Diversity motivates Eagle’s Wing childhood educator

Sherlock Holmes would have noticed in a nanosecond the singularity of Debb Schaubs’ jeans. “Ah,” he might have said with a puff of his pipe, “you are perhaps a professional in early childhood education?”

It would have been, well, elementary because a sharp Sherlockian glance would have caught a key visual clue: the slightly worn knees of Schaubs’ jeans.

As an early childhood educator – yes, Mr. Holmes, you’re as keen as ever – she believes in getting down at child-level.

And so does her entire staff at the Eagle’s Wing Child Care and Education Programs for University Apartments, which includes Eagle Heights apartment housing for graduate student families and University Houses for faculty families.

Schaubs has been manager of children’s services for University Apartments since 1992, when she had 26 children in two converted apartments at Eagle Heights. Today, after moving into a new wing of the Community Center in 1998, Eagle’s Wing is licensed for 107 students – a dramatic quadrupling in eight years – and serves a total of nearly 200 full- and part-time children each semester.

But size aside, the program is remarkable because of the passion and compassion that Schaubs and her staff bring to their profession. “Though early childhood education is not highly valued by anyone-can-do-it people, I’m still here because we have the chance to raise children who do not just tolerate, but embrace difference.”

Difference abounds at Eagle’s Wing because 80 percent of the children are from international families attending UW–Madison. Walking through Eagle’s Wing is like walking through the world. You see the young faces – some shy, some impish, some gleeful – of South Korea, China, Brazil, Venezuela, Iceland, Poland and Egypt, to name just a few of the 24 nations represented at Eagle’s Wing.

“Working here is a really, really awesome cultural experience,” says Schaubs with the intensity that she seems to bring to every part of her job. “Every day when I drive through that tunnel of trees leading up to Eagle Heights, I marvel at what a new world I’m entering.”

And the Eagle’s Wing staff – with strong support from University Housing – works hard to make that world safe and fun and stimulating for the children ages 2-12 who live in it during the day. The staff includes 11 academic staff, 2 classified staff and 18 LTEs, 12 with a master’s degree in early childhood education, several with international backgrounds and more men than you might expect (six).

“We want Eagle’s Wing to be a very welcoming, happy place,” says Cigdem Unal (pronounced Chee-dom Yoo-nahl), one of the lead teachers and a native of Turkey. Schaubs has such complete trust in Unal that she says, “Cigdem could raise any 2-year-old of mine.”

For that matter, the entire staff at Eagle’s Wing is a point of pride for Schaubs. “I have high expectations of them, because children deserve the best,” she says. “I couldn’t do anything without them.”

The staff works in what Schaubs calls “seamless teams” in each classroom. So seamless that it’s sometimes hard to tell who is the lead teacher.

Besides wearing out the knees on their jeans, staff members do other things to make children feel valued: They make eye contact, listen to the children, using nonverbal communication for those who speak little English, and have “a lap for kids when they need it,” as Schaubs puts it.

All this connecting with kids leaves her staff emotionally vulnerable. “Because we have a very transient graduating population at Eagle Heights, it seems like we’re always saying goodbye,” says Schaubs, “and most of the goodbyes are so very hard because they’re goodbye forever.”

The “whole-child” curriculum that’s coupled with these emotional connections helps children develop cognitively and socially, make decisions and solve problems. And running throughout the Eagle’s Wing experience is respect – for everyone.

“We value all cultures and all families,” says Schaubs, “and that means families with two moms or two dads, as well as a mom and a dad.” Multicolored “diversity stripes” run across window blinds, and naptime music is culturally varied, too.

Schaubs grew up in a place very different from Eagle’s Wing: Chilton, Wis., where there were “no people of color and no parallel parking,” she says. She earned her bachelor’s degree from UW-Green Bay and then taught kindergarten and managed the Green Bay Day Nursery. She later oversaw the educational services of the 27 Head Start programs in Dane and Green counties before coming to Eagle’s Wing.

“I always knew I was going into early childhood education,” says Schaubs, “despite the widespread view that we’re just babysitters. Anyone who thinks that should just follow one of our teachers around for a day.”

And if you’re game to do that, be sure to wear jeans. “You’ll never see me in a linen suit,” says Schaubs with a smile.