Exchange Everyday

When I read the “Getting Unstuck” issue it made me focus on my career goal. Our school is going through accreditation and I actually just received our candidacy material. This process can be very overwhelming and especially since I feel as if I’m still just trying to find my way as being a director. It just so happened that I got this position the same time our school was up for renewal. This article talks about keeping your focus and setting goals. I am all about timelines and goals that was the first thing I had to learn. I’m not an organized person by nature and I have to work really hard at being organize and most times it can be very frustrating. Being a director organization can be the death of you and your program. I learned to write everything down, set timelines, goals, and keeping a calendar just to keep track of everything going on in my school.

It also mentioned to dream and not to let fear banish your dreams. I have to consciously do this because there are times where I find myself getting overwhelmed. If I start to think of what needs to be done and what we need to do, I can get overwhelmed and feel as if reaccredidation is almost impossible. I also feel that as a director, I need to emphasis the importance of accreditation but at the same time not to stress out my staff. My goal in life is not to be stressed, it’s hard but I do not see anything positive coming out of stress. It kind of reminds me of the mentality of crying doesn’t solve any of your problems. I’m not that extreme, I’m all about feeling emotions and expressing my emotions but there comes a point where you just have to suck it up and deal with it. So when I start to feel stressed, I remind myself to get cracking and do something about it.

The last point the article makes is to get moving. Ideas and creativity happens when you move your body. In an ideal word, I would love to be able to have time to do work, school, personal life and workout everyday of the week. Especially in December, it’s crazy and something has to be sacrificed. Exercise is important, it’s healthy way to let out frustration and stress, but I’m still waiting for the ideas to come in the middle of my workouts.

What a coincident that this week’s blog topic is about financing a childcare program and budget of a childcare program and what is going on in the Early Childhood arena with the state and Child Care Connection. We just had a Rainbow School meeting about the plan of action and what it will look like if this proposal will pass. Everyone is having a hard time especially with the holidays but one thing we discussed in our meeting was what will be the outcome of the significant increase in families’ co-shares. It became a reality when I had to fill out the survey from PATCH and GBA when they asked us how many children we have in our program will leave if this proposal is implemented and at what amount of children that leave will we have to lay off staff, close a classroom or close the school. The hardest part is being the director and staff that work with these families daily and know them on a personal level. These children need the socialization, structure and all the benefits of early childhood and how much they will miss out if they have to pull their child out.

I really enjoyed the marketing chapter in the book. I remember when I first started working at Rainbow School, the physical aspect of our school was highly stressed. We would have meetings about how we think our school should look like, feel like, smell like, and what do we think parents want to see when they walk in. I remember giving my first tour to a dad and he said “Man, this place smells like a preschool, it’s bringing me back to my childhood.” At first, I didn’t know what that meant or how to take it, especially since I guess I don’t know what a preschool smells like, but after reading that chapter, I realized now that he was giving our school a compliment. Now that I’m a director, I am always reminding my staff and emphasizing how important it is to make a good impression with incoming families and to keep those good relationships with families, because that’s the best marketing a preschool can have – especially in Hawaii.

Chapter 10 addressed the health and safety of children in a childcare center. Our center is USDA approved and we serve the children breakfast, lunch and a snack that is included into our tuition. I think it is appropriate for our center to provide these meals to the children in the community. We serve it family style and I think it’s a good opportunity for children to experience all different foods. USDA requires all meal to be well balanced and our children can be exposed to all types of seasonal fruits. I also think it’s a good idea because all the children are eating the same thing and we know that there is enough food for each child. When we do have field trips and the families have to provide the child’s lunch I always worry if that is enough food for that child. It also alleviates the worry of another child giving another child food that they are allergic to. My question is that how do we know if a child is eating too much? We can’t force children to eat but can we limit food to children? I would think that we just provide the food until they say that they’re full because the book does mention how some children will go through eating binges. I had a parent tell me that they were concerned about their child eating too much. We read that the obesity rates, in children, are raising, does it start in preschool? How do we address this issue?

