JAMESTOWN, N.C. — After 23 years of teaching pre-K, Jamestown Elementary School’s Sharon Baskerville noticed an elephant in the room that wasn’t being talked about a lot.
“I noticed that children were coming in and they had exceptional needs. And so I needed to learn to serve the children that were in my space and children that were coming from all over the world," she said.
So she wrote about it in the book “Optimistic Olly Stomps into Pre-K”
"It has an elephant and when she comes into the classroom she's wiggling and stomping and she's kind of all over the place but she's signing play," Baskerville said. "So she wants to play just like every other child in the classroom but the question is will she get the opportunity to do that in this space if it's not what everyone in the classroom is used to seeing? There may be some children who see some of themselves in Ali and they know that it's okay if I don't do it just like everyone else because we are individuals and we do things differently and that's okay and it should be celebrated and welcomed.”
Her students have loved the book. She’s read it over the loudspeaker at the school. And even now has a copy in the Library of Congress.
“I hoped that it would impact and touch communities because I see the need and I felt like it's one thing to talk about it, but it's another thing to do something about it," she said.
The book is now for sale on Amazon and is in the top 1,000 nationwide for inclusive educational material.