I had never even thought about keeping a journal while I teach. Looking back as a child, I never regularly wrote in a diary or journal but hopefully those habits have changed. I liked this chapter of Ayers because he spent a little bit of time with more constructive examples and suggestions. Using the parents as a resource to provide advice about teaching their child is an excellent idea. At my elementary school there were always at least three parents in the classroom every day. They were able to facilitate small groups and provide the extra attention some kids needed.
The story Ayers tells about his son Chesa is pretty interesting. It’s amazing that Chesa had such a patient and intuitive teacher to help him with his individual needs. It would be difficult to be the teacher in the situation, because what if the parents get angry about his teaching methods? What if they get upset that he is making their child do labor and chores around the classroom? Besides adapting to each student’s need, finding a comfortable place between guardian and instructor seems difficult as well. Besides overbearing parents, the teacher I was working with last year had trouble getting any sort of response from the parents. Some would never show up for the parent-teacher conference and others were very protective of the children and didn’t want to hear anything this teacher had to tell them about their child’s behavior.
I was watching a bunch of speeches this weekend from Hillary and Barack on early childhood education. I always think about students who have trouble learning in elementary school and end up behind because their peers are learning the material quicker or respond better to that specific teaching method. I never thought about the kids who start kindergarten already behind. It’s always hard to start from behind and play catch up especially at such a young age. I have a niece in preschool now and she just turned three. One of her teachers actually thought she just turned four. At such a young age, one year of development makes a huge difference. When I saw her a few months ago, she could find the blocks to spell my name and count up to 30 by herself. Someone in the Wednesday class during the bio was talking about their nephew or niece (I can’t remember) who is in Kindergarten now and can count to thirty. I didn’t want to tell him my niece is two years younger and can already do that. My parents are very well off and I guess can afford her pre-school were other families may not be so fortunate. So, there kids who are not stupid, just don’t have that early education and therefore seem behind when they arrive in kindergarten.
I haven’t done a ton of research on the top, so I strictly trust the Politian’s on this one. Hillary was saying that 50% of a person vocabulary is developed by the age of five. Both Hillary and Barack were saying that by increasing pre-kindergarten education and exposing young children to as much art, culture and diversity their overall path in school would be more production and thus more successful. I haven’t been keeping up with any of the candidate’s debates and I do not listen to enough news or current events for all of this to seem very interesting to me. They had a very good point. Why aren’t more money and resources spent on early childhood education? Instead of higher income getting schools have more funds, and lower income schools getting more funds due to title 1, what about the middle class families who may or may not be able to afford special such programs. It shouldn’t be a privilege but a necessity for young children.
Can Elementary Education be a Career?
Elementary education is not less than a full career. In high school and college, teachers are there to provide structure, a source for answers and to facilitate work. They are teaching you information that you would not be able to learn if you didn’t have the foundation of elementary school. Every teacher is dynamic, but elementary educators are teaching more than just math and science. Children are impressionable and learn from the adults around them. During the week, a child will probably spend more time with the teacher than they will awake at home with their parents. By the time a student gets to high school or college they are more independent learners. Teachers facilitate a bit more instead of working so closely and individually with each student.
1 comment:
We'll talk much more about working with families next year, and for now, I'll just say that 1) many many schools have almost no parent volunteers and 2) there are other sources of volunteers in the community that often go untapped because many schools aren't thinking beyond bringing parents into the classroom.
In a case like Chesa's, I'm going to assume that the teacher and the parents had any number of conversations about how to best engage him before the teacher settled on some options. That's exactly what Ayers would ask of us -- that we seek advice from parents before we decide what's best for their children.
We've had research for years that early childhood education is beneficial for lots of kids. We have demonstrated success in programs for low-income kids.
And still, more funding isn't made available, but we'll pour so much money into trying to catch kids up later.
Did you know that the gaps between kids when they start kindergarten only widen the longer that kids are in school? Wouldn't we expect them to narrow?
Jane
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