Thursday, January 23, 2014

Parent, Family, and Community Engagement

The professional and personal significance you drew from these stories:
The one story that stood out to me was Tess Dunlap's.  She explained how unaware she was about the Head Start program and all that it did for the children.  Like many of the parent's who have children enