Early childhood teaching is a profession that is closely linked to interaction with parents and their involvement in the process of their children’s development. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how important a strong relationship between parents and teaching professionals for early childhood education is.
NAEYC Standard
Standard 2: Building Family and Community Relationships outlined in the 2010 NAEYC Initial & Advanced Standards for Early Childhood Professional Preparation Programs is linked to creating a respectful relationship between the educational institution, parents, and the community (NAEYC, 2010, p. 29). It is based on the importance of involving student’s families in the process of their learning and overall development. To be specific, the Standard can aid in resolving issues between a father and his son that directly affect the process of learning. If a child is being discriminated against in the community, the skill of involving parents in a community will be beneficial. Lastly, if, for instance, a child lacks some resources needed for their education, a professional can become a medium of finding required resources with the community’s help.
Questions to an Early Childhood Professional
If the school’s management wishes to facilitate and encourage the active development of their students, a tight connection with parents should be established (Ferguson, 2005, p. 1). Concerning the process of building a strong connection between the school personnel and parents, what is the first step?
As mentioned in Colker (2008), an early childhood professional is driven by a set of personal characteristics to match the profession (p. 3). What are the main characteristics of a successful early childhood professional in developing a personalized approach toward the issue of cooperative work?
For the family to start participating in the teaching process of their children, a professional should be able to extend the limits of simple family conferences (NAEYC, 2010, p. 30). In your opinion, what activities will maintain the parent’s engagement?
In Chapter 7, Feeney, Galper, and Seefeldt (2008) pose a question of whether an early childhood education is indeed a profession (p. 228). Can you point out some attributes that do, indeed, make this job a profession that requires training and a lot of skills?
Key elements of Standard 2 include the involvement of families, building relationships with parents, and understanding the attributes of a diverse family. What are the additional characteristics of the Standard that make it even more crucial to the educational process?
Contact Information and Request Explanation
The early childhood professional to contact is Mrs. Jane Olsen from the Illinois State Board of Education that provides educational workers, nurses, as well as other individuals that deal with children with information on early childhood programs and professional development.
The professional will be contacted to ask questions about practical situations that appear in the process of teaching. For instance, if one child is being discriminated by others because he does not have expensive clothes or smartphones, the advice is needed of whether to include the child’s parents in resolving the conflict or reserve to the in-class training targeted at teaching children to understand that not everybody possesses the same resources to afford expensive items.
The exercise was useful for evaluating the primary characteristics of an early childhood professional as well as understanding the importance of involving children’s parents in the teaching process with more than a conference meeting. An early childhood professional should be able to engage the parents or caretakers into a conversation with the school so that every party that is interested in children’s successful early development makes equal contributions.
References
Colker, L. (2008). Twelve Characteristics of Effective Early Childhood Teachers. Web.
Feeney, S., Galper, A., & Seefeldt, C. (2008). Continuing Issues in Early Childhood Education (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Web.
Ferguson, C. (2005). Organizing Family and Community Connections With Schools: How Do School Staff Build Meaningful Relationships With All Stakeholders? Web.
NAEYC. (2010). NAEYC Standards for Initial and Advanced Early Childhood Professional Preparation Programs. Web.