At Channing Day School, teachers aren't content with teaching the basics

She knows parents have an important decision to make when it comes to preschool and kindergarten. The research shows that if a child starts out behind in school, the child stays that way.

Starting this fall, parents will have more choices than ever when it comes to choosing where to send their kids. Even Tulsa Public Schools is entering the marketplace with full-day kindergarten.

So when Lieser, the owner and director of the private Channing Day School for 30 years, walked into Debbie Williams' classroom and took a sniff of a defrosted octopus, Dover sole and tilapia, she grabbed her nose and said, "This is what I'm talking about. Isn't this wonderful?"

Each week a theme is picked at the school, which is made up of a preschool and kindergarten. April started out with fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Just before school let out last week, the students went "Under the Sea."

Williams and Betsy Figgis teach the school's 24 kindergarten students. Before school, Williams went by Bodean's to pick up the fish. She explained she couldn't see how a person can learn about the ocean without touching a few fish.

"It's gross, but it's so cool," said Williams, who was wearing fish earrings, while prepping the tilapia for its extreme makeover. "This one still had an eye, so I had to get it."

Williams is by herself as she gets out the brushes and untangles the octopus' tentacles. All the students are over with Figgis singing their hearts out during group time.

Before the students paint the dead fish, Williams wants them to feel the teeth of the Dover sole. She wants them to touch the scales.

"Last week, while studying Michaelangelo, our artist Lisa DeJarnette had the students on their backs painting paper taped to the bottom of their desks, because that's how they learned he painted the Sistine Chapel," Lieser said. "Now, do you think they are ever going to forget Michaelangelo?"

A long time ago, Lieser said she realized how her school was going to be different -- her teachers. Of all the qualities she looks for, she said "a warmth" is one of the most important.

"If I do anything right, I pick the right people for this," said Lieser, a teacher herself before she bought Channing.

Only teachers with experience and a college education need apply at Channing, and there's one rule that everyone understands -- no yelling allowed. "If a teacher does, they won't be here tomorrow," Lieser said.

Williams, whose classroom smelled of dead fish the rest of the day, taught kindergarten in public schools for three years before coming to Channing.

"I had always heard of Channing," she said. "I heard it was different. The enthusiasm and the fun. It's just not about academics but the broad spectrum." When she thinks back to her kindergarten days, Williams only remembers playing.

"And I remember there wasn't enough playing," she said. "So I try to make sure everything is done playfully."

In public school she was alone with 37 students.

"All you're doing is maintaining order," she said. "There isn't time to teach."

As the children gathered around the fish on the table, some cheered while others grabbed their noses.

"I used to like fish when I was 4," one of the girls, who's 6, told Williams. The teacher turned around without missing a beat and said, "Maybe you'll like them again when you're 7."

The students said the octopus feels like Jell-O. They loved the eyeball on the tilapia. Williams cut a little slit into the flat Dover sole. She showed off the insides. Someone said it looked like applesauce.

The chants began: "Cut it open. Cut it open."

Like at any preschool and kindergarten, the purpose of early education is to have children ready to enter school at or above their grade. At Channing, they have higher expectations.

"Why shouldn't we?" Lieser said. "If we let kids off the hook, we're not doing our job."

She mentioned this while passing where kindergartners vote each morning. Going along with the theme, the question of the day was "Do you like to eat fish?" The vote was 17 to 5. Most love it.

Afternoons are filled with activities Lieser hopes the students take with them when they leave -- music, Spanish, art and aerobics. Each child is assigned a task for the day, everything from line leader to weather forecaster.

"This is the time in their life where their attitudes are set for school," she said. "If they're bored, think of what you start for them?"

The school's philosophy is why Jean Kline, director of programming and a preschool teacher, can't leave. She's been there since 1989.

"Trish's commitment to children is unparalleled," said Kline, whose resume includes a master's degree in human relations.

"The support she gives to us teachers -- she encourages us to try things. She's always saying, 'We'll see if it works.'

"You can't learn without failure," Kline said. "She allows us to fail, but so many times we don't. We make this school better. That is why you don't have teachers who have been here two years. That is why Channing grows."

Karen Kelley couldn't find a better place for her three children.

"I now have a seventh-grader at Edison and to this day he can go through Philbrook and pick out artists," she said. "He got that from Channing."

All three of her children were at different stages in development when they walked through the school's doors.

"When my oldest went to kindergarten he didn't know how to write his name," she said. "He came out nine months later knowing how to read. At Channing, we felt so much at home I didn't look anywhere else."

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Jason Collington 581-8464
jason.collington@tulsaworld.com