Observing and Interacting with Children and Families

During this aspect of my internship, the interaction focused on children and families in my setting.  My observation setting is positioned at the AGBMS School in Wheeling, IL., which is a Montessori School and an alternative school for the hearing impaired. 

One of the families that I interacted with was experiencing severe separation anxiety with their child.  He had been in the early childhood center for approximately 4 months and when left at the center would continue to cry for prolonged periods of time, like a new child.  This child was just under 2 years old.  These separation issues created concerns for the child, his family, the children in his classroom and for his teachers.  I had some discussion with the other classroom teacher and the director about the child, and we all agreed to meet to talk about some potential solutions. 

We discussed the child’s family setting, family customs, habits, family work schedules, and any other issues we thought would be important to helping us all sort things out together.  We used video to help the parent see what happens in the child’s daily environment.  The video became a reflective practice tool to further discussions by comparing notes, and perspectives.

After sorting through all the data and continuing in dialogue with the family, a suggestion was made to establish a ritual for the child, i.e. pick-up and drop-off would be done the same way, same place and same time. This ritual would facilitate predictability, comfort and consistency.  The family along with the staff discussed what the ritual would be daily, and all parties agreed to try not to deviate from this ritual to support the child in getting beyond this hurdle.  I suggested to the family that they put together a small family photo album, and let the child help to do this.  Then whenever the child had difficulty with separations we would use the family album to help him sort through them. The parents were so grateful for the suggestions and the overall support, and even shared their satisfaction with others in the program.

Reflective practices using video and other resources were key to helping this family sort through and discuss concerns.  Encouraging families with dialogue and verbiage that indicates that you will "sort things out together" helps families feel like they have geniune support when going through difficult times with a child.

Observing and Interacting with Program Directors and Other Administrators

My task for this aspect of my internship was to observe and interact with program directors or other administrators in the program.  The administrative structure for the AGBMS School consists of an Executive Director of the School, Director of Education and three Associate Directors, which includes a Director of Deaf Services and an Admissions Director and Early Childhood Director.
 
The Early Childhood Director, Jessie Maag has spoken at length with me about her efforts to revamp the literacy program, and create a project approach to language and literacy for all the early childhood classrooms.  This would be a coordinated effort that could require teachers to collaboratively work together e.g., in a lesson-study group format to discuss and integrate ideas that could support all teachers.  This concept supports the professional development of teachers, as it helps teachers work together to form best practices in a particular area of focus.  This supports the aspect of my research, that asks the question, "how can professional development of teachers build effectiveness and quality in the field. It is supported by the premise that when teachers are versed in early childhood educational practices in both theory and application in the classroom through observations and quality interactions with the children, they are able to engage in more meaningful learning that helps support early literacy.

The Director said that the  idea is to construct a year-long theme which would be integrated school-wide.  For example if the theme is "Seasons"  -- each early childhood classroom, would initiate books of the month into the classroom that would be read  2 -3 times minimally a week, and would include realouds during circle time venues.  Each classroom would implement their own developmentally appropriate ideas for other language activities.  These activities would encompass areas such as sensory, phonemic awareness, music and songs.  It was discussed that children that are exposed to words at least 5 different times are more likely increase vocabulary and literacy results.

The Director, as well as the Exective Director's focus  is to attempt to build a community of parents, teachers,& administration that can work seamlessly together to enhance the literacy levels of all children within the school.