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.

This week’s chapter discusses the important roles families play in a center. As a teacher and administrative point of view, I believe our school is lucky that we don’t provide transportation because we can build a relationship with the children and their families. Someone will always have to pick up and drop off that child, so during those times we can communicate and build relationships with the families. Families are one of the biggest parts of a center especially since the success of a school depends heavily on the partnership with families. If families don’t feel valued, they won’t stay at that center long. It’s funny how this chapter has coincided with our family conferences and we just handed out our family surveys. We provide a lot of various activities and opportunities for family involvement in our center. We have become creative with ways to get family interaction because all families are different. The biggest problem we have faced was actually getting families into the classroom. It was hard especially since most of our families work in town and when it’s time to pick up their child, they don’t want to spend more time then they have to, which is understandable since most times they just battled traffic and they just want to be home already. Some creative ways we have explored family involvement is by having families take home projects to work with their child and have the child share it the next day at school. This has also worked out because it eases the transition between home and school, and families will know what activities they are learning at school.

The book had a paragraph about teachers that are not prepared to work with families. I can relate to this when I was a first year teacher. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t prepared, I just didn’t feel comfortable. All through college, I learned the importance of families to a program and how important communication is, but I remember always being nervous. I think in the back of my mind, I didn’t want to upset the family or have families think I was telling them what to do, or how to raise their child. The more I forced myself to talk to families, the more familiar I got with the situation and how most families like to hear feedback about their child from the teachers. Now my goal as a director is to have a great relationship with each family. I know it starts with saying hello to everyone that walks in our gate. The previous director and my mentor told me that families come first and you are never too busy to say hi or bye to each person. I have noticed how appreciated people felt with the simple gesture.

The online article talks about grandparents raising grandchildren. This is happening more and more often. It is a tough situation for the grandparents and a constant struggle. It makes some good points on how tough it is for a grandparent especially those who are in what they mentioned “sandwich generation” in which they are taking care of an older generation and younger generation. When talking to grandparents I know one concern that they have about the change. Raising a child is always changing from new technology to education and knowledge. One grandparent had shared their concern that they just can’t keep up with it and how different it is to raise a child now than when she was raising her own child. I do like the suggestions that they provide in the article about sharing information with Grandparents. I think the most important thing is to make sure that the grandparents feel supported!

To answer some of the questions brought up last week, I think the biggest factor that preschools are in competition over are families. We need families because basically that’s our schools revenue. I don’t think that collaboration would hurt our business because I believe every preschool is different and there are many components to each preschool that sets it apart from the next school. Families have a checklist when it comes to sending their child to school, they could be looking for religion, location, prices and curriculum. If the schools in the community collaborate it won’t matter much because families are going to go where they want to go.

Chapter 9 discusses program curriculum. It details all the different types of curriculum and how important class size and ratio are to a program. When touring our school, a lot of families ask what are the ratios in each of the classrooms. Ratios are important but I also believe class size is equally if not more important. If you think about it if there ratio is 1:8 for 3 year olds but you have 4 staff members and 32 3 year olds that classroom, no matter the size, would be hectic. What we like to do at our center is split up the classes. We are blessed to have a covered lanai and materials that we can use outside on that lanai so we can have half of the class inside the classroom and the other half outside of the classroom. This way each staff will have the max 10 children in the class or on the lanai (for the 4 year old room). I have enjoyed the small group size and I feel that I can focus my attention on each student in my class.

The book also talked about culture as part of the curriculum. “Besides developing program philosophy influenced by the culture of the local community, all children need multicultural/anti bias education” (Decker et al., 2005). It is important to have culture represented throughout the curriculum and I know NAEYC pushes this point a lot! My center is having a hard time with this. We have been reflecting on it especially after we went to some great cultural workshops at the HAEYC conference. I think the issue we are running into is that mostly everyone on our staff is local and have been raised here. It is amazing that Hawaii has become so diverse with many different cultures but at the same time we aren’t fully knowledgeable in any particular culture. For example, I am Filipino and Lithuanian but I don’t know anything about the Philippines, I don’t even know what dialect my family spoke. I’m fluent in the local culture, which is just bits and pieces of other cultures, but it’s so integrated that I don’t know where one cultures ends and the other begins.

