Final Post

This is my final post:

This was a new experience for me.  I had never blogged before, or even followed others blogs.  Through this experience I have learned why so many people are addicted to following people’s blogs.  This process has challenged me to become a better writer, and a better listener.  I enjoyed reading others blogs and regarding about their educational experiences.  I learned through these experiences how to use constructive criticism to help challenge my thinking, and to start thinking outside of the box.  The thing that I enjoyed the most about this class was reading about how passionate everyone is about education, and being a teacher.  Today there are too many educators who are not passionate about what they do, so it has been so refreshing listening to everyone’s passion in teaching.

Thank you everyone who followed my blog, and good luck in you teaching endeavors.

Blog #4

Blog #4

This module I worked with one of the many supervisors for this preschool program.  This program services 10 different centers.  Each center has a direct center supervisor, and they answer to one of the 4 area managers, and they answer to the program director. The person that I worked with was an area manager.  Her role is to manage 3 different center supervisors.  Each center is different, and each center is located in a different county.  The area manager that I worked with is in a very unique position.  She is truly a middle man when it comes to problems.  Not only does this wonderful woman have to manage 3 different center supervisors, she is also the Family Engagement Specialist.  She is the only Family Engagement Specialist for the whole program, and she is in charge of educating all the staff on family frame work, family engagement, and family and community partnerships.  I have been truly amazed on how much this woman does.  She is passionate about the families that we serve, and she always has a big smile on her face.  I have been blessed to work with a wonderful person.

Because the area manager that I worked with is a specialist in Family Engagement, I was able to learn a lot of wonderful ways to get parents and families involved in their child’s education, and in their child’s classroom.  She was able to help me come up with unique ways to get parents to be more comfortable and more trusting with their child’s teachers.  I was able to have a better understanding of how important it is to have families create family goals.  Family goals can be as simple as creating a family night, or they can be more of a long term goal like going to college.  Helping families create goals, and steps for those goals is crucial.  Because my paper is about family engagement, I was able to truly observe how an organization helps parents to become more engaged in their child’s education, and even their own education.

This organization has gone above and beyond with parent engagement.  This program has even designed a male involvement night once a month.   When walking into the office board room there are photos of parents and family members receiving awards.  One of the photos was of a father who received the father of the year award.  This father achieved this great award through his countless hours volunteering in his child’s classroom, participating in family events, and serving on the policy council, and even the board of this program.  When I left the board room I walked away with a huge smile, and I knew that this program was truly there to help children and their families succeed.  These observations were exactly what I needed to help create a stronger research paper about family involvement.  Hearing about these great success stories have helped to validate why I am writing my paper.

3rd Observation

is a director of a multi age preschool program.

 

This program services children who are 3 and 4 years of age.  This program is an inclusive program that serves children with disabilities along with children who are normal functioning.  This is a large program that serves children in ten different counties.  Some of the centers have mixed age preschool rooms, where as other centers has a specific 3 year old room and a 4 year old room.  (They follow the cut of date the school district does.)

 

This program services a wide range of cultures, and those different cultures are represented throughout the classrooms.  There were family posters that were posted in the classroom that represent each child’s family.  When children are able to understand and take pride in their culture, they will be able to more understand in cultures that are different then their own.  It is wonderful to see preschools that respect families, and their home language, and their home cultures.

 

Talking to the supervisor I can hear and feel the passion she has with the children and the families that she serves.  This program works very closely with each family to get to know them, understand their cultures.  This program has each family create a family goal, and educational goals.  These goals help to get the families involved in the child’s educational career, and help to build fabulous relationships with the educators and the families.  This observation helped me to see how important it is for parent involvement.

 

I was starting to struggle a little bit with my research paper, and being able to see and witness the importance of parent involvement. Throughout my observations I was able to realize how important it is to value each family’s culture.  When families feel like they are valued, they will be able to confide more in the teacher, and will be more willing to get more involved in their child’s education. I needed this inspiration to help me have a better understanding of what parental insolvent in education really looks like.

2nd Classroom Observation/ Teacher Interview

Classroom observations

I have been observing in a 3 year old preschool classroom.  In this classroom I have been observing children who have both a mother figure and a father figure in their lives.  After talking with the teacher I was able to have a clear view on the dynamics of each child. 

The last module my focus of my research paper was the importance of parental involvement.  This week I wanted to take my topic to a new level, and see how important a mother and a father figure is in a child's education.  Once I knew the children's family dynamics, it was shocking to me how emotionally stable the children with both parental figures acted.  I don't know all the details of all the children in this class, but i was very amazed how socially and emotionally behind the children were that did not have both a mother and a father figure.

After this week’s observation I decided to restructure my research paper.  My new focus questions will be; What is the importance of parental involvement in education? and, what is the importance of having both a father and a mother figure involvement is?

Early Childhood Education Interviews

I am in the process of gaining information for my internship research paper.  In my process I interviewed two early childhood educators. While interviewing these two teachers I listened to the same struggles, and same concerns.  After each of the interviews I stepped back to contemplate my struggles and concerns in the early childhood classroom, and also came to the same conclusion.

The first Interview: Preschool Teacher

Question #1: What are the biggest concerns do you see with children in preschool.

Teachers Answer:  The biggest concern that she sees with 3 and 4 year old's would be their social emotional abilities.  This teacher has been teaching for 20 + years, and feels that children in the past 5 years really struggle with the basic social emotional abilities.  She added that a lot of young children are not being taught about self-control or boundaries.  She further explained to me that she is spending more of her educational instruction on social/ emotional, and self-help skills, and there is not enough time to teach children the material needed for kindergarten readiness.

Question #2: How important is parent involvement in early childhood education?

Answer:  She expressed to me that parent involvement in early childhood education is extremely crucial.  The teacher added that she can clearly tell what families work with their children at home and what parents do not.  She informed me that parent need to become engrossed with their children’s education early, and parents are their child’s most important teacher.  She also challenged me to research the connection between educational success, and parent involvement.  She said that I will find overwhelming statistics that provides the positive connection between parent involvement and educational success.

Question #3: How do you feel about state standards?

Answer:  She told me that she has mixed feelings about state standards.  State standards do help teachers have a common goal of what to be teaching, but many teachers get too wrapped up in the standards that they are teaching off the state standardized test.  State standards are being revised in many states, and the state of Wyoming has just been fully updated!  The new standards are easier to follow, and better designed.

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