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.
Hi, Jana
ReplyDeleteI have experienced similar struggles with children in my program. They lack in social/emotional skills, discipline, behavioral, concentration, self control, and much more. I am not sure if the lack of these skills is due to culture, families believes, or just society expectations of how to behave and socialize. But what I really think that is essential to have proper social/emotional skills to be able to create a sense of community in the classroom. As educators we know how crucial it is to create a sense of community to make sure that everyone in the classroom benefits and learn.
Jana,
ReplyDeleteYour interview was very interesting and I was able to gain a lot of information about the people you interviewed. It does seem that over the years children have more and more behavior issues. Again, throughout history discipline has gotten easier with each generation but it seems as though many parents don't assume the responsibility of parenting and pushing it off on the schools.