The Early Childhood program gives students hands on experience with children and opportunities for internships while still in high school.
“Students will learn about all the areas of childhood development, and they will learn about the laws about childcare in North Carolina,” said Early Childhood Program teacher Cynthia Sovich.
“They will have practical experiences with children and a variety of internships in preschool, elementary school, and they will be very ready to major in elementary education in college,” Sovich said.
This program is made to help teach and develop high school students that want to work with childcare.
“You get hands on learning and experiences. You get to see if this is really something you want to do before you go into the field. You actually get to do stuff now instead of going to college and deciding that it’s not really what you want to do,” senior Kierra McKoy said.
Getting exposed to so many facets of childcare helps students to know what areas they like best.
“I’ve learned a lot about what age group I want to teach. I’ve learned that I don’t like little kids and that I should teach older school ages,” McKoy said.
This program also lets the students get certified for childcare teaching while still in high school opposed to in college or after college.
“You get some of your tests taken away, and you are a little higher up than people in community colleges or universities. I will be able to be in higher level classes and learn stuff other freshmen wouldn’t,” senior Trista Thomas said.
Anybody who is even pondering childcare or teaching receives firsthand experience on what it would be like while still in high school.
“If a student thinks he or she is interested in becoming a teacher, and they have the actual opportunity to be in internships where they are doing what teachers do, it helps them to determine whether or not they actually like teaching, and it also helps them decide what ages they want to teach,” Sovich said.
According to Sovich, this class is very important for students who are intrigued by the field of childcare.
Sovich said, “The benefit is that it will give them a head start in an education program at the university level. The other benefit is that if they decide in high school that they really don’t like teaching, they don’t waste four years studying education, ending up with a great big student debt over a subject that they don’t even want to pursue. It helps them decide if it’s what they really want to do or not.”