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Show Always Wanted To Teach Children . -h : By Linda Berman It takes a very special kind of person to teach a Kindergarten class well-one well-one must be compassionate, tolerant, and have a great sense of humor. Park City is lucky to have such a person she's Sheryl Pickett, a woman in her early . twenties. Sheryl is a graduate of Weber State College in elementary education with a specialization in early childhood development. She has been teaching at Marsac School since graduation. "I always wanted to teach young children," saidSheryl. "When I student taught, I had experience in second grade and kindergarten, but I liked kindergarten best." Sheryl believes that kindergarten kin-dergarten is a necessary and worthwhile experience for children. "I think kindergarten kindergar-ten should be both play and work for children. But, after all, play is work for very young children. Here they learn about animals by playing with the class mice. And, we have numerous learning toys that teach color and counting." Sheryl also starts teaching children the basic three R's' in kindergarten. "We go into reading through the Sullivan reading program. Thisyear, it' s a new edition. We use big pictures and posters that follow a story. There are four books that we use two teach letters and two teach writing and sounds." According to Sheryl, children chil-dren need kindergarten in order to get ready for first grade. "We have a values program throughout Marsac. and we go into values in kindergarten, kin-dergarten, also. We use Duso Dolphin to teach children-about children-about themselves and their self image. We talkabout who the child is in discussion groups, and the child's im- Sheryl Pickett Kindergarten teacher believes in positive posi-tive reinforcement to bring out a child's good points. f v I - , I j' v . f t a!,,. ....... ,w 1 1 , 1 " ; 1 '1 i I i s n i i - 1 f :L. portance. Sheryl does not believe in negative forms of punishment. punish-ment. "I use positive reinforcement rein-forcement to bring out a child's good points. I notice good behavior for example, and commend the child for it." Sheryl also believes that sterotyping of children is bad. 'I think girls should learn to do things boys have -done and vice-versa. I don't tell a girl not to play with a truck, for example." Sheryl voiced strong criticism crit-icism of the recent NTDS survey. "All the facts weren't stated. Our reputation reputa-tion as a school went down because of that survey, and it isn't a bad school as the survey said it was. People really got the wrong impression impres-sion of the school through the study." N ' 4 . ft w ; y As-.' K t ," . " I i Kindergarten students learn the pledge of allegiance to their nation's flag. Kindergarten students begin to understand un-derstand the wonders of nature by watching mice. |