Observation and Interactions

These past two weeks have been chalked full of interesting and challenging changes for the staff.  Since I am employed at my site of observation I have found that keeping myself out of the role of teacher and in the role of observer is sometimes difficult because I want to jump in and help resolve issues. 

I had the opportunity to observe the assistant teacher take over the lead teacher role, in my time of stepping out, and engage with the rest of the adults in the classroom while trying to maintain a continuity for the children.  Not only am I in my internship but we have collaborated with two local colleges/universities that also brings in three interns into my classroom each day.  A challenge that I have observed is trying to guide these interns, who have limited experience in an Early Childhood Education classroom much less with a Head Start classroom.  Just getting them used to a daily routine is unique but as we were conducting the orientation process for the large group I found that even though they were asked if there were any questions they did not know what to ask.  It is going to be interesting to help guide the interns through the Head Start philosophy while also understanding that their ultimate goal is not to even end up in this professional field.  This does remind me though, the importance of knowing the benefits our program has to offer over a day care or child care center and especially over no social experience before entering into a school system.  The one student who is interning from a different program is working on her degree in Early Childhood Education.  I found that orientation to go so much more smoothly then the larger group.  She had a number of questions and seemed extremely interested in what we did for the children and their families.  With both groups I look forward to observing and sharing information that will definitely allow them to learn more about the Head Start program.

One task that I took on for my work is interviewing some of the families; which I tied into this blog assignment as well.  Since we are beginning our recruitement process for next school year I wanted to know how the parents from this school year heard about our program, what they knew about Head Start before entering the program, what is a few things they have learned since being in our program, if we have helped connect them with any medical/dental support programs, and if there was anything else they wanted to share with our staff.  I was so pleased and excited at the responses that I got; so much so that I have been asked to send out a questionaire to all of the families to get their feedback as well.  Many of the families came to use with limited knowledge about our program; believing we were mainly a "free" day care type program.  They have been so pleased with getting help with medical and dental appointments; our family service worker has even taken a few of the children with their families in his personal vehicle just so they could get seen.  All the information that we are gathering from these questionaires is going to help us with our Public Relation efforts.  To have quotes to advertise with is going to be so beneficial.  It also helps the families that we have now understand that we are definitely making a difference and they are seeing the developments.  That makes me feel great!