Our additional reading discussed the Te Whāriki, which is the first bicultural curriculum developed in New Zealand. It contains curriculum specifically for Māori immersion services in early childhood education and establishes, throughout the document as a whole, the bicultural nature of curriculum for all early childhood services (website). This reminded me of the Hawaiian emergent preschools we have here. I think it’s a great idea and I truly believe that it’s everyone’s responsibility to preserve the Hawaiian language and culture. The dichotomy in these programs is finding teachers who are knowledgeable in ECE and teachers who are knowledgeable in the culture. Many times the program will take the teacher who is knowledgeable in the culture because that is harder to find, but they aren’t aware of developmentally appropriate practices. How can we find a happy medium?

I do believe that staff hiring and turnover rate is affected by personal experiences. It is especially prevalent when working in a small center. I have noticed just working in a small school setting that if a staff member doesn’t gel with the rest of the staff, it won’t work out. The same goes with hiring, I find myself contemplating on three major points when hiring a new staff member; education background, classroom management, and personality style. What really makes a team is having everyone on the same page and everyone just clicking. For hiring and the longevity of a staff member it does come down to personality and we tend to make decisions based on personal experiences. It’s hard to break and get away from previous mindsets but I am constantly trying to remind myself in order for us to grow we have to step away from our comfort zone.

This week we are talking about advocacy and as I think about advocacy in ECE, we don’t have a strong voice. I wonder why our voice isn’t as strong especially in the political arena because many politicians have had a child and know how important ECE is on a child. Is it because we don’t have a union? I know that unions play a big role in standing up for the workers. Can preschool teachers’ have a union especially if we are all hired by different companies? Sumison’s suggest becoming closer alliance with “think tank” institutions to enable us to work jointly towards a unifying vision of the common good (Sumison, 2006). The only thing I wonder is that ECE program, as a whole isn’t united in itself. I don’t believe we have a teamed together to even have a presence against the other institutions. First and foremost, we need to come together as a group. I feel that we want what’s best for our programs but we are all individuals. For example, I work in Wahiawa and I don’t even know what the other preschools in Wahiawa looks like or even know the other directors. How can we become activities and our voices heard if we aren’t a team? I would love to team up with the other preschools and work with them just even as a community. I do understand that preschools are a business and we essentially are all competitors with each other. I think that is our problem. Majority of ECE programs are competing with each other and bottom line, it’s business. How can we be teaming up together when we are competing with each other?

I feel the biggest way I am contributing to the profession is by helping others find a place in the profession. Our book states that this is a form of advocacy because it gives me an opportunity to support incomers as they prepare for a career in ECE (Decker, 2005). Being a director, I have come across a lot of different people and some who have questioned if this is the career for them. I find myself sharing my experiences and knowledge about the situation. I have also become more knowledgeable about resources available. I look forward to becoming a mentor toward students and new teachers. I have such a strong passion for mentors because I have been blessed with amazing mentors. Since my years in college and having an amazing lead teacher during student teaching to my previous director at Rainbow School, these people have really made all my ECE experiences positive.

Touching upon the director’s manual, I guess I wasn’t clear on what context of the manual would contain. From my own experience, I would have loved at least a calendar of events from the previous year as a reference. I worked at the school 3 years prior to becoming a director, and I was unaware that the director has a lot of behind the scenes work. For example, I never remembered when family’s reminders went out or when to sign up for family’s conferences. If I had a calendar to help me manage my time, it would have been very helpful. I don’t believe directors should fall into a “this is how it’s always done” mindset but my perspective on this is coming from a first time director. I felt like I was in survival mode most of the time, trying to stay afloat. So for that first year it wouldn’t have been bad to keep it like the previous year. For the most part, I did keep it my firs year as a director like the previous year and tried to do like it was always done previously. My way of thinking was to learn the ropes and just get use to the job. Then in my second year and I saw myself changing a lot more because I was use to the responsibilities and saw what worked and fixed what didn’t work. I also noticed that my staff was more acceptable to the change because it was gradual and it didn’t feel like I came in and changed everything around. I guess what I’m saying is to use the director’s manual as a reflection of last year and if need be, a guide for the incoming director.

