The numerical increases – from 24 preschoolers in 1957 to 120 students for 2006-2007 – are only one measure of the growth of the kindergarten program at First Baptist Church in Taylors during its 50-year history.
Of greater value to those who have been instrumental in the founding and the flourishing of TFBC’s kindergarten is how effectively it is carrying out its mission of “partnering with families to teach and reach children so that they become equipped learners and developing followers of Christ.”
“This is God’s ministry and his work in progress,” insists Robin McDonald, who taught in the kindergarten for a year before becoming its director two years ago. “We can’t take ownership of it. It’s his work.”
McDonald, a graduate of North Greenville and Furman universities and a former elementary school teacher in Greenville County, who always has believed that God wanted her to do something big, considers her leadership of the kindergarten “the best position I’ve ever had.”
It is McDonald’s conviction that the rich past of the kindergarten has paved the way for what it is today – and what it can and should be in the future.
“We knew we couldn’t stay where we were,” said the daughter of retired North American missionaries James and Becky Daves. “We have enhanced our ministry to teachers, the children and their families – as well as teaching our teachers how to minister.”
McDonald, who grew up in Spartanburg and for four years was children’s minister at Overbrook Baptist Church in Greenville between jobs in the public schools, is adamant about the need for kindergarten teachers to go from the classrooms into the living rooms of the students.
“Our teachers prayed with the students in their homes before the school year ever began,” she said. “It opens a door for us, showing our love and care as we spend time with the family, praying with them.”
Every morning, before the students arrive, the teachers also pray with and for each other, the director said.
Robin McDonald, left, looks at a photograph of the first kindergarten class at Taylors First Baptist Church with former directors Joyce Coates, center, and Jo Bruce.McDonald, who has studied for a year at Gardner-Webb Divinity School and who wants one day to earn a seminary degree, pointed out that most of the students in the TFBC kindergarten – after they have completed the K3, K4 and K5 programs – will move into the public school system.
For her, preparedness is of paramount importance. “The year I started teaching,” she said, “we adopted the same math program and reading curriculum that Greenville County uses. And we hear back consistently about how well-prepared our students are.”
Incorporated into the instruction at the TFBC kindergarten is sound, biblical teaching that includes prayer in the classrooms.
The kindergarten at Taylors First Baptist is totally self-sustaining, with a faculty of nine teachers, all with at least an associate’s degree and some with master’s degrees, though state regulations require neither. K4 and K5 classrooms have computers.
McDonald, whose husband James teaches in the criminal justice program at Greenville Tech (they are parents of James, 16, and Sarah, 13), said the program at TFBC has earned an excellent reputation for its preschool ministry. “We don’t have to do much advertising,” she noted.
Actually, the Taylors First Baptist kindergarten has been successful from day one, when classes were first offered for 4- and 5-year-olds.
Joyce Coates, who taught in the public schools, stepped in as the fledgling kindergarten’s first director. Recalling her year as director, Coates said the work was “a lot of fun.”
“We played with the children all day long – because then we had the energy to do it. And they learned a lot of Bible verses.”
Jo Bruce held the director’s job the longest – 34 years, before retiring in 1996. “It was the most wonderful position anybody could want,” she said. “The Lord has blessed us.”
Bruce, who taught in the kindergarten until her duties included minister to preschool children at TFBC, explained that the need for a kindergarten program was evident and “Taylors First Baptist Church met it.”
Today, approximately one-fourth of the kindergarten’s 120 students are children of members at Taylors First Baptist, though it accepts students adhering to other faiths or no faith at all.