Goals 

Greetings and welcome to my blog.  I realize that as a practitioner, I should continue to set goals and reflect often.  Now that I am at the beginning of a new course entitled which is Dynamics of Early Childhood Policies and Systems, my first impression of this course is somewhat challenging.  However, I have already set forth several goals to not only accomplish the assignments successfully, but to put into practice new ideas gained from my experience.  Below are a few insights and ideas gained from reading Kagan and Kauerz (2015)

Although I have taken only a few Spanish courses recently, I am still not proficient enough to speak the language with my students and their families comfortably.  Becoming a bilingual teacher is one of my long term goals and is beneficial those students who speak very little English at home.  A more obtainable short term goal to put into practice at the start of the new school year, will be to become more knowledgeable about the Hispanic culture.  A large percentage of the students that attend my school are from the Hispanic background.  In addition, I am looking forward to creating an atmosphere surrounded with artifacts from each culture and community, whether they attend our school are not.  I have learned that children can come to appreciate and respect others when presented with the similarities and differences of cultures different from their own.  Likewise, my parents must feel welcomed and invited to participate in all of the activities that take place in our school.

Furthermore, I would like to learn more about the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS).  After reading a brief description of the program, I predict that I will become an instant fan because it suggests the way teachers interact with children is key to high performance expectations.  The Class program also suggests that it is important for teachers to support children both academically and emotionally.  Finally, teachers gain through personal development and through observation.  Teacher have an opportunity to make corrections, adjustments, and necessary changes through feedback from analyzing one another’s observations. 

Finally, my ultimate goal is to learn of more ways to educate the families in ways that may be beneficial to the children.  In my experience as an educator, all parents have demonstrated concern for their children’s academic progress.  Parents would like to help but are unsure how.  I am an advocate for more parent centers, whereby parents to learn how read, write, and do math in order to better help their children during homework and to help themselves with job opportunities.  We have a parent center in our county, however we need either an in house (in school) parent center or one that is easily accessible to the members of our school’s community for stronger participation.   

      

References:

Kagan, L. Kauerz, K. (2015). Early childhood systems: Transforming early learning (1st ed.). Retrieved from mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780807771754/

Teachstone .(2016). Retrieved from: teachstone.com