Huffington Magazine Issue 11 | Page 71

HUFFINGTON 08.26.12 SMART START? rocks back and forth. Ms. Sabrena looks up from her list. “Maybe you can give me a ‘here’ tomorrow and make me so happy.” Tomorrow will be Nawal’s last chance to participate in the ritual of attendance-taking before startng kindergarten, and although this might seem like a small thing, Ms. Sabrena doesn’t think of it that way. Ms. Sabrena spends part of each day reading to the kids and teaching numbers and letters and days of the week, but she knows that to succeed in school, they’ll need to know how to do more than read and count. They’ll need to know how to play with other kids and how to follow directions, how to sit still and listen when someone else is talking (a particular challenge for the energetic Bryan). And they’ll need to be able to say “here” or “present” when the teacher calls their name. The North Carolina program, like the childcare center at the Frank Porter Graham Institute, aims to help kids grow in a wide variety of ways.  A lot of that development is supposed to take place in the playground or at the “activity centers,” discrete areas of the classroom where kids can curl up with a book or play board games or collaborate on a tower of blocks. Four times a day, Ms. Sabrena gives the cue: “You can go to your centers now.” Today, after she takes attendance, Zanaya, Alan and Bryan head over to a table and open up the watercolor sets. Nawal and Jayla go to the “housekeeping center.” Nawal places a little doily in every cup in the muffin tray, as meticulous in her play as she is in her silence. Ms. Sabrena sits and watches, breaking her own silence every now and then to ask a provocative question. A query about a water color rainbow prompts a debate between three girls on whether black is a color. In many ways, Ms. Sabrena seems ideally suited for this job—she’s firm, patient and has a master’s degree in counseling from North Carolina Central University. She’s also up to the physical challenges of chasing four-year olds around a playground: a purple bruise on her arm attests to her weekends spent playing flag-football in cities around the south. And then there’s the fact that she’s literally had nearly a lifetime of experience. Her mother, Joyce Robinson, founded the center when Sabrena was a child, and Sabrena’s sister, stepfather and uncle all work there. Sabrena got her first job there when she was 16, and continued working there through college. But she doesn’t plan to stay much