HAWAII AT WORK
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Rachel Valabek has been involved in dancing and gymnastics since she was 4, and now passes on some of those skills to preschoolers as head teacher for TumbleBus Hawaii. Above, Valabek on Wednesday in Nuuanu helped a Queen Emma Preschool student to tumble.
|
|
She’s-a rolling and tumbling
Rachel Valabek hopes to inspire children to enjoy exercise their whole lives
Rachel Valabek is driven to help children learn the value of exercise. Well, no, actually, she drives herself to Oahu preschools and other locations to achieve that goal, as head teacher and driver for TumbleBus Hawaii, part of a nationwide franchise that uses buses as mobile gymnasiums for 2- to 5-year-olds. Valabek, 25, has been involved in gymnastics and dancing herself since she was 4, and now enjoys passing on her passion to the scores of little preschoolers she gets to visit each day aboard the TumbleBus. She is a graduate of Cooper City High School in Cooper City, Fla., and also has a bachelor's degree in child development from Florida State University in Tallahassee. She lives in Kaneohe with her husband, Michael, a former Marine who now is a claims representative for Progressive Auto Insurance.
Rachel Valabek
Title: Head teacher and driver for TumbleBus Hawaii
Job: Drives the TumbleBus to preschools and leads the students in exercises inside the specially equipped bus
|
Question: What is the TumbleBus?
Answer: It's just a bus that was converted into a traveling gym, and we go to preschools. The kids are mostly ages 2 to 5, ... and now that we're with HMSA,we'll be going to a lot more schools. We just got a second bus yesterday.
Q: What kind of buses are they?
A: They're just regular school buses. I couldn't tell you what kind they are. (Laughter) That's not my part of the job. We don't do the mechanic part.
Q: Is TumbleBus part of a nationwide franchise?
A: Yes. It's a franchise from Indiana. There's over 200 buses in the nation.
Q: Who owns the local franchise?
A: Ben and Keri Voss.
Q: Who technically does TumbleBus work for? The state Department of Education? HMSA?
A: HMSA is sponsoring our second bus. But our first bus, we go to different schools where the preschoolers' parents pay, for each class.
Q: So it's mostly private schools?
A: It's a lot of, like, church schools, but most preschools are private, so yes.
Q: The bus also is available for parties, right?
A: Yes. And picnics and whatever.
Q: Do you ever work on those?
A: Yeah, we all can work them, but most of them are on weekends, and he (Ben Voss) mostly does them.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
TumbleBus Hawaii is part of a nationwide franchise that sends specially equipped buses to preschools so the students can get some focused exercise. Above, Rachel Valabek posed Wednesday next to the TumbleBus that she drives from the company's base in Kailua.
|
|
How long have you worked for TumbleBus Hawaii?
A: Since August.
Q: What did you do before?
A: Actually I lived in Florida until April, and since my husband was in the Marines, I wasn't working. I was just kind of enjoying the Hawaiian lifestyle.
Q: Is your husband still in the Marines?
A: He got out in December, but I was bored so I got a job in August -- but I was a nanny and a preschool teacher before I came to Hawaii, in Florida.
Q: Why did you major in child development (at Florida State University)?
A: I wanted to teach, and I wanted to teach at the preschool level. I plan on going back and getting my master's, probably in administrative education, probably next fall.
Q: Do you drive the bus?
A: I do drive the bus, actually.
Q: Do you have to have a special license?
A: No, because it's registered as a truck, because we don't carry passengers.
Q: What's it like to drive a big bus?
A: It's easy. It's not so bad. It was a little nerve-wracking in the beginning, but it's not bad.
Q: Do you go out in all sorts of weather?
A: If it's raining too hard, we can cancel classes. It depends on where we park at school, and how far the kids have to walk.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
As Queen Emma Preschool students practiced an exercise Wednesday, Rachel Valabek interacted with a lively student just out camera range.
|
|
Is the bus stationary when the kids play in it?
A: Yes. We don't drive anywhere. We drive to the schools, we park, and then the kids come on and play, and then they get off and walk back to class.
Q: How many kids generally play in the bus at one time?
A: There's usually just 15 or under.
Q: How many colleagues are on the bus with you?
A: Me and an assistant teacher. There's two on every bus.
Q: Who's your assistant?
A: Lisa Tortora.
Q: How many schools do you visit each day?
A: It depends. Anywhere from five to eight. But with HMSA's bus, that's going to be going to many schools, but for only six to eight weeks at a time, then switching schools. That way we can cover more schools. The way we're choosing them is first Head Start, then low-income families; there are different criteria for who we're going to reach with the HMSA bus. (With) the other bus, we just go to schools that are paying.
Q: What kind of activities do you run the kids through?
A: We do 10 minutes of stretching, where we teach them basic exercises to warm up. And then we do a song or bean-bag races as an activity, for five to 10 minutes. And then for about 20 minutes, it's like an adventure -- it's basically like an obstacle course that goes around the bus. And we have different themes. Like this week we have the Sea World theme.
Q: How does that work?
A: Basically we ask them questions, like what kind of animals would they find at Sea World, and what kinds of noises do they make. And we have them act the roles of animals.
We also teach them beginning gymnastic skills, like backwards rolls and back walkovers and cartwheels.
Q: What's a back walkover?
A: It's like where you bend backwards over a mat, with their hands on the ground, and they kick over with their feet.
Q: So you're like an instructor?
A: Yes.
Q: What do you do in that regard?
A: Basically we're certified in preschool spotting for gymnastics.
Q: What's preschool spotting?
A: It's where you help them do flips and backwalks.
Q: Are you a pretty good gymnast or dancer?
A: Yes. (Laughter) I can hold my own on the bus, I think.
Q: Do you play music for the kids?
A: Yeah, we usually do a song, like the hokey pokey or something like that, or we do regular songs and do aerobics to it, like push-ups and hand stands and things like that.
Q: What about the teachers from the schools you visit?
A: They get a nice break. They don't come on the buses. They can do back work or whatever.
Q: What do you think of the health of most of the kids on the bus?
A: I think exercise is definitely a necessity for most people. We hope that if the kids can have fun on the bus now, to have a positive experience with exercise while they're younger, then they'll maintain that attitude and not have it be something they'll stress about as they get older.
The goal is to teach them that exercise is fun, and a necessity for life.
