In the midst of finals, most of us wish we could go back to being a kid, when life was simpler. When naptime and recess were part of the daily routine. When we could run and jump and swing on the swing set. A time without exam anxiety and before all-nighters. Believe it or not, there is a place on campus where kids play and snacks are served twice a day.Lemberg Children's Center is an on-campus preschool for children aged 2 to 6, and it operates with sliding-scale tuition adjusted to parental income level.

All children are welcome, even if their parents are not affiliated with Brandeis. Currently, the center cares for 38 children. Lemberg hires many Brandeis students who are completing degrees in Psychology or studying early childhood education as teaching assistants, and it has positions for Federal-Work Study students as well.

Lemberg was established in 1971 by Brandeis faculty, staff and students to provide care for children while parents worked and studied, recalls Howie Baker, the executive director of the center. Prior to that, there was a nursery school for only 2 hours a day, which did not satisfy full workday needs.

Snunit Gal was one of the founders of Lemberg and served as its first director from 1971 to 1974. Born and raised in Israel, where she lived in a collective community, or kibbutz, Gal received a Master's degree in education at Harvard University. This led her to Brandeis, where she developed Lemberg Children's Center with her unique vision of community, one inspired by her childhood experiences living in a kibbutz.

"[Gal] was a visionary person . who had raised two children in a kibbutz world, and she and her husband decided, 'Wouldn't it be nice to have a nuclear family and still maintain some of those values of being a community?'" says Baker.

Younger and older children play and learn together, and parents are encouraged to stop by throughout the day. In this way, "The Center then becomes what it really should be-an extension of the home," said Gal in a winter 1988-1989 issue of The Brandeis Review.

Gal left Lemberg in the mid-1970s to become an educational supervisor for daycare centers in the southern Negev region of Israel, reported Brenda Marder in a fall 1986 issue of The Brandeis Review.

Baker has been working at Lemberg for 38 years and feels that the center has adhered to Gal's vision. "We work hard to have children and parents close but [also to] be part of [a] community that works together," says Baker.

"It is a very close community. The parents come to know each other, and the kids see each other after school and during holidays. The school environment continues beyond the school," says Prof. Elif Sisli Ciamarra (IBS), whose child attends Lemberg.

Lemberg's approach to early childhood education was a refreshing option to overwhelmed parents. It emphasized positive behavioral management strategies at a time when most early childhood education programs used punishment to instill discipline. Today, this mode of thinking has become popular in early childhood education circles.

The Lemberg program philosophy pamphlet says that all teaching assistants and teachers use the words no and don't sparingly with the children.

"Young children learn much of their language through imitation. If they constantly hear, 'no' and 'don't,' they may frequently say 'no' and 'I won't,'" according to the pamphlet. Instead, teachers and assistants are encouraged to offer suggestions as to what the children can do.

"I think a lot of people misunderstand that. It's not that we don't ever tell a child that [he or she] can't do something. Instead of saying 'Don't climb up there,' we say, 'Put your feet on the ground,' explains Al Hoberman '09. Hoberman started working at Lemberg as a teaching assistant in 2006 and was hired as a teaching fellow upon his graduation from Brandeis.

"The issue is forming a relationship where you are trusted; we want children to want to be with you, to learn with you. People don't learn to read with someone they don't want to be with. Be positive; explain what choices there are. Let the child feel comfortable in learning," explains Baker.

Offering guidance and suggestions for alternative behavior is an effective approach because "it minimizes defensiveness and maximizes collaborative thinking," according to Baker.

Simply put, the center believes that encouragement yields better behavior than punishment because a demoralized child is less eager to learn or cooperate with others.

Parents have the opportunity to observe the positive behavioral management strategies at work in the classroom. Prof. Can Erbil (ECON) and his wife Susannah Madan-Erbil's daughter attended Lemberg last year before starting kindergarten this year.

"It was a really nice, friendly environment. . If somebody did something that wasn't nice, they wouldn't reprimand the child that that did the wrong thing; they would give them advice about how to act. I think over time, that helped to manage things like anger."

While the environment at Lemberg is friendly and encouraging to the children, its teaching philosophy is wary of giving blind praise. At Lemberg, the staff encourages students to be driven by internal motivation, not the motivation to please others.

"There is nothing wrong with [giving praise], but be specific about what in particular you like that someone is doing. 'That's great' is fine, but it shows more engagement when you are more descriptive; it shows you are truly interested," says Baker.

Emotional management and cooperation are skills that are cultivated through group play and conversation. Children are permitted to bring toys from home, but the center requires that the children share personal toys with their peers. There is free play every morning, as well as more structured group activities like dance and theater, taught by head teachers Katharine Braun-Levine and Chandra Pieragostini, respectively.

"Kids are born with their senses very well developed; They smell well, they see well, they taste well and they touch well. [But] they don't understand at all. Our job as parents and teachers, is to put words on the senses and to have them, when they touch something, start to put the data together in some sort of coherent way," Baker says.

Music is also used in the day-to-day schedule to enrich children's verbal and non-verbal communication skills.

It is not unusual to see the teachers and teaching assistants sing a song to accompany seemingly mundane tasks, like washing hands.

"Singing is not just a fun thing to do with kids, but it helps with transitions. We sing, 'Let's wash our hands; and all of a sudden, it's fun. It gives them a rhythm with which to do the task. ... It's more effective-it's not just us telling us them verbally, it's a multifaceted way of communicating," Hoberman says.

Madan-Erbil said her daughter really enjoyed the musical element at Lemberg. "Her favorite thing was . when the teachers would play music and the kids would sing."

Most important, Baker stresses, are the children's social and cognitive developments.

"We want a place where the young children get to know about their peers, feel close to adults . and to grow up being very connected and involved in the world," Baker says.