By McKinley Noster

Picayune Intern

When the new St. Michael’s Episcopal Day School opens its doors this fall, children from the ages of 2 to 4 will experience a unique teaching style, said director Kathy Lapsys.

As students enter their classroom, Lapsys hopes they will find not merely books and art stations but an environment driven by their own individual ideas and curiosities. Some children will be investigating insects in their native environment outside, while others will be building spider webs or playing with lights and shadows. With a current capacity of only 27 children, the new day school opens Sept. 1.

With more than 25 years of teaching experience and a special interest in early childhood brain development, Lapsys has been a director at two Episcopal schools in California and holds two teaching degrees. Using a method based in Northern Italy called Reggio Emilia, she will emphasize the importance of a child-focused, creative environment.

Class projects will be almost entirely child-initiated and can last anywhere from two hours to two days or two weeks, depending on the child’s level of interest rather than on a rigid structure set up before hand, Lapsys said.

“The role of the teachers is that of a mentor – their focus will be on understanding the child’s natural development and not placing their own egos in front of the child’s,” Lapsys said.

Covering the walls of the new school with art, photographs and other projects, teachers will encourage questions and pay close attention to each child in their class, Lapsys said. Distinct to the school is the small class size. No more than five children will be in each group, she said. Spontaneous and flexible, the teaching style will follow the specific ideas of each group of students.

“A teacher may come to class, wanting to discuss the different body segments of a bee but find that the children are more interested in the transparency of the bee’s wings,” Lapsys explained. “So, instead of carrying on about the whole bee, the teacher will discuss transparency or other transparent objects in the room.”

Creativity will also be key to the new school. Followers of the Reggio Emilia method believe that children communicate in 100 creative languages. The school’s website explains that St. Michael’s Episcopal Day School will give children the tools to express themselves through art, drama, photographs, dictation, puppetry and whatever other creative mediums the children find.

Writing down what the children say, discovering what they find interesting, and handing them the tools to answer questions, the new St. Michael’s Day School will try to change ideas into tangible projects in order to encourage creative thinking and social co-operation, Lapsys said.

In the future Lapsys hopes to serve the needs of the community and to expand the school up to pre-K.