Students in Chandler High School’s early childhood development classes are getting hands-on experience that simulates caring for an actual baby. The robotic dolls around campus are part of an assignment in Mrs. Kelsey Crawford’s classes, aimed to teach students how to care for infants.

Before coming to CHS, Mrs. Crawford taught kindergarten for seven years. “As I was working in kindergarten, I saw a lot of people working with kids who didn’t understand development, [such as] how kids learn and how they work and how to talk to them,” she said. This inspired her to come here to teach students how to appropriately engage with children.

Mrs. Crawford’s course educates students on how kids develop physically, socially, and cognitively. Students learn about pregnancy and how to care for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and early elementary school students. Mrs. Crawford is devoted to her students: “I love when they learn something new. Especially in year one, a lot of my students don’t know different things about how kids develop,” she said.

One of the most notable assignments in her class is caring for the robotic babies. The dolls detect temperature changes and cry when it gets too hot or cold and need to be fed, changed, and rocked. The babies cost a whopping $1,000 each, so students must treat them with caution.

Students take the robotic babies home on Friday and care for them over the weekend. Mrs. Crawford admitted that students “are very excited to take the babies home and they’re not so excited on Monday when they bring it back. They’re very exhausted and they realize it’s hard to take care of a baby.”  

Mrs. Crawford loves working with kids and believes anyone can take her class. She explained, “I think if you want to be a parent some day, or you babysit, or you have any sort of kid in your life, it’s good information and good learning experiences.”