December 5, 2023
After over 30 years as director and teacher at the Milford YMCA Preschool, Sharon Klamik has retired, leaving an imprint of trust, dedication and care for multiple generations of families throughout Hunterdon County.
“It’s so funny, I’ve run into four former preschool families in the last three days!” laughed Sharon Klamik as she eased into the living room sofa at her home in Milford, NJ. “That’s the thing about working right in your community. You really become part of the families’ lives while they are enrolled at the preschool. Then it’s almost like being a celebrity years later when you run into each other at the bakery or the pharmacy or grocery store.”
Klamik started teaching three and four-year-olds for Hunterdon County YMCA in 1989, when the Y ran programs at the Riegel Ridge Community Center. Her youngest daughter Tara was enrolled in the On My Own (2.5 years old) preschool class at the time.
“I was already helping teach aerobics classes at Riegel Ridge for the Y when I was approached by Ralph Muzzi, the director at that time, to start teaching preschool. I had a teaching degree from Moravian College, as well as a K-8 teaching certificate, and I think Ralph knew that. Back then, all you had to do was take a state preschool teaching test, which I did, and I was hired.”
Right around the same time, Milford Presbyterian Church leadership decided to lease its classroom wing to the Hunterdon County YMCA. Shortly thereafter, the YMCA opened its Deer Path branch in Flemington, and sold the Riegel Ridge Community Center to Holland Twp. In 1990, Hunterdon County YMCA opened preschool classrooms for two and three days per week in the Sunday school wing of the Milford Presbyterian Church where the Y continues to operate the preschool today. When the school opened, Klamik supported the learn-through-play philosophy that still drives teaching and learning there. She became director in 1993, balancing teaching duties with administrative leadership.
“When I first began teaching, the expectations of parents were that their children would come in for a few hours, learn through their play, eat a snack, then go home,” Sharon remembered.
“In the early 2000s, there came a public shift towards accelerated school learning during the early ages: letter of the week, building activities around the letter, practicing writing, worksheets and journal-writing. As the years progressed, fewer and fewer children were coming into the preschool with enough fine motor skills to be able to even hold and write with a crayon or pencil, which told us we needed to shift back to playing with materials that develop those fine motor skills, like sculpting, painting and drawing. So we started spending less time on these other writing activities which really were not developmentally appropriate for a child that age.
“When we did parent teacher conferences, I would often discuss with parents the value of hands-on experiences, especially as technology made its way further into our lives. I would ask, ‘What do you think is more valuable for a child’s learning - showing a picture of an orange, or handing them an actual orange?’ We made sure to focus on hands-on learning in the classroom. The orange is a great example. I would bring oranges in, along with my old-fashioned juicer, and we would feel the orange, cut it open, squeeze it, juice it, pull out the pits and the children would be fascinated. Not to mention the experience of then drinking the juice freshly squeezed from the orange right in front of them. For many of the children, they had never experienced anything like that at home.”
A 30-plus year career teaching in the same community touches hundreds of lives, and sews a thread across the generations of that community. Julia Sciarello-McGuinness, a former student of Mrs. Klamik’s during the Riegel Ridge years, and current parent at the Milford Preschool, remembers her older son’s love for coming into Sharon’s class.
“I remember going in for parent helper day and I was impressed at the amount of things they get to do in a day,” she explained. “They had so many great activities at school that really fostered their creativity and allowed them to ‘get their hands dirty.’ All the kids respected her and would immediately stop and listen to her when she asked them to do something. She always kept the kids engaged in and out of the classroom. Even when taking turns washing hands before lunch, she would sing songs with those who were waiting in line to keep them from getting bored or rowdy. Colin always enjoyed going to school and insisted on being the first one in every single day. Mrs. Klamik was always ready to greet him with a ‘Here's Colin!’”
“Mrs. Klamik put a lot of effort into special events for the kids such as easter egg hunts, and holiday parties,” Julia continued. “The parents also appreciated the mother's and father's day events. Everything was always very well thought out, making them very memorable events.”
Sharon reflected fondly on what she loved to teach, and some of her most memorable classes at the Milford YMCA Preschool.
“In the beginning my favorite activities to do with children were arts and crafts. Then we started to do more science. We would do cause and effect experiments where the children would predict what would happen and I liked hearing from them their thoughts and ideas. No matter how many years I’d been teaching, there was always that child who would say something or show me something I’d never heard or seen before. They are little sponges who absorb information, and then have so much to share. It’s one of my favorite things about working with children. Hearing children talk about something they learned earlier that day or that week in our class. Something they hadn’t known about, understood, or considered before. It’s very rewarding.
“It’s always interesting to see, from year to year, when you get a group of children in the classroom who connect and gel as a community. Just this past year the class worked together building with all of the different classroom blocks. They put the tables together and used all the different kinds of blocks to build houses and structures, including generators with wires - demonstrating their understanding of electricity and how it runs to and through buildings. Another year the students set up a bakery including a baker baking different (pretend) goods, setting up a counter, tables with menus, and signs. They used sticky notes to take orders. That was one of my favorite things. I love when the children can demonstrate and represent their life experiences. It was like professional development for me.”
Other aspects of Sharon Klamik’s professional development over the years were the evolution of early childhood education, changing licensing regulations, changes in technology, and the 30-plus years of sundry supervisors, staff, children and families who crossed through the Milford Preschool’s doors. Not a fan of change, Klamik moved with the times, incorporating a published curriculum into her teaching practice, taking new teachers under her wing, and using new technologies from film cameras to digital cameras, computers, email, the internet, tablets and smartphones. “You might not be one for change, but you have to be able to adapt. Working with young children helps you develop that muscle,” Klamik advised.
“There’s really something about this community.” Sharon reached down to pet her dog, Myles, lying at the foot of the sofa. “Not just the Milford community, but the Y community too.
“When my husband Mike got sick in 2019, things really changed for me. I was working, teaching, taking him to doctor appointments, overseeing his cancer treatment. Everyone at the Y and this community really stepped up to be there for me. The teachers, parents, directors at the Y - all understood what I was going through, and when he passed in 2021, gave me the time and space I needed to be close to my family until I was ready to return to work.”
“It wasn’t long though,” she chuckled. “Coming back to work and the classroom really helped me get through Mike’s passing. The kids kept me busy and on my toes, not to mention all the love and joy they bring. When I look back, I consider myself very lucky to have been able to carve out a career working in such a great community with so many wonderful children.”
Mike and Sharon were married 41 years. Their daughters Amanda, Maura and Tara were children when she began working for the Hunterdon County YMCA at the Riegel Ridge Community Center. Now they are adults, married with young children of their own, who keep “Gigi” on her toes a few days a week at their homes. “I might need to take on something like substitute teaching if I get bored or I miss teaching too much, but for now, I’m sure chasing my grandsons around will be enough to get started.”
In April, 2022 Hunterdon County YMCA merged with YMCA of Bucks County to form a unified YMCA of Bucks and Hunterdon Counties, aligning mutually beneficial strengths for the betterment of their communities. Succeeding Sharon Klamik as Director of the Milford YMCA Preschool is Pam Fleck, a 23-year YMCA pre-K teacher formerly with the Y’s Child Learning Center in Annandale, where she was the center’s head teacher. The Milford preschool continues to offer part-day and part week options for children starting age two and a half years old (as of September 1) up through pre-K (four and five years old), as well as full time early education and care until 5 PM, five days a week. To learn more about the Milford YMCA Preschool, please visit the webpage.