Fifteen years ago, Joanne McGee joined the Holy Child School at Rosemont community as a PreKindergarten teacher and parent. While her teaching career has spanned 23 total years and she taught in a variety of classrooms before coming to Holy Child, Joanne feels most passionate about teaching Early Childhood students because she loves being part of the early years in a child’s education, when she can help them build a love of learning. To mark this important milestone in her Holy Child career, Joanne shared her reflections on the importance of teaching values, leadership skills, and “the power of yet.”

How does the mission of Holy Child influence your role as an educator?
The philosophy of embracing the whole child and loving the whole child for exactly who they are is what I appreciate the most about our school and its mission. I want the children to feel loved and valued for exactly who they are, showing them that they are each contributors to our community in their own ways. My most important job each fall is to build rapport with the new class of PreKindergarteners so that they learn to trust me and feel comfortable in the classroom. When they feel loved and welcomed, they can take chances, make mistakes, and become engaged learners. We are so blessed to be able to make this school feel like “a home away from home” for our students. Raising good people who will be kind, loving, and accepting, especially beyond the halls of Holy Child, is the most important part of our job next to educating them.

How do you approach teaching leadership skills to some of our youngest students?
From the earliest years in Early Childhood, our children have opportunities to lead prayer services and assemblies and host performances for their families. Providing children with experiences singing, speaking, and performing in front of an audience are some ways to begin establishing their confidence as leaders. Outside of these experiences, leadership-skill development is woven into our day-to-day practices; play is an essential teaching ground for our students. We are guiding the children to collaborate and be open to other people’s ideas, such as the give-and-take of cooperative play, and modeling how to strategize and problem solve with others. The Alex’s Lemonade Stand fundraiser that PreKindergarten hosts every year also teaches the children about leadership and making a difference in our community. We weave age-appropriate lessons into our curriculum that relate to this service-learning opportunity, teaching the children about communities and community helpers, like first responders and doctors; how advertising amplifies the message of our fundraiser; customer service basics, such as thanking every customer individually; and an introduction to coins because the children will help us to sort the money we collect. Year after year, our students feel good about the outcome of this service project.

Tell us about “The Power of Yet” and how this helps to build children’s confidence.
In children’s literature, you will often find lessons about perseverance and overcoming challenges. We discuss these types of messages with the PreKindergarten students, reflecting on how a character “can’t do this yet,” but eventually tries, learns, and succeeds. At this age, children are often less willing to attempt things because there’s an apprehension about the unfamiliar. Many of them have a perception that making a mistake is a bad thing. “The Power of Yet” is a message to help children acknowledge a mistake and say, “That’s okay, let’s try again. You don’t know it yet, but we’re going to get there.” I tell them that I learn the most when I make a mistake, pointing out when I do and saying that everyone, even adults, make mistakes. They learn from modeling, messaging, and encouragement, and we have seen growth and improvement in their confidence because of these intentional approaches. Ultimately, we want them to have an open mindset and feel excited about trying and experiencing new things.