Alumna teaches at local preschool for more than 25 years
Cheri Recker has always had a love for children and knew one day she would be working with them.
Recker, director of First United Methodist church preschool, began her career after graduating from Central Michigan University with a Bachelor of Science degree in education, majoring in speech and minoring in elementary education.
Recker said her grandma was the inspiration behind her dreams of becoming a teacher.
“She taught for quite a while, and actually, she was taking classes here at CMU and got her degree and taught after that, before she retired,” Recker said.
The preschool started in 1970 and was underneath the education ministry of the church at the time. The preschool is now a tuition-based program that is incorporated with the church but still separated.
The preschool and the church are still connected emotionally, Recker said.
Recker began at the church in 1986, where she started subbing for Martha Polly, who started the preschool.
“She started the school, and she was semi-retiring and she knew me from church,” Recker said. "This is my church, and she asked me to start subbing because I was a young mom at that time, was not really working, so I started subbing here and just loved it.”
When Polly retired, Recker kept going as a part-time teacher, and when her youngest daughter started kindergarten, she began full time. As time went on, she became the director.
Education Director Sharon McDonald has worked with Recker ever since she’s been at the church.
“She’s great with kids,” McDonald said. “I work with her in the Sunday school program, and she’s just terrific.”
McDonald has been at the church for 12 years.
“It was just kind of a fate thing,” Recker said. “I always knew I wanted (to work with) younger children, not above third grade.”
The school has classes composed of three to five year olds in which they are very inquisitive, Recker said.
“They’re little sponges; they want to know about things. They’re developing different around their world and what’s happening,” she said.
Recker said they try to make the learning very fun for the students, knowing they are learning a lot of good things, but it’s all through play.
“At times, it can be very, very busy and that age group can be very active physically,” she said. "It’s just that they have to channel that energy in a positive way.”
Recker said she is a real proponent of the fresh air and getting them out so they can have gross motor activity every day they are able to.
“She has quite the patience to work with younger children,” McDonald said. "She’s just a neat lady.”
