Vickie Chedgy's 2nd Blog Post Module 2

I am interviewing the staff at a center called The Learning Tree in Island Lake, IL.  The facility has one classroom for each age group that includes an infant room, a 2 year-old, a 3 year-old, a 4 year-old, and a 5 year-old through Kindergarten age room.  The transition into each classroom is on their birthday from one to the next older one.  The classrooms are in a circle as you walk in and you have to be buzzed in with a code that each parent has.  There is children's work of art in the hallways as well as in the classrooms.  The site was established in 1973 and it has a feel of such to it.  The rooms have a lot of wooden furniture and unfortunately does not seem that updated with the equipment that I saw such as the "Comb Barbie Head" and most of the materials are worn.  The enrollment is down, but that is such in our McHenry County as I am on the board of a network of home daycare providers. 

     I had done an observation here for a nutritional class and found the teachers styles to be different even with the nutritional  issue.  Some would make the children try something before giving them seconds on their favorites,  whereas some would have them eat the first plate in it's entirety before serving them seconds. 

     I spoke and interacted with the director and five of the teachers here as the facility is not that big and the staff interacts with each as sometimes they have to cover for the other for breaks and such.  The majority of my interviewing was with "Cindy" who is the 2 year-old teacher who on one of the days was integrated in with "Jackie" who is the 4-5 year old teacher.  That is a big difference but they were short staffed in that even the director was absent and no one could cover the front desk.  One way I was going to approach my paper was the involvement of the owner, (i.e. should she come in and cover) but realized after my interview I will go down the path of parent involvement with the teacher and there child's classroom and how to incorporate the class back to home. 

     The challenges related to my original topic of the communication between the parent, teacher and owner/director was how to zoom in.  I seemed to have lost sight that the paper is for child advocacy, not about the adults.  Therefore, I decided to narrow down and focus on the communication between the parents and the teacher in how the parent can get more involved in their children's classroom and how the teachers can carry the classroom over into the children's home. 

     In talking to "Cindy" the 2 year-old teacher, we had discussed how the parents communicate with her about their child.  An insight I gained was that she is not involved in the enrollment process to get to know the parents and the children, the director is.  Cindy will talk to the parents at conferences (which is twice a year and she states maybe two parents will sign up as it is on a volunteer basis).  The other crucial time to talk with the parents is pick up and drop off but the parents pretty much zoom in an out.   She states she has much to share with them but they don't have the time.  I am hoping to shed some light on this subject of the communication between the parent and the teacher.  Cindy's face lights up when she speaks of the children in her care and I also hope to shed light on how well the children are taken care of outside of the home and it goes beyond being a "babysitter". 

V Chedgy First Blog Submission

                      The site that I chose to do my research paper on is a childcare preschool facility in the town that I live.  I own a home daycare so to visit a center is always fascinating to me to get new ideas (hopefully).  My first thoughts on a topic I chose would be the racial bias/bullying aspect and how early does this behavior start?  I was a little disappointed with my first visit as the teacher for the 5-6 year-old classroom I was supposed to interview was sick.  I did interview two other teachers, however, from the 3-4 year-old classroom.  Some of the issues shared from the two teachers and the director was childhood nutrition, parents treating the teachers as babysitters versus the professional teachers that they are, communication and expectations between the owner, director and staff as well as communication between the staff and the parent of the children they teach.  I did get a chance to go back a second day and interview the 5-6 year old teacher and she stated her concerns are childhood nutrition as well as the teachers getting no credit for what they do in the eyes of the parents.                                                                                                             These interviews influenced my decision about which area of interest and topics to choose for my research paper as none of them seemed  to have a correlation to my original thought on the beginning stages or issues or race bias/bullying.  An example of why I chose what I thought would be the direction of my paper is that I have a 5-year old girl in my home daycare.  My one 9-year old in my care came up to me one day and stated the 5-year old called him gay.  I asked her why and she said because he doesn't have a girlfriend.  Another issue along that same path is about bullying as well as how children see the differences in someone not of their own ethnicity.  My town does not have a varied amount of ethnicities and I thought I could go somewhere with this.  Through the interviews though, I learned that it probably is a learned behavior and one that comes out in older years, out of the age-scope of this center.  So I decided to let this topic rest.                                                 Therefore, the area of interest I am thinking of focusing on for my paper could either be the general topic of communication or how to get the parents to recognize what the teachers do for their child.  The related three specific topics would be how to have the parent communicate more of what is going on in that child's home life to make a better transition to their classroom, how to have the provider communicate better with the parent in how the child is doing and what the child is doing in their classroom to carry back over into the home, and finally, how to get the support of the actual center in helping with this, which would address the concern of the teachers that they are not on the same page with the owner and director as to what is expected of them.  I think when the communication is started or implemented, the three entities would become satisfied.                                                                                                                            My previous paragraph sounds broad to some, but it has narrowed down a bit for me.  Does anyone have any ideas how to have me tie this together or is it just too broad?  Any thoughts on my pursuing the issue of race/bullying etc. that you see where you work in the early years?

I am not sure if I am doing this correctly so hopefully I will be up by tomorrow.  Wish me luck as I do not know about the RSS feed.  Any suggestions?

Vickie Chedgy's first blog

I hope this works!  Considering I have been down with the flu for the last two days, I have some energy left in me to complete this!
Wishing everyone well with their research papers and looking forward to blogging with everyone.