“I always loved working with children, whether I was teaching them math or showing them how to tie their shoe laces…as long as I could make them smile.” These are the words that are proudly emitted from the lips of teacher and mentor,Bernadette Noel. With one mindset, to leave an impression on the children that will carry with them for years to come, Noel set on a mission to save the Central Bronx children with her teachings and guidance.
Bernadette Noel came to New York from the Caribbean islands almost 30 years ago. Before beginning her teaching career at Labor Bathgate she began at a private school known as Little Star in 1984. While teaching there, Ms. Noel found the quality of education and the economic wealth of the environment was unlike anything she could have ever imagined.
“Some of the parents were very well off financially,” she says, “and in terms of the educational standards for the children, they were very high.” Ms. Noel continues, “While most children were just learning how to add and subtract at such young ages, the children at Little Star were learning how to multiply and divide,” which was a very different standard in comparison to children in the educational institution she knows today. “It was a shock to me to see the expectations the school administrators wanted us to set for the kids; it seemed a bit outrageous,” Ms. Noel says in response to the higher level of learning.
After serving about two years at the Little Star, Ms. Noel decided that while she did want to work with children, she felt her mission as a teacher would better suit those in a higher need of attention and mentoring. “I loved my kids at Little Star, but I felt as if they had enough great teachers there already building strong foundations for the young developing minds.”
In 1986 Bernadette Noel found a teaching position at Labor Bathgate Childcare Center located on 1638 Anthony Avenue in the Bronx, where she would indeed find her challenge and calling. “It was a huge difference in terms of community and the look of the area.” Everything there seemed depressing. When I arrived for work, and for some time, I even feared getting out of my car to go to work, but I felt had to do it for my children.” “There were empty lots, rundown buildings and former businesses, and Claremont Park right across the street was desolate and unkempt,” Ms. Noel said.
Things changed, however over the years. “As time passed the building of a McDonald’s opened right next door, where an old rundown gasoline station had been.” She also spoke of how they began redeveloping the park, and cutting the trees and grass to make it more appealing to the public. When speaking of the community, she found that it had gone through a number of changes, but in terms of such demographics as crime, she felt that things didn’t seem to have changed that much in those areas.
Bernadette Noel discussed how it was such a shame that the children she worked with are succumbed to this type of environment every day. She believed that while the children of Little Star and Labor Bathgate didn’t really change in terms of characteristics; the parents on the other hand did differ heavily. “The parents of the two different communities did change, in the Bronx community there were many more parents with troubled personalities,” she says, “some were uneducated and others just had all sort of economical or personal issues that they brought with them to the center.”
Noel continues to say, “It was a very sad thing, because I wondered how the kids had to live in such places with so much problems, and I would always try to develop personal relationships with parents since I knew the issues they faced.” Seeing the problems unmask themselves in the presence of the children, Noel attempted to mold a place for children and families to feel at ease to at least communicate and hopefully walk away with advise that will provide some optimism.
The lack of recreational outlets in the neighborhood worried the child care teacher, especially knowing that once the children leave they would be exposed to the crime infested, dilapidated streets of the economically depressed neighborhood. Noel tirelessly attempted to negotiate with her superiors as well as associations and organizations in order to host activities for the children and even welcomed families and neighborhood residents.