Blog 5 and final farewell

I want to take a minute to say thank you to my colleagues and the teachers and staff that made it possible for me to complete this internship. I have learned a lot and I will be able to apply a lot of what I have learned to future advocacy efforts and interactions with students and their families. When I signed up for this internship I had a misconception that I was just going to observe and interact with children; wrong! I have met some wonderful classmates and teachers that have helped me and guided me to become the teacher I know I can be. Thank you all and good luck with your future endeavors.

Module 4

• Think about how early childhood professionals may support families’ efforts, connect them with appropriate resources, and/or empower them to help themselves.

"Dedicated to Helping People Achieve and Maintain Independence" This is the motto of the Community Action Agency. Community Action Agency is the parent agency for the Head Start program I have been observing and interacting with families through. Through collaboration with state and local agencies CAASCM offers families support with preschool education, weatherization, food commodities, income taxes and housing supports. By connecting families with the agency and giving them contact information for outside agencies I can support their efforts and empower them to help themselves. If families have to make connections with resources and do the paperwork themselves they are more likely to be self-sufficient if they find themselves in a situation where they need assistance. By being knowledgeable in regards to available resources I can help them to help themselves. 

• Whom you observed and interacted with in your setting during this module
  Any special learning experiences you may have had or an experience that provided you with insight about children and families including advocacy efforts.

This module I was able to observe and accompany on home visits a family advocate for Head Start. The Family advocate makes quarterly visits with the family and discusses previous goals that were set and family needs. She provided the families with information that may assist them with meeting unmet needs and offered suggestions that would help them better their situation if necessary.

There was a family with six children; his, mine and ours. They were struggling with making ends meet. Mom was required to get a job to continue receiving food stamp benefits. Mom found a job at McDonalds and works 35 hours per week.As a result the state cut off her food stamps (1,200 per month) and disqualified her for daycare assistance. She makes a little over 900/ month before tax. This was a good example of how the system is not working. Now this working mom without daycare cannot afford her rent and groceries. The family advocate gave her the locations of food banks and food pantries to help her make ends meets. She also gave her contact information for housing assistance. I can see how this would get discouraging though, this mom received more on food stamps than she can make a month. 

 

• At least two insights gained from your observations of, and interactions and experiences with, children’s families regarding advocacy efforts and needs related to your area of interest within the field of early childhood.

Unfortunately, Quality Care is not top priority for the families that I have observed just having someone to care for their children and being able to afford to pay for it is a concern. These people worry daily about housing, food, transportation, and meeting basic needs. Idealistically quality preschool would include before and after care and nutritious meals. 

Observing and Interacting With Professionals, Children and Families in an Early Childhood Setting

The last two weeks I have been observing Sam. Sam is an Education Coordinator for Head Start. Sam oversees four Head Start directors and nine preschool and ECE centers. By observing Sam I have realized how much paperwork, time, devotion and education is necessary to successfully provide a quality early childhood program. You have to be able to work cooperatively with multiple agencies (public and private), families, children, staff, co-workers, and superiors in order to deliver the highest quality of educational and nutritional services to young children.

One time a licensing consultant told me, when I was complaining about a child care center, "we can't all be Cadillac's Mrs. Tefft." I know that no provider is going to be perfect, but I believe that if we all strive to be a Cadillac we will at the very least provide a loving, caring environment that nurtures children to explore and learn from their environment.

I think that this experience has opened my eyes to exactly how much work goes into providing quality care but more importantly it has showed me the importance of a quality ECE experience and what it should look like. I saw dedicated teachers who, despite low wages and long hours, worked collaboratively with other teachers and outside agencies, to give the children in their care the best possible foundation they could provide.

Observation Module 2

I need to start this blog by defining what Universal Early Childhood Education is: The Center for American Progress (CAP) has written a proposal for "High quality universal preschool." The below proposal is how I would define Universal Early Childhood Education, I have copied the first part of CAP's proposal below:

The first part of the CAP’s proposal:

All children ages 3 and 4 should be able to voluntarily attend a full-day public preschool program. Preschool should be free for children from families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line ($46,100 for a family of four). Children from families above 200 percent of the poverty line should be charged a sliding tuition co-pay, ranging from about 30 percent of the cost to 95 percent of the cost (for families above 400 percent of the poverty line).(http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/view/) 

The last two weeks I have observed in a Head Start class room that has two part-day classes. There are a total of 34 children served in this classroom. The children are 3,4 and some 5 year old's. There are 19 ESL students, 7 students with IEP's, and 8 average children (two of which have one or both parents in prison). There is a lead teacher, an assistant teacher, a part-time aide, and a foster grandparent in the classroom daily. On Monday and Wednesday there is a speech teacher, a special education teacher, a occupational therapist, and a social worker that work with various children with IEP's in the classroom. You might think wow! this teacher has a lot of support, but sometimes the disruptions and coming's and going's make it more difficult for young children and special needs students. 

