100 years on, Iowa State's Child Development Laboratory School makes an impact on big and little students alike
Written by Mike Krapfl | Images by Julie M. Photo
Caitlin Alesch, a child life specialist at Children’s Nebraska, an Omaha hospital.
“My dream is coming true!!!” wrote Caitlin Alesch (’24) on her LinkedIn page last year after she was offered an internship as a child life specialist for Children’s Nebraska, an Omaha hospital.
“I have always been interested in working with children,” Alesch says.
That interest took off in eighth grade, when she missed 40-plus days of school in Lincoln, Nebraska, for hospital tests that eventually produced several diagnoses.
During one hospital trip to Omaha, she met with a child life specialist who used a teddy bear to demonstrate how an IV procedure would go. The specialist also helped to distract Alesch when she faced an IV needle.
As a middle schooler facing health issues, Caitlin Alesch met with a child life specialist who used a teddy bear to demonstrate how an IV procedure would go. Alesch now works as a child life specialist herself, helping children and families prepare for and cope with hospitalization.
“It was a very big advantage to meet that child life specialist,” Alesch says.
When she came to Iowa State University to study human development and family studies, Alesch was set on becoming a child life specialist herself. One of the program’s requirements was to fulfill a number of hours working with children, which she achieved by completing her program’s practicum in Iowa State’s Child Development Laboratory School within the College of Health and Human Sciences, and by working two semesters in the lab school’s classrooms.
She assisted teachers. She set up meals. She helped with restroom routines. She monitored and encouraged safe play.
All that experience helped her build a resume and land an internship at Children’s Nebraska, which then turned into a full-time job. Today, she helps children and families prepare for and cope with hospitalization. That can include offering a child a blanket or a stuffed animal, explaining medical terms in simple language, or providing distractions during procedures.
Working at the lab school “gave me a lot of practical experience and feedback,” Alesch says. “There were great mentors there and they helped me assess and work with kiddos.”
LEARNING THROUGH PLAY
Two preschoolers, their tiny table and chairs facing classroom windows looking out to a shady campus playground, picked up plastic insects just the right size for their hands.
In the middle of the classroom behind them, four of the class’s 4- and 5-year-olds surrounded teacher Katie Moore while she described an unsuccessful hunt for live caterpillars.
Next to them, two classmates played in the toy kitchen. Head teacher Tiffany Schieffer was at their side, demostrating how the school is a place where “we grow together.”
At the other end of the classroom, three students sat on a sofa with a few books from the corner library. They chatted more than they turned pages.
This is learning through play. During this unstructured, “center time” of their day at Iowa State’s lab school, the children picked a station and played and talked and moved, all the while exploring their carefully tended and curated classroom.
Young children have been learning at the school –– and helping college students learn about working with children –– for 100 years this fall. Staffers believe it is the country’s oldest early childhood lab school still in operation.
FROM NURSERY SCHOOL TO LAB SCHOOL
“Be the person that helps all children reach their potential regardless of their abilities!” says the website recruiting students to Iowa State’s major in early childhood education. One of the selling points is the nationally accredited lab school, which has been educating young children and practicum students alike since 1924.
That’s when Iowa State’s new department of child development hired Lulu Lancaster to direct child care and train-ing and to lead the department’s nur-sery school that served “the teaching and research needs of the department,” according to a historical note posted by the University Library.
The school helped establish emer-gency nursery schools in the ’30s to get families through the Depression. The school also offered an introductory child development course on television during the 1950s, trained Head Start staff during the 1960s, and worked with state leaders in the 1990s to offer licensure for early childhood education.
The lab school has changed over the years, growing and shrinking, ser-ving different ages, at times offering before- or after-school sessions, and providing a laboratory for various research projects.
“One of the valuable takeaways for the lab school is its ability and willingness to understand the field and understand early childhood in the context of the state and world,” says Jennifer LaRosa (’99, ’09), who directed the school for more than 12 years until she left the role in July.
Brain research in the early 2000s, for example, showed the importance of educating infants and toddlers, says LaRosa. Because of those brain studies, the lab expanded enrollment to infants and toddlers, with eight of the lab school’s 56 students falling into that age group currently.
“The lab school has a dual mission,” says Kala Sullivan (’11), an assistant teaching professor in human development and family studies who served as the school’s interim director. “Obviously, we’re offering high-quality care for children and their families. We’re also providing high-quality education training for our college students.”
The school is also a research laboratory complete with built-in observation areas where faculty and students can research early childhood development and education.
“Children need people who will stand up for them no matter what,” Sullivan says. “But to stand up for children we have to understand their needs. And that understanding needs to be rooted in research.”
Beth Lantz, who moved from Omaha to become the school’s new director, says there was a lot to like when she considered the opportunity.
“I wanted something more than child care, more than a day care,” she says. “I love how the lab school not only impacts children, but also future teachers. That’s huge.”
Young students play in a sandbox with teacher Katie Moore. Students at ISU's Development Labratory School are encouraged to learn through play.
A LAB SCHOOL PROGRESSION
Erica Jaeschke (’20) spent her undergraduate years observing and learning her way through the lab school as a practicum student.
During her first year, Jaeschke took anecdotal observations about different stages of childhood development. Sophomore year, she learned how teachers develop strategies to meet various state standards for early childhood learning. Junior year, Jaeschke wrote lesson plans and then tried those plans under teacher supervision. She spent senior year student teaching in an Ames preschool center.
Post-graduation, Jaeschke has taught preschoolers and recently started a special education position in a Minneapolis elementary school.
Teacher Peggy Ward reads to her class.
“The lab school teachers taught us how to meet a child’s strong emotion with empathy and understanding,” Jaeschke says. “That helps me remind myself not to take things so personally. It’s very easy to do that. But the lab school teachers were so calm.”
And, she said, they leaned on research to support their daily work.
“Teachers are doing everything, developmentally, that should be done, according to the research,” Jaeschke says. “It was the best modeling experience you could have.”
For 100 years now, the lab school has been modeling that kind of science with practice as it has trained students, served children, helped families, and made discoveries in early childhood education.
As Lancaster, the lab school’s founding director wrote in 1925: “Long ago home economics people learned that theory without practice was only half education, likewise it seems sure that the child to be known must be studied first hand.”
