Adult Preschool Helps Grownups Get in Touch with Their Inner Child

It’s good to get  in touch with your inner child from time to time, and apparently some people are willing to pay big money for the chance to do so in a proper environment. A Brooklyn-based preschool for adults is charging clients between $333 and $999 for the chance to act like a kid again.

At ‘Preschool Mastermind’,in New York, adults get to participate in show-and-tell, arts-and-crafts such as finger painting, games like musical chairs, and even take naps! The month-long course also has class picture day where the adults are expected to dress to their ‘four-year-old best’, a field trip, and a parent day when students get to bring two adults of their choice.

30-year-old Michelle Joni Lapidos, the brains behind the adult preschool, studied childhood education and has always wanted to be a preschool teacher. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to get people in touch with the freedom of childhood – she had started a skipping club in Brooklyn in 2013, but a friend encouraged her to start the mastermind course instead.

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Photo: Michelle Joni Lapidos

And when she was giving another friend – who happens to be a preschool teacher – a foot rub, the idea for the entire project sort of fell into place. Soon, she formulated the plan for a month-long course with weekly classes, and invited her blogger friend Candice Kilpatrick to be her teaching assistant. Candice used to teach preschool herself in Asia, and also has a master’s degree in teaching.

According to Candice, Preschool Mastermind gives adults a chance to re-learn and master the things that they had failed to understand as children. “I realized all the implications of what we learned in preschool,” Michelle added. “People come here and get in touch with their inner child. It’s magical.”

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Photo: Michelle Joni Lapidos/Facebook

“Adults are in this routine, this stagnation, and by tapping into the ‘play’ part of our brains by skipping or doing the things that we did in preschool, we’re bringing ourselves back to another place, another time with ourselves, maybe when we were more believing of ourselves, when we were more confident and ready to take on the world. And I want to nourish that in people.”

Classes are held one night a week at Michelle’s home-office ‘play space’ in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The first class took place on March 3, and the adult preschoolers are scheduled to graduate at the end of this month. Each of the six students hopes to gain something different from the experience.

 

“One person is here because they want to learn not to be so serious,” Michelle said. “Another’s here to learn to be more confident.” She explained that while most of the class is planned, the spontaneous moments resonate the most with the students. “It’s the things you don’t plan for, the sharing between friends and learning from and working off each other.”

“It’s New York,” she declared. “You take any type of adventure you want in New York, and now you can go back to preschool! It’s going to be magical!”

Sources: ABC News, Village Voice