The website article has many different ways early childhood and sustainability can work together. I like this idea and I would think that many teachers would embrace this idea. Teachers have always been mavericks when it comes to reusing and recycling when it comes to art, and materials. I feel that every center is all about repairing – getting the most out of things – and always willing to find a use for any donated item. I think that we do need to talk to the children about it. To think of making a center that is sustainable is quiet daunting but I think we have to build up to that. Budgets might not allow for a “green” building but it’s the little things that we talk to the children about. I did a segment of our curriculum about growing and recycling around Earth day and the children responded really well to it but I think we need to implement it year round. One thing that we did have was a worm bin at our school and we added our leftover food and paper into it but we only had it for a couple of months and we didn’t have the children do much with it. I think it would be a great idea to have worms that the children could add the extra food into and see the dirt that comes out of it and use it to plant a garden.

We do family conferences twice a year and we have a set layout and follow a set standard of goals and achievements. Our curriculum is loosely based on creative curriculum and so our conferences and assessments come from their forerunners and steps. Every year when I write these conferences I feel like this could be a child and when I report to the families they just agree and it just doesn’t feel personal. I wanted to find something that I could show the parents some hard evidence of their child achieving rather than a paper with all the goals and steps they have achieved.

I was really intrigued to read about preschool stories. When I was reading Crossing Boundaries: A Variety of Perspectives on Preschool stories, I was very interested on actually seeing one but I was worried that it would be a long report and just unrealistic for a teacher with 20something children. When I actually saw Sarah’s preschool stories, I thought it was a great idea and makes assessment more personable. It would also be a great part of the child’s portfolio at the end of the year that would showcase who they really are. It does require trust on both the teacher and the child. I was thinking the teacher would have to have built some kind relationship and attachment to the child because if it were a new teacher, the stories wouldn’t be as accurate.

I also like the idea of having a clipboard with notes about each individual child. There is many times where families will ask how their child is doing and right at that moment I draw a blank. It’s a hard question to answer because families are not looking for a “he’s doing good” answer they want an indebt look at how their child is doing at school. If you had that clipboard, you could just refer the family to the clipboard.

I think this is a great tool for the children with challenging behaviors. If we were to conduct preschool stories on each child, it would cause the teachers to step outside of the “teacher” role and just observe the children. Once I do that, I seem to have a different perspective of that child. We write and collect positive information on those children, we can remind ourselves about all of the child’s positive characteristics and help us get through those tough moments, or days.

Last week, I made a comment about how open ceilings may create loud noises and how open classrooms may create limitations for the caregivers. I didn’t mean to say these comments because I am limiting the children’s capability and mistrusting the children. I am saying just from personal experience that high ceilings create for louder environments. It happens everywhere, even at restaurants. One of the schools had high ceilings and hard floors and without material that absorbs the sound it could get loud when a bunch of people or children are talking. I was just wondering if it does get loud and how can you add things into the environment that would absorb some of the sound. I believe we do have trust in the children but supervision of children at this age is a big deal. A school that is one big class has to run into some supervision problems. I don’t think it’s a matter of mistrusting children or limiting their capabilities at all.

This weeks reading was about assessment. I believe assessment is such a huge part for a child and so beneficial but it isn’t done enough. Assessment can help improve a child’s development individually and on a broader scale, assessment can create a classroom curriculum. I feel that the whole assessment process helps teacher’s build a relationship with each child individually. Every time I assess a particular child, I feel as if I know that child a little bit more personally. It creates an environment where a teacher sit backs and withdraws from the situation and just observes the child in its most natural habitat. The problem with assessment is that it’s very time consuming. For teachers, especially if they are the only teacher in the classroom can find it a burden. It always seems as if the moment a teacher starts assessing a child, something that needs their attention happens.

I enjoyed reading from the Te Whāriki website about how the children have a part of their own assessment. I have read from the benefits of allowing children to have a say in their own assessments. I know that in some public schools, the children conduct the second family teacher conference. I always wanted the preschool aged children to be a part of their own assessment. Every year, we make portfolios for each child; in this portfolio we include pictures of their development in each developmental area. We also include some work samples of their writing, and cutting and art. Well I finally got a computer in my classroom, where I can work on the portfolios. This helped out a lot because I would create their portfolio and have each child tell me what they were doing in the pictures. This way I could have the child create its own caption and it was a way that I could document their language development as well. The children love doing it and it makes the whole process easier on the teacher.