Exchange Everyday’s article made a great point about getting your message across. In the article, it had a great quote "In my experience, people don't 'get' the important messages leaders try to send the first time around," Rosabeth Moss Kanter. It’s a great reminder for teachers that families don’t intentionally miss all the information we send out to them, and it’s a great reminder for a director that staff don’t intentionally miss all the information we send out to them. Many times especially as teachers, we are so quick to judge families and say “how did they not know?!?!” At our school, we do try to reach families in all different ways to help them remember especially when it comes to important announcements. We post it in our classrooms, we send out reminder notes, we post it on twitter, and for the older children we tell them to remind their parents. Usually, it’s the last one that really has been the most effective. At times it can be frustrating when your point isn’t made but this article reminds me to step back from the situation and remember that there is a lot going on in everyone’s life.

Chapter 6 had some great ideas on creating quality learning environments. I always get mixed emotions when it comes to reading these types of chapters. I feel inspired and while reading I build my ideal classroom in my head. But on the other hand, reality hits and I realize that because of many factors some of my ideas could never be a reality. My school rents from the church and we have a lot of restrictions on what we can and can’t do to the program. The hardest part, is finding the happy medium between their concerns and with our budget.

One thing I really want to look into is finding out what type of lighting we have in our classroom. It stated that traditional fluorescent bulbs leave children and staff tired at the end of the day (Decker, et al., 2005). We have some children that are there all day from opening to close and staff that work long hours. It would be interesting to see the difference from traditional fluorescent to full-spectrum or incandescent bulbs. I also heard that traditional fluorescent bulbs could be over stimulating to children who are sensitive to stimulation. We have fans on our ceilings and I have notice the change in the class when I turn off the light and just use the lights from the fans; it’s quieter and calmer.

Technology and the classroom have open many opportunities. Taking this class online, which is a first for me, has opened up my eyes to all new possibilities. It has now open opportunities for people that can’t take classes physically to attain degrees. Even though I am on Oahu, classes online let me have some insight to other preschools around this state.

The major point I really enjoyed in our book was from Chapter 4. I liked the idea of having an administration’s manual (Decker, et al. 2005). I took over the director position and I remembered my first year was totally just surviving. If I had an administration’s manual or an outline of the previous year it would have made my life so much easier. It’s funny to think how extensive the family and employee handbooks are but no administration’s manual. Even if I were to continue the next year, it would still be nice to see what we did the year before and how we can improve each year.

I really enjoyed the chapter on questioning evaluation quality in Early Childhood. I think uses those Children’s questions (Podmore) would make an impact on our evaluation. Our program has put a lot of emphasis on the families’ evaluation at the end of the year but I think I should also include an in-depth self-evaluation from the staff. We make goal at the beginning of the year and we review them throughout but I think there would be a bigger impact if we had a self-evaluation, especially using the child’s questions.

“I am convinced, we can develop the capacities required to ‘reinvent the future’ by creating ‘a new horizon of possibilities’ for children’s services” (Sumsion). This is a great quote. I feel that childcare needs more advocacies on the political side. We have gotten a lot of advocacy in the community and families are starting to see the importance of childcare. The reason we don’t have advocacy on the political level is because childcare is not a huge business that we can afford to have lobbyist working for our cause. I feel like the only time childcare is mentioned on the political level is to cut funding and/or closing services. Recently, I just received the letter that they will be cutting the preschool development screening and the early intervention center in Wahiawa. How can the children in our community get a head when they are cutting all of our programs? These programs that they are cutting will benefit the children in our community the most!

