Mobile classroom brings education right to students neighborhoods

By Mitchell Sasser | WeINSPIRE reporter 

HARRISONBURG, Va. - In 2004, a group of early childhood educators in Harrisonburg, Virginia noticed that 50% of children entering kindergarten had low levels of literacy. In response, they created The Reading Road Show, also known as the Gus Bus, a mobile classroom that visits kids in their neighborhoods and allows them the opportunity to check out books and participate in lessons of different subjects.

 Maria Longley was an early literacy specialist from 2016 - 2017 with the Gus Bus and is the current program and volunteer manager. Longley is in charge of recruiting and training student volunteers from James Madison University (JMU), who help support the afterschool program and mobile enrichment classrooms.

 The mission of the Gus Bus was very appealing to Longley.  

 “The idea that they were bringing enrichment to children from vulnerable communities where they lived as opposed to just at a school,” Longley said. “Those programs are great and they’re important, but not everybody can participate in those, and a lot of those have a fee to participate in them, and many of our families don’t necessarily have the resources to pay for that.”

“All of our programs are free for our community here,” Longley said. “I just thought the idea of being in a mobile classroom as a teacher and then writing your own curriculum – there’s just a lot of freedom associated with it. Creative freedom and instructional freedom.”

Maria Longley in the Gus Bus. Photo courtesy of Mitchell Sasser

I had a chance to visit one of the Gus Bus stops. Each stop lasts approximately one hour and this was the second stop of the day.

Five students were eagerly waiting for the Gus Bus to arrive, with five more students trickling in. The lesson involved the book “The Grapes of Math,” and students had the opportunity to learn how to count groups of numbers.

Two of the shelves in the Gus Bus where kids can check out books to take home.

Photo courtesy of Mitchell Sasser

High student engagement was evident. During the group lesson, each child encountered an opportunity to shout out the answer to a math riddle. After this lesson, kids moved to a learning activity, where they let their creative minds run free as they created their own math riddles.

 As the hour came to a close, Longley helped sort out food bags for the children to take home. To offer this service, the Bus works in collaboration with the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

 As one student left and said his goodbyes to Longley, he commented that, “I thought that this was your car.”

 Access and inclusivity is key to the mission of the Gus Bus. They pull up into neighborhoods, some which may include non-English speaking children or families, and bring the classroom to students who may not have the chance to participate in extracurricular activities.  

 “They’ve already been in school all day, so we want the learning to not feel tedious or a continuation of school,” Longley said. “We want it to be fun and foster a love of learning.  There is very much that spirit of nurturing curiosity in children.”

Josh Cerle is a senior health sciences major and one of the student volunteers at the Gus Bus. Cerle wants to become an occupational therapist, specifically in pediatrics, so he saw this as an opportunity to gain experience working with kids. 

Josh Cerle is one of the student volunteers with the Gus Bus. Photo courtesy of Josh Cerle

“When I see a kid who is usually standoff-ish finally apply themselves and come up with a really interesting perspective, it really blows me away every time,” Cerle said. “Getting to know these bright young students has been amazing.” 

 Longley said that the Gus Bus is “like an ice-cream truck,” in that it’s fun but also good for their student’s brains.

“I have a lot of regulars and I just love to see them be happy to see the bus and come on and be engaged,” Longley said. “Within that, my absolute favorite part is when we’re doing a lesson and a student has a lot of questions and they either find the information really interesting or they get a sense of competency when they figure it out on their own.”

 “That whole ‘meet them where they are thing’ is not just literal, we try to do that in our teaching style,” Longley said. “Our teaching approach is not to do things for them but to encourage them to learn how to teach themselves and find information and problem-solve. Those are the moments that are pretty priceless.”