Hands Together For Something

Hands Together Center for Children, a non-profit preschool located in the very heart of downtown Santa Ana, California, demonstrates the desperate need for childhood education and illustrates its struggle to meet the growing demands for education from surrounding communities with minimal support.
With a warm smile that radiates throughout the chaotic preschool classroom of animated two and three-year olds, Darrlene sits stooped over, conspicuously towering above her class with her slender knees knocking the edge of what momentarily functions as the lunch table. Her wide smile extends across the width of her tan face and causes her cheeks to slightly shift the wireframe glasses that encircle her attentive eyes as she chats with the children at her table. Darrlene Rosete, twenty-six years old, is a
teacher at Hands Together Center for Children, a privately owned, non-profit preschool that, for approximately 9 years, has been serving children primarily from low-income, Hispanic/Latino families
residing within the local community of Santa Ana, California.

Occupying miniature, teal-colored classroom chairs, she and six children finish up what is left of their lunches. Short toddler limbs reach across the high-trafficked table surface to grab at colorful entrèes. An assortment of crumbs and lunch scraps tumble off lunchware as petite hands hold their utensils in ungainly yet firm grasps. Today's main course: ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread.

"Teacher, is that orange?" a little boy with a mouthful of sandwich shouts while pointing to the plastic bowl in front of him. All at once, as if detonated by some catalyst, the other children explode with instantaneous jabber, contributing their own comments and chiming in to try their hand at similar truth-seeking inquiries in English, Spanish, and a fusion of both. Voices shout out simultaneously and materialize into a sea of questions that require answers and comments in need of praise.

"Is that blue?"
"Is red?"
"Is it ... rojo?"

They shout collectively at Darrlene with, at times, incomprehensible English and incoherent phrases. Thrilled at their newfound game, the kids continue to chatter with sheer confidence that they, too, can take part in this babies' tower of Babel.

In the class of 16 children, a third of them can only speak Spanish. The rest are just beginning to learn English due to the fact that a majority of the children come from Spanish-speaking families.
Consequently, Darrlene's speech tends to fluctuate between the two languages. She first arrived to the teaching position with only 3 years of amateur high school Spanish and today, has seemingly mastered the colloquial language of her students. Because the acquisition of language is such a paramount rung within the various stages of development, Darrlene has made it a point to acquire a thorough comprehension of her students' cultures and language barriers, making this social discernment a salient part of her everyday interaction.

As a graduate from the California State University of Fullerton, Darrlene spends much of her time studying and working within the field of Early Childhood Education. She is currently working towards a
Master of Arts in Education degree with an emphasis in preschool education. On a daily basis, Darrlene teaches, cleans after, plays with, reads about, and studies children. However, as much as she takes pleasure in her occupation as a preschool teacher, those who teach and work for non-profit organizations within low-income communities receive minimal pay.

"I am working for peanuts," she states with a short chuckle. "I am not sure that any member of the teaching staff here makes more than 15 dollars an hour. As much as I love working with children, I know that I can't afford to stay in a job like this forever."

Naptime begins everyday at noon. Darrlene flicks off the iridescent lights. The teachers hand white, fitted bed sheets to each child who then walks over to his or her own blue, plastic cot and skillfully tucks each elastic edge around the corners of his or her makeshift bed. The adroitness witnessed when watching these young children perform tasks is remarkable. A few children faintly snore in their cots. For many of them, it has already been a long day. Several of the children have been at the school since it opened at 6:30 AM and it is very likely that quite a few of them will remain there until as late as 6:30 in the evening when it closes. Most of the children are on subsidized contract with the government and are allotted the funding which allows them to stay for as long as their parents are at school or work. For these
families, the childcare provided here is indispensable.

"They are tired. We have three to four parents who take the bus," Darrlene informs me, "and it can take them an hour to get here, an hour to go to work, an hour to pick up their children, and then another hour to travel home - and that makes for a very long day."

In the back corner of the room, Stephen, three years old, hovers over his cot, struggling to wrap the edges of his bed sheet around the corners. His face instantly becomes vexed with unreserved frustration and wrinkles gather where his furrowed brows meet. Presently, he is under the supervision of Child Protective Services. His parents were recently separated and, while he is still very young, "the issues at home are causing him to experience difficulties at school," explains Darrlene. A handful of other children in his class come from separated families, have incarcerated parents, are living in foster care, or are labeled "at risk" children due to low family incomes. For Stephen, along with a number of the other children in his class, the difficult experiences and sometimes troubling atmosphere absorbed at home follow him to preschool everyday and can emerge through his behavior.