I recently read the Exchange Everyday, where it talked about the "millenials" (individuals born between 1980 and 1995) generation. It makes a major observation that this is the first generation to learn computers along side with alphabets (exchange everyday). Where I’m pretty sure the latter part of the generation learned the alphabets through the computer. I feel that since I am part of this generation it really made me reflect on how technology played a part into the other points it makes about the this generation, i.e. “superior team player, wanting to be a part of a community, having diverse social circles and networks being second nature, and social responsibility and awareness (Exchange Everyday).” How does technology affect our willingness to be a part of a community and how has our social networking become so diverse? America has become more mobilized, meaning we don’t typically stay in the same town we were born and raised. We go away for college, and we travel around the world. We don’t find a career that a community needs, we find a community that needs our career. This brings everything closer to us. This is the same with the Internet, it bring all parts of the country and other countries closer to us. It is so easy to stay in contact with people halfway around the world, via social networking websites, and web cams. These modern types of networking make communication with the rest of the world instantaneous. With the world at our fingertips, it’s only natural for us to have a diverse social circle and networking that much easier. The Internet and media have also showed us first hand how our way of living has an impact on the whole world therefore making us more conscious and aware of our way of living.

Chapter 2 of our book talks about different theories on early childhood development and how it is important to know when writing a mission statement. It also talks about the quality of programs and constant upkeep that needs to be done to have a program running at its peak potential. When talking about program quality and effectiveness it makes a point that quality teachers need to use reflective teaching practices aided by qualifies supervisors (Decker, et al., 2005). This is really important in keeping the quality of childcare centers. I have found that at the end of the month, and year the teachers should always be working together to reflect on what worked, what needs to be changed, and how we can further childrens' knowledge. It’s too easy for teachers to become so complacent in their curriculum and just recycle their old lesson plans from year to year when obviously the children are constantly changing. What I am constantly striving for when we have our meetings is to reflect on activities and projects happening in our classrooms. Ask questions like: if it didn’t work, why didn’t it work? Or if it did work, how can we take it a step further?

This chapter also talked about evaluations about the program. Every year we send out evaluations to families and staff and ask them to reflect on the past year. This really helps our program to see where we are lacking and what we need to change. As a result of last year’s evaluation, we have seen the need for more community involvement. This year it was our goal as staff to see how we can involve our school more into the community and how to get our families involved into their own community. At the beginning of the year, the staff brainstormed on how we can accomplish our goal and we made it clear to all the families during family orientation that this was our task for the year. The families have been very susceptible to our ideas and have provided their own ideas as well.

There were two major points in our book that made an impression on me about childcare. The first point that really got my attention was that childcare has to be available and affordable for working families (Decker, et al., 2005). This is an issue that I am facing as a director in these economical times. I am having more and more middle class families finding it hard to afford quality childcare. We accept all of the financial services that are out there but we have a selection of families that do not qualify for it but are barely paying for their childcare.

The book also mentions that the value parents place on specific aspects of a program may overshadow quality aspects (Decker, et al., 2005). Some parents are looking for childcare programs based on hours of operation, tuition, and convenience rather than class sizes, ratios and teacher qualifications. Granted there are many parents that have done research and have questions about the quality but it’s always sad to see a child leave because of our school hours.

I also read the article about childcare as a big business. It’s not a surprise to see that childcare has become a corporate big business. In the last 10 years, the demands for childcare have raises exponentially. Society has changed and moms (or parents) are no longer staying home and everyone has a career. Since there has been this change, a market for childcare has opened up so it was only a matter of time before for-profit, big business childcare would emerge. It works too because families want to feel comfortable with sending their little ones to a place they know or heard about. If these big business childcare programs are around, families will feel comfortable with sending their child to it because of it’s “name”. I definitely don’t want to be comparing childcare to Wal-mart but essentially that’s basically what it is. We are creatures of habit and no matter where we go, we are all familiar and comfortable with the inside of Wal-mart.