.
Later, as an undergrad at UM-Dearborn, Stone studied early childhood education, an experience she says “inspired and solidified” her own determination to become an educator.
Stone says the same is true of other ECEC staff who were enrolled in the program as children, returned as University students, and then returned a second time as employees.
“It’s come full-circle for some of us,” she says.
Natalia Holtzman, MSI’19, is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
