At Park Avenue School, College Students and Elementary Kids Learn from Each Other

Perhaps the most fundamental element of a person's educational journey is about the relationships one builds along the way.

At Park Avenue School, this was one of the central themes surrounding the celebratory ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday. To formalize a long-standing partnership between Manhattanville College and Park Avenue School, representatives came together to show exactly what being part of a Professional Development School really means.

Under the partnership, Park Avenue's faculty has worked with their counterparts at the college, and student teachers from Manhattanville hone their skills under Park Avenue's roof. It's an arrangement both educational institutions find mutually beneficial.

With grades third- and fifth-graders listening attentively in the gymnasium, administrators took turns in sharing a few congratulatory words directed at faculty from the institutions, student teachers, and last but not least, the kids of Park Avenue.

As Board of Education member Blanca Lopez reached the podium to address Port Chester's youth, she asked the group, "How many of you want to become teachers someday?" to which half the gymnasium raised their hands with pride.

The teachers take that as a sign they're making a positive impression on the kids.

"It's the good teachers make [educating] look easy," said Ms. Johaira Lara, who serves as a teacher at Park Avenue and graduate of Manhattan College.

In recent years, undergraduates from the university have completed their field experience at the elementary school. These bright young beginners have had the opportunity to get to know the children—and in turn, the youngsters have learned a little something from them, too.

"If it wasn't for you, we [at Manhattanville] would have no purpose," said Dr. Shelley Wepner, Dean of the School of Education of the College.

"The partnership is a mutual collaboration—we're all working together here," she added.

This semester, an undergraduate course is currently taught at Park Avenue School.

The class, which works towards tending to the diverse needs of young students, educates young Manhattanville students on why there's more than one approach to teaching—because the way one child learns may be very different from that of another.

A reading practicum course, in which Manhattanville students help tutor kids in the afternoons, paints an accurate picture of why practicing as a Professional Development School is beneficial on both ends of the spectrum.

Struggling young ones are given one-on-one attention, while the teachers-to-be are able to figure out how the each individual student responds to certain strategies.

In the spring, Park Avenue will also be the new site of a fields-based methods course, where teachers will take different approaches to mathematics.

In contrast to past years, where school trainees would sit in a lecture hall for hours with limited exposure to students, these programs take a significantly more hands-on approach to learning.

That determination is not only limited to those working towards getting their teaching certificates—it is evident through the enthusiasm of the youngsters that the overall strength of mind has rubbed off on the students of Park Avenue.

Assistant Superintendent Frank Fanelli asked the kids, "How many of you expect to go to college?"

In response, all the small hands in the room were raised without hesitation.

The motivation was impressive, Fanelli said, because when he was in elementary school, he recalls hardly even knowing what college was, let alone if he wanted to attend someday.

Not before the celebration was out, the third-graders were asked to stand up and perform a song they recited the previous year in preparation for the English Language Arts test, a literary rendition of "I've Got a Feeling," by the Black Eyed Peas.

As the elementary schoolers danced around, holding their books of choice, Park Avenue showed visitors that education is not only about doing well on examinations—it's about having a little fun, too.