Brylie Foster felt more at home at school than at her house.
She described growing up as not the worst, but also, not the best.
“Home wasn't really the place where I felt I belonged, so I excelled in school, and that became like my new home,” she said.
Teachers became like second parents to her, always so loving and caring.
Wanting to give this feeling to others and continue the cycle started in her education, Foster decided to work in the education system, leading her to the Muncie Area Career Center (MACC).
Now a lead preschool teacher at Southview Elementary School, she began her early education journey in the MACC’s Early Childhood Education program in her third year of highschool.
While working in Selma Elementary’s latchkey program as a highschool second-year, she heard multiple times the importance of early education and how those teachers set the foundation for children.
“I thought that if I was someone that wanted to pour into the children at a younger age, then they would have less to process later on or know how to process more,” she said.
MACC offers two Early Childhood Education programs, one for high school students as a part of the Career and Technical Education (CTE) program, where they learn at the MACC for half a school day while also having an internship, MACC Director Caleb Beasley said.
The second program is an adult education program where early childhood educators pursue their child development associates (CDA) credential.
Through MACC’s CTE program, Foster had internships, or work-based learning, the two years she attended, providing her with hands-on learning.
A part of her work-based learning during her time involved having children come into the MACC classroom four out of the five half-days.
“The experience of having [the children] there was tremendous because our teacher was right there, so she was able to correct us in anything that we needed to do, and we were all getting hands-on experience and dealing with the behaviors that we're going to deal with by ourselves,” Foster said. “It was a great insight of what you're actually going to be exposed to, rather than just sitting at a desk learning about a classroom.”
This experience set her up to start her early childhood education career, leading her to start working at Southview as a preschool aide in 2021, a year after she graduated from both MACC and Wapahani High School. During the 2023-24 school year, she was promoted.
Beyond what she was taught in the classroom, Foster said the MACC program helped to instill confidence, especially when it came to advocating for students, which she said helped her be prepared for her current position.
For Beasley, both the adult and high school programs are important because it helps set up strong foundations for young children, but also these educators are, or will be, working in Delaware County.
“We want to make sure that we have a really strong pipeline of young people who are prepared to serve in this field and to be effective educators working with young children so that their impact can be positive and help set up our kiddos across Muncie and Delaware County for success,” Beasley said.
Ball State University Associate Lecturer Jennifer Young teaches the MACC’s adult program, not only helping educators work toward their CDA, but also helping them organize their portfolios and providing any other support they’d need.
She started at the MACC in November 2024 and is now teaching her second cohort of the program.
The maximum number of students in a cohort is 15. Young is expecting 13 to 14 students in her upcoming cohort, growing from the 11 she had in the fall.
While contracted to teach at the MACC, Young’s classroom is filled with a wide-range of students, varying from teenagers to parents.
Due to the diverse backgrounds in her classroom, Young takes the time to develop the cohorts and build connections with each other. Regardless of differences and similarities, she emphasizes that the class has the same goal and are going through the process together, which encourages the students to support and help their peers.
Young also takes the time to focus on why the individual is doing the program for themselves, such as having the students write notes for themselves at the beginning of the academic year and delivering them halfway through the program.
“What they're doing is a gift to themselves,” Young said. “When they're extending their education, this is something that belongs to them, and it's kind of an expression of doing something that's incredibly important and valuable for them individually.”
She also makes sure to state the expectations of the class clearly. The expectations of the adult learners is that they’re working in an early childhood education facility, they’ll attend the weekly two-hour night class, spend an average of 10 hours on the online modules and the rest of the time is spent on their portfolios.
To make the CDA program more accessible, the MACC pays for students’ materials needed to take the course, along with paying for them to take the exam, which ends up being around $500, Young said
In the classroom, Young also helps with financial aid by guiding students through the nine-page-long Indiana Association for the Education of Young Childrenscholarship to help pay for the exam.
Young said the program is designed for success. A part of that success comes from the support, financial or otherwise, but it also comes from the focus of feedback and growth.
“It's not like I take a class and I take a test and I can pass the test or fail the test,” she said. “This is more along the lines of, ‘What did you learn from here?’ ‘What is the next step in your learning from from here?’”
A sentiment that’s shared in the high school program.
“Seeing students go from coming in and not really knowing much about this, not being sure about their capacity or their abilities,” Beasley said. “Then watching them develop their skills, develop their confidence, and then go out into the world and really do some fantastic things, that is really what it is all about.”
Foster has contributed to this growth mindset by being a role model to not just her preschoolers but to her MACC interns, showing them you can love your job while giving them the space to grow like she did when she was in their position.
Contact Hannah Amos via email at hannah.amos@bsu.edu or on X @Hannah_Amos_394.
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