At an age where, as Darrlene reiterates time and again, "they are like sponges - they either take good or they take bad, but they will take in something," it is crucial that children attend preschool. The problem, however, is that the importance of early childhood care is commonly, and unfortunately, overlooked today. Only about 10 percent of the children attending the center are private pay. The rest, however, rely on the government assistance or additional subsidies they are granted. Even worse, the advantageous benefits of this childcare center are only being experienced by those families whose children are actually enrolled. Hands Together Center for Children currently has a preposterous waitlist of over 600 children from the adjacent neighborhoods whose parents anxiously wait for their number to be called. Santa Ana's lack of established early childhood care centers makes for an almost endless waitlist and a large population of young children whose calls for care are not being answered. This is rarely a concern in the more affluent communities of Orange County, where multiple preschool centers are instituted.

The room is just beginning to quiet down when Stephen stands up from his cot with an unfixed bed sheet clenched in his tiny hand and cries out "I need help! I need help again!" Darrlene walks over and kneels down beside him.

"I will help you," she reassures him while lifting the edges of the cot, making it easier for him to pull the stretchy corners around them. "Thank you for using your words, Stephen." In her class, Darrlene frequently urges the children to "use their words" and is well informed of the essential role of communication within the progress of a child's development. She encourages the children to employ early decision-making skills.

With the lights out and all the children asleep in their cots, Darrlene begins to sweep up the crusty carrots that have taken up comfortable residence on the pale, peachtiled floors. Darrlene recaps the previous occurrence.

"He said, 'I need help' and sometimes if they can't do something, they stand up and walk away, go play, or throw their things down and start screaming. He is using his words and that shows that he is gradually learning social skills. He is, like many of the kids, beginning to get into the mode of decision making ... 'if a person is not doing what I like, should I hit them or should I just tell them to stop?"

About two years ago, upon her own initiative, Darrlene went to Sacramento for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Public Policy Symposium at the Capital in order to discuss with a representative the current inadequate condition of Santa Ana's preschool system, and advocate the initiation of the "universal preschool," a part-time preschool that is open two hours everyday for the public. She was able to convene with Tom Umberg, who was then State Assemblyman of the 69th District. She sat down to discuss the conditions at Hands Together, the insubstantial salaries for employees, the importance of preschool programs, and the unmanageable number of waitlisted children trying to get into the school. She fervently expressed Santa Ana's dire need for preschools where more affluent neighborhoods are not lacking. Assemblyman Umberg eventually came to visit the Hands Together Center, and aside from compliments directed at the "cute kids" and a few p h o t o g r a p h s
to document his tour of the school, nothing arose from his visit. "Nothing has changed ... but then again,
I guess that's all politics," Darrlene says with a disheartened sigh.

Towards the end of every day, after lessons and group activities, the class as a whole migrates to the playground. It is a fairly small yard filled with playground toys fenced in by a short brick wall approximately five feet high. It gives way to a colossal view of the sun setting behind the Santa Ana skyline. Orange rays flood the recreation area as squeaking sounds of tricycles mingle with the heavy bass that reverberates from a nearby car parked on the adjacent, main road. On the brick wall hangs a plaque that labels the area: "Lincoln Mercury Playground: dedicated March 20, 2000 to the children of Orange County." As a non-profit preschool, the center is not permitted to take monetary contributions but is, instead, permitted to ask businesses to donate products or equipment. This playground is a donation.

Darrlene stands elevated at the top of the play gym as she pretends to search for the children in an active game of hide-and-seek. Three-year-olds run, bliss and thrill painted on their faces, as they try to lure Darrlene into chasing them with the occasional "you can't catch me" sing-song. As time gradually passes, parents trickle in and out of the playground to sign out their children - some enthusiastic, some entirely worn out. The cathedral bells sounding from down the street let us know that it is 5 o'clock.

It is almost too simple for us to label a community as "far past fixing". We make the tragic mistake of dismissing. But nothing is ever hopeless. As long as the children's parents continues to board that bus everyday to come pick up their children after a long day at work, as long as Darrlene continues to make trips to confront those in power, as long as government officials aren't allowed to get too comfortable, as long as California doesn't grow entirely apathetic towards its struggling youth, nothing is ever hopeless. Many comment on the inadequate state of the Santa Ana School District at the elementary to high school level, however what they fail to realize is that it all starts here, in preschool.

A chill sweeps in and Darrlene's class prepares to go back inside. The tangerine sun slowly falls behind a looming, grey government building that stands part of the Santa Ana city horizon. Its ominous form peers over the playground's brick wall as the jaded sun persists in its gradual plummet and the children run back into the classroom where they and Darrlene play until the remaining parents arrive.

• Easing Your Voting Pains
  
  Voting. The word usually wards off most students for one reason or another. Some say their vote will not count while others feel that they just do not know ...
• Blushing Brides
  
  Sex Trafficking & The Global Sex Trade SEX FOR SALE. Signs like this aren't the norm, right? But try typing the word "Filipina," into Google. The ...
• Architectural Digest
  
  A non-fiction short story written humorously about life's "messy-ness." If you know my mother, you know she likes to save things. Every possession has the ...
• The Technological Divide
  
  Nothing says "Fuck Off" like a pair of headphones. To my delight, Apple's iPod multimedia player not only plays mp3's and video, but also makes me impervious to...

• Printer Friendly