I checked out all of the centers that were listed on that page. I wanted to see a school that was limited in space and how they made the best of what they had, but none of those really had that problem. My main reaction to the outside view of those centers was “That’s an early childhood center!” The sizes of those centers are amazing, and I can’t even imagine something that big opening up in Hawaii. I also wanted to see what all of their playgrounds looked like because I believe the outside environment is just as important than their inside environment. The following are the three centers that had some type of attribute that I really enjoyed and stuck out above the rest of the centers.

http://www.designshare.com/index.php/projects/mothers-club-family-learning-center

This is the first school I virtually toured. This center is the Mother’s club family learning Center in Pasadena, California. Their mission is to help prepare families living in isolation and poverty to succeed in school and in life through two-generation learning. The attribute that I thought was amazing was the interior view of the classrooms. Like many Mainland schools, the whole center is indoors and all the hallways and classrooms are under one roof. They made the pathway in the hallway, two-toned to present a trail. I liked the idea of using glass walls; it gives the illusion of the room being open and spacious while keeping it enclosed and separate from the rest of the center. It gives each classroom the privacy but doesn’t feel like your surrounded by walls. I also saw in another classroom, the see through garage door. I thought that was a neat idea, to have in the classroom and to open it on warm days. It also provides a lot of natural light and it is see through so the children can check the weather and outside.

http://www.designshare.com/index.php/projects/the-childrens-school

The children’s school, in Stamford Connecticut is a modified one-room school. It’s a beautiful site and I really enjoyed reading the narrative on how it’s a “green” school. It was clever how they thought about harvesting the sunlight and building a schedule based on the sunlight, and how to ventilate the school. I also like the idea of harvesting the rain to use for water play and other activities. I didn’t see an actually playground, but I enjoyed reading that they use the different trees in their backyard and science garden to connect nature to food. The question that popped into my mind when I actually saw the inside of the classroom was the noise level. Since it’s open and all the children are in the center at once, the high ceilings must provide for a loud environment. I don’t know much about Montessori schools but how do the staff prevent the children from running in the classroom with that much open space. In every site, there are moments when it feels like there is not enough staff to watch everything that is going on in a center. I wonder if one open room like that school solves that problem or just makes it worse.

http://www.designshare.com/index.php/projects/auroville-kindergarten/team

This was my favorite school out of all of the schools. I really enjoyed the natural openness of the center. Each separate hut seems to have a flow between them and it creates a natural blend between nature and structural school. I felt like all the other centers had a defined inside and outside area, which make it feel so ridged. I also enjoyed their playground, it wasn’t much but I really like the natural feel of the playground. We always talk about how fancy toys don’t do much for children at this age; they rather play with the box. It goes the same with playgrounds, why invest in the fancy playground equipment when they can benefit the same from a more natural form of gross motor activities.

Some family involvement projects we have going on in my classroom are star of the week, book bag and a weekly alphabet activity. So far we have had great response with it from our parents. I have found that these types of family involvement really get the whole family involved. It’s very beneficial for parents, like Jan, who don’t have the opportunity to step into the classroom. This way they can still be in the know of what is happening in school and feel included. We just had a boy who did his star of the week poster and when he presented it to the class, his mom sat in and watch and she told us how she made it a whole family project, where the dad printed pictures, his sister cut things out, the boy colored the poster and the mom organized the whole pictures. We have had a lot of success with these family involvement projects.

I really enjoyed reading the Exchange everyday article which questions if schools kill creativity? In the article Ken Robinson states, “The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately: that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it.” I agree with him that schools do educate the creativity out of us. I think there is a possibility that it starts as early as preschool. We also think we are letting children grow and nourish at our programs but at the same time, we are getting children “school ready.” I think most times it’s an unconscious thing we are doing by telling children, that’s not the right way of doing things. For example, some art projects I see children doing, where if they don’t do it the right way it doesn’t turn out, in other words, craft projects and not open ended activities. Parents like to see finished completed projects and teachers feel pressured to produce it for the parents. I am constantly reminding myself when having conversations with children to keep an open mind about everything. I, myself, am already ridged in my way of life and theories on how things work that when a child has what seems like a total random idea, I just need to tell myself to and roll with it.

When reading the chapters and articles about environment in the classroom, I always get inspired on changing my classroom. My goal for my center is to add more organic and natural things to the setting. I strongly feel that children can learn the most from the world around them. I want my classroom to fell more homey and less like a classroom, by using natural light, reducing the use of plastic and making materials found in our environment. It’s so tempting to just buy the educational toys especially after seeing the Lakeshore, Discovery toys, and Kaplan booths at the conference. Yet I try to see what those materials are teaching the children and see how we can make it ourselves to make it even more meaningful – and a lot cheaper.