Mud Pies & Water Play

To the parents, most of them professional people and graduates of the best colleges in the country, Melody Workshop in Berkeley, Calif, seemed an ideal nursery school. It was run by imaginative Lila Joralemon, 35, who considers bright preschoolers capable of more than mindless play. Using music--a sure fascinator for children aged 3 1/2 to 5--she taught the alphabet, French, good manners and good music itself. But last week Mrs. Joralemon, daughter of a Los Angeles school superintendent who for years fought against excessive permissiveness in education, was losing the same battle. To state welfare officials, her Melody Workshop is bad, because it fails to emphasize "free play." Their order: close shop.

Little Pigeons. A geologist's wife and mother of five, Teacher Joralemon began the school three years ago in her big Berkeley home, and used every minute of each 2 1/2-hour school day to teach. Bouncing from piano to blackboard, she taught letters with rhymes ("A,B,C,D,E,F,G" Alphabet for you and me" ), soon had tots answering the roll in alphabetical order. At midmorning lunch, she used the French words for utensils, picked a "mother" and "father" to police manners at each table. Instead of wasting the legally required rest period, she said: "Now we are pigeons, and we make a little nest on the desk with our arms." Then she played hi-fi classical records, hoping to spur "appreciation for music throughout later life."

The kids loved it. "It's not drudgery or boredom to them," said one delighted mother. But last fall came trouble: a visit by a lady inspector from the State Department of Social Welfare, which regulates all California day nurseries on the theory that they are not educational establishments. A "play school" devotee, the inspector expressed shock at Melody Workshop's "regimentation." She ordered the school closed, cited technical violations, e.g., the inadequacy of play space. No sooner had Mrs. Joralemon measured her play space (and found more than enough to meet the law) than she was charged with an illegal shortage of toys. Among dozens on the required list: "Loose dirt for mud pies," "tubs for water play," and "soft, cuddly dolls, boy and girl."

Big Brothers. Flabbergasted, one child's parents spent a weekend carving big wooden blocks like those on the required list, donated them to the school. Unsatisfied, welfare officials continued to denounce Teacher Joralemon's educational philosophy. Teaching tots the alphabet too early, they insist, may lead to "acne and personality problems in adolescence." The school cannot legally open next month--unless Mrs. Joralemon changes her ways. Last week one of her stoutest supporters, famed Chemist Joel Hildebrand of the University of California, appealed to the state's Advisory Commission on Education. "Big Brothers grow ever bigger and bigger," said he. But welfare officials were determined to have the last word. Bristled one of them: "Mrs. Joralemon is going to have to meet our standards or stay closed."

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