Starting somewhere

From: Francyne Wharton
Email: francynewharton@aol.com
Date: May 26, 2006

Comments

I am the Director of Education at a for-profit "chain" of 40 early education and care centers in urban, low-income areas in PA, NY and OH. My current responsibility is launching a preschool curriculum framework. We've selected to follow Core Knowledge Preschool and will begin the roll-out process in August. This framework includes Autonomy and Social Skills, whereas our previous did not. I've received negative reaction from teaching staff already. I will review the resources already discussed in this forum as I continue to search for ways to break through to teaching staff who've decided "nothing works" and they can't "make a difference." I've had some success using materials from Child Care plus+ and am a Family Communications (Mr. Rogers) facilitator for "What Do You Do with The Mad That You Feel?" and "Challenging Behaviors: Where Do We Begin?" There is a four-column chart that takes participants to thinking about one particular child's challenging behaviors to thinking of their interests and strengths to understanding and observing patterns to possible strategies. I remind teachers of the story where the grandfather is walking on the beach with his grandson who is trying to save starfish. The grandfather is trying to tell the boy that the boy's efforts won't make a difference as there are too many starfish to save. As the boy throws one of the rescued starfish back in the water, he tells the grandfather. "It will make a difference to this one."

This week I worked on having the teachers do "simple" things like making sure they offer water to children frequently as to cut down on one particular type of stress. Next week we are reflecting on our observation practices.