The Ashfield pre-school began its career in the basement of the Congregational Church three days a week, with twenty-four 3-5-year-olds and two teachers, a ratio mandated by the state for licensing purposes. The following year the addition of a second teacher and a division into two groups made the task more manageable. My son Tom's wife Nancy was the organizer and head teacher of the pre-school for well over a decade, during its occupation of the church basement, and her influence is both felt and acknowledged by all the village families whose children moved through the school! The gratitude of the village for Nancy's particular style of enlightened enjoyment of her brood and skillful curricular planning for their development was spelled out by many of the families and Board members who came to a ceremony honoring her for her seventeen-year-old devotion to Ashfield's children at the Congregational Church, on June 21st, 2002.

The little pre-school met for many years in the church basement, but really needed to find its own home, as the number of age-appropriate children in Ashfield continued to grow. So a committee was formed to find a suitable location. After finally qualifying for a grant, plus much dedicated searching, planning, working and hoping, a perfect site was found in a formerly private residence on Baptist Corner Road across from the cemetery.

Alas, in an age where the media portray children as potentially violent and often out of control, a few of the neighbors, perhaps new to the traditional New England village culture which sees its children as very much a part of the life of the village, perhaps also worried about traffic and the danger of lowered real estate values, opposed the school's acquisition of the property. The controversy received a thorough and unbiased airing in the Ashfield News, thanks to the support of its doughty editor Sally Straus, and, after much work on the part of everyone to allay anxieties and set limits to inappropriate litigation, the purchase finally went through and the house became the new pre-school.

Since that time, the school has acquired a new director and several new teachers, and the number of children who attend has grown immensely. It is a delightful place to visit, quite evidently the children's own place. The adults who serve as teachers are clearly there to foster, support, inspire and enjoy their roles - and they do! Children are active and busy, whether indoors or out in the extensive back yard, creating vegetable gardens, playing on the jungle gym or swings, climbing the big tree, building a clubhouse or riding tricycles - or indoors, watching pupae hatch, looking at pictures of caterpillars or other creatures of the wild, or painting pictures, building with blocks, riding indoor vehicles, or countless other activities!

Nancy Leue has for many years sent a monthly column to the Ashfield News, each of her observations exhibiting a natural understanding and appreciation of the authentic lives of young children. Click here to read a selection of Nancy's columns.