I have observed both the morning and afternoon classes and I have been able to observe on Monday and Tuesday. I have gotten to interview the Education Coordinator, the Center Director, the Family Advocate, the Speech Teacher, the Special Education Teacher, and a Health Education Coordinator. Everyone that I have interviewed/ talked with feel's that Universal Early Childhood Education would be a great thing but they all have different perspectives in regards to what Universal ECE should look like and who should pay for it. The above professionals all agreed that the classroom I am currently observing in is a "high quality program" that is developmentally appropriate and a great example of what a Universal Early Childhood Education public education classroom should look like. 

The students receive literacy, language, social and emotional, health and cognitive education that is delivered in a nurturing environment. The teacher and the assistant teacher great the students with a smile and a hug. You can tell the students have a daily routine because they come in in the morning, sign in, greet their friends and have 15 minutes to explore any new or different things in their environment. Transitions are short and expected showing the comfort level of the students and the teachers. Once the children clean up their work spaces they line-up and go to the restroom and wash their hands for breakfast. The students get their own utensils and find their name plates at the table. Breakfast is family style and the teachers sit with the students at breakfast. The students use good table manners, talking politely and pass the food. There is a student with an eating disorder and accommodations are made with different foods and visual aides; this approach seems very successful. After breakfast the students (with assistance) brush their teeth, find their name tags, and enjoy free reading in the library. The teacher sings a chant to clue all of the children to put their books away and come to the carpet. Once at the carpet the class discusses the daily activities, changes to the environment or schedule, they sing a group greeting song, do the calendar and the weather. 

Once circle time is done the entire class enjoys a large motor activity (outside if weather permitting). When they return to class they have a math activity as a large group for 10 minutes and then they go to centers and small group activities (these are different daily). After free choice and small groups the students return to the carpet for a literacy experience (big book, felt story, interactive story play, ect.) Each activity has a transition activity that displays the teachers knowledge and classroom management skills. After literacy circle the teacher transitions the students to lunch; which is again served family style. The afternoon routine is the same except the students have lunch and snack. 

I believe that every child deserves to experience a program that offers the same perfect combination of nurturing, education, and healthy lifestyles as this high quality program does. 

Sorry I am posting a little late but it was difficult for me to conduct and conclude both interviews due to the professionals I had to interview having very busy schedules.I conducted my two interviews with professionals in early childhood this week; one of the professionals was an education coordinator for head start and the other was a ECSE teacher with St. Joseph County ISD. 

The area I chose to focus on for my research paper was Universal Early Childhood Education. Some of the related topics that came up when discussing Universal Early Childhood Education were: cost, taxes, developmentally appropriate practice, parent education, welfare dependency, transportation, drug and alcohol addiction, low income, and accessibility. 

Due to so many other areas of need and the lack of federal funds this topic is not currently at the forefront of advocacy efforts. The education coordinator that I interviewed felt like this issue is being addressed locally. The St. Joseph County ISD has an early on collaborative that offers every family screenings, connections for preschool education, and grants for those that slip through the crack to pay for preschool education. 

Scientific studies have show that the first three years of a child's life are the most critical in the brain's development and this statistic should be given national attention. Abraham Lincoln said, "A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He is going to sit where you are sitting, and, when you are gone, attend to those things which you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they are carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your cities, states and nations. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities and corporations; the fate of humanity is in his hands." 

The area of interest I am going to focus on for my paper is Universal Early Childhood Education. The three specific topics that are related to my area of study are; quality childcare, welfare dependency, and parent education. 

Some questions that I have for my colleagues in regards to these issues are: Do you think that mother care is better than center care? Do you feel like the government should provide tax breaks and resources for families so they can take better care of their children at home and educate them better by themselves? How do you feel as a nation we can move away from welfare dependency? How can we provide early childhood education to parents before birth so that they are better equipped to educate their children themselves? 

Universal Child Care and Early Childhood Education

I believe in a country as big as the U.S.A. and as wealthy as we are that no child should be illiterate and early childhood education should be a part of our educational system. Every family should receive the same access to education for their children; from birth. I am a firm believer that everybody has a skill that they are better at than others, something that they were born to do.

I am an early childhood educator and I believe that I am very well equipped to provide care and education for our youngest citizens. You can have a masters degree but parenting and teaching are not strong skills for you. This is where someone like me comes in.

I think that Americans are missing a very important opportunity to increase the value of our most valuable natural resource; our children.