Summary:
Diane Kisner was interviewed by Pat Riegg on May 14, 2008. As the co-founder and head of the Merriewood Children’s Center, which offered a variety of pre-school and after school programs, Diane was an important figure in the field of early childhood education in Lafayette. From the start she was an enthusiastic supporter of the new library, which she felt was designed to promote the same community values and inclusiveness as her school. In this interview, Diane discusses her high expectations for the new library in terms of the impact it will have on the lives of both the children and the adults in the Lafayette community.
Oral History:
Pat Riegg: Today is May 14th, 2008. This is Pat Riegg, and I’m doing a community interview of Diane Kisner, because she’s been in charge of and owned Merriewood Children’s Center for so many years, and it continues to have such an impact on the community with so many people going through it. Starting with libraries, Diane, what are your first or best childhood memories of libraries?
Diane Kisner: I can remember my mother taking me to the library when I was maybe only three or four years old, and I remember it was like being in a candy store, because there were so many choices of books, and my
mother read to me a lot.
PR: How important was reading to you when you were growing up?
DK: Well, I loved to be read to. I do remember my mother harping on me to do more reading and me wanting to be outside playing, but I did love books.
PR: What was your favorite childhood book?
DK: Oh, The Wizard of Oz.
PR: Oh, me too. Where did you grow up, Diane?
DK: In Southern California.
PR: What awareness of community did you have while growing up?
DK: You know, I lived in Los Angeles when I was really little, and it was so big, and we didn’t have a car, we had to ride the streetcar to go anywhere. And so, I’m not sure the community really revolved around the elementary school, I think.
PR: What were your early work experiences in Southern California?
DK: Well, my first, one of my first experiences was working at Disneyland. It had just opened, and I sold souvenirs in Tomorrowland.
PR: That must have been way fun.
DK: It was. And then I was a recreation leader on a playground in the summer, and I did a lot of babysitting.
PR: Okay, what is your education? Where did you go to school, and what degrees?
DK: I went to Oregon State University, and I have a bachelor in education, and later after I had children, I went back to school, and at Cal State Hayward got a master’s degree in early childhood education.
PR: As an adult, what are your early community experiences?
DK: I think they revolved around my children. PTA, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, sports, things like that mostly.
PR: What attracted you to Lafayette, and how long have you lived here?
DK: I’ve been here 38 years, and it was really wanting more of a small town and a rural community and a good education for my children.
PR: What are your earliest memories of Lafayette Library?
DK: I took my children to Lafayette Library every week, and we kept one of those plastic dishpans in the car, and they filled it all the way up with books. And because I was terribly nervous of always losing the books, we could never find them on the day they were due back. They stayed in there, and it helped entertain children while they were riding in the car.
PR: How often do you personally use Lafayette Library now?
DK: Not very much. I’m anxious for the new one.
PR: I think it’s because you’re so busy.
DK: Maybe.
PR: What community events or projects or organizations have you been involved with?
DK: LMYA Sports, the local swimming pool is a drawing-community area where people accumulate, partnering with Lafayette School District, and then through Merriewood Children’s Center.
PR: How do you feel a library serves a community?
DK: Well, I think this one, because it’s going to be so diverse, will, because it’s going to bring educational experiences into Lafayette.
PR: Why is this new library important to you?
DK: Well, you know, I’m always looking for quality experiences for children, and I think it will provide that.
PR: If we define the goals of a community as a place of mutual support, shared values, and acceptance of differences, how do you see Lafayette meeting these goals?
DK: I think that parents are what brings values to a community, and especially to this community. I think people will move here because of the community here.
PR: Now, if we focus on how you’ve integrated some of those same values of mutual support, shared values and acceptance of difference into your children’s center, tell me about some of the ways that’s happened.
DK: Well, Merriewood is very fortunate because it has a community of very long-staying and skilled staff. And it tries to bring a healthy, wholesome environment into Merriewood, which includes offering family education, and high-quality childcare, and integrating children with special needs, and having children have a lot of outside time in their garden.
PR: How long have you owned and operated Merriewood?
DK: 28 years. It’s located on Burton Valley Elementary School.
PR: Tell me a little bit about the facilities, how large it is, and how many buildings involved?
DK: It’s one large building all put together. It has six classrooms and a kitchen, and a large garden, half-acre. And, um, the land belongs to the school district, and we pay Lafayette School District for rent underneath the buildings, but I own the buildings.
PR: How many employees did you have?
DK: Currently 26.
PR: And, tell me a little bit about their training.
DK: You know, they have all different educational experiences. Some of them have teaching credentials, some of them have degrees in child development or early childhood education, some of them do not have degrees. They’ve just taken many classes in early childhood, but they all have experience with children, and so they’re hired for their expertise with kids.
PR: You know, it seems to me like I’ve heard you say that you even have a couple of men working at the nursery school, which is unusual. Is that still true?
DK: We do. Oh, yeah. We have three. We have a full-time organic farmer, and we have two teachers that are male.
PR: Tell me a little bit about the core programs offered at the school.
DK: There are five nursery school classes. There’s a parent-toddler, one morning-a-week class, and then there are classes for children from two and a half to five, beyond that. And then there’s school-age childcare for children who attend Burton Valley Elementary School. And then we operate year-round, so in the summer we have summer camps, in which children come from other school districts as well, like Moraga and Orinda.
PR: Tell me about some of those summer vacation programs.
DK: We have something called Mud Pie School, for preschool children, and we have one called Ready, Set, Go, which operates all summer for children who are going into kindergarten. And it’s sort of a, meet some friends and play on the kindergarten playground, and get ready to go. And, then we have camp for children first through fifth grades.
PR: How many children attend your school every year?
DK: There are 75 preschool children currently, and about 200 school-age children that come either all the time or part-time.
PR: You’ve mentioned a couple of times, a large garden. I’m curious about that. Tell me about it.
DK: Well, I consider it an outdoor classroom. We have a full-time farmer. We now have chickens that are very, very tame. They follow the children around, or the children follow them around. But we do plant food, and harvest it and cook it and eat it. We gather the eggs, and the children really love it. They also build forts, up in and among the plants, and they love to be there, so we try to have them be there as much as they can.
PR: Sounds great. I understand that you started a new program this year called Homework Plus. What’s that all about?
DK: Well, we found that children with the sort of back to leaving no child behind attitude among schools, that children had a lot more homework than they used to. And so, we are trying to help the working parent by having a dedicated classroom and a teacher in that classroom to help children get some of their work done in the afternoon. So it’s worked out really well.
PR: I know there’s a lot of family education that you offer to parents and, I think the community, can you tell me about some of those programs that you’ve presented recently?
DK: We have some child development education, either through our library, you can check out a book, or by reading the newsletter, you have education flyers in there, and also meetings.
PR: Is it possible for just people in the community to find out about these offerings and attend?
DK: Sure. They can go online to Merriewood.org, and they can find the newsletter and see what’s going on, and they’re always welcome. They can call me up at Merriewood Children’s Center and ask for parenting information, and I do it either on the phone or they can come in, it’s free.
PR: That’s great. And then I understand you have something called an OPAH program. What in the world is that?
DK: Well, OPAH stands for One Parent at Home, and it has been going on for almost all the 28 years that we’ve been in business. And, every couple of months, the children cook dinner, and their parents come, and we all sit down and eat dinner together, and it offers parents a chance to get to know other single parents, which they often feel isolated in Lafayette.
PR: And what’s the group called Moms in Crisis organized for?
DK: Well, it started three years ago because there were several moms who were going through transitions that were very, very painful to them, and I offered them an opportunity to get together, and they bonded and formed Moms in Crisis. I would prefer that they would start to be in Moms in Transition, but they’re afraid it will go away, but I am not a therapist. It’s not a therapy group. It is a group to support each other and to support raising their children through hard times.
PR: I also understand that, at least for a while, you’ve been integrating special needs kids into the classroom. How does that work, and who benefits from that?
DK: Well, everybody benefits. It’s a win-win. We do partner with Lafayette School District. We do have special needs children who are in the special education class across the way, use our yard. And beyond that, we do save an opening in each preschool class for a child to come with an aide. We have, I think, six children on the autistic spectrum, and we love the program. Children who, who it fits, do very, very well there.
PR: I understand there’s something called a fall harvest pumpkin patch. That sounds like fun. What happens there?
DK: Well, we love a party, and we often, in the fall, have a party using our garden, and we import pumpkins, because we can’t grow enough. But children can come and get a pumpkin, and we just have a good old time. We’ve even had a band that has now big kids, college or high school kids that do gigs, but they used to go to Merriewood, and they provide our music.
PR: Seems like I’ve heard that sometimes some of your ex-students become teacher’s aides for you, too. Is that true?
DK: They do. We don’t like to separate. We keep everybody as long as we can.
PR: Moving back now to the Lafayette Library itself, does Merriewood benefit currently from the library or any of its staff?
DK: We do. We have–the library provides storytellers that come into preschool classes, and so we have a regular once a month storyteller that comes from Lafayette Library and reads stories to our children. They love it.
PR: What are the favorite books that Merriewood kids are reading these days?
DK: You know, I’m not very good at telling you that, because they all have long series, and they go from series to series to series. We’re very big on keeping children reading picture books because we see that sort of slowly going away, and picture books are a wonderful, good start for reading, and so we like to keep them in picture books as long as we can. But there’s a lot of reading going on at Merriewood. Children read a lot more than I remember they used to.
PR: What’s particularly exciting to you about the new Lafayette Library?
DK: I get excited when I hear that they’re going to bring in educational experiences for people of all ages from outside Lafayette.
PR: So what outcome do you hope most for the library?
DK: I hope it becomes a gathering place for all different ages of people.
PR: I’d like you to fantasize for a minute. Can you see Merriewood’s participation in library activities growing? What would be your most wanted thing to have happen if you could wave a wand?
DK: Well, I would love to see us be able to take the public bus–our big kids–take the public bus and come down to Lafayette Library and enjoy some of the offerings that they have, especially in the summer when we have all day to do it.
PR: You know, it’s been said that the internet would kill the printed word and libraries would become obsolete. How will the new library avoid this fate?
DK: Well, I always think face-to-face interaction is a much stronger emotional pull for people than looking at a screen.
PR: Well, thank you, Diane, so much. It’s very obvious that your students benefit so much from the community values that you’ve presented to them. And some of them stay in touch with you for years and years. What a great asset to the community.
DK: Oh, thank you so much.
PR: Thank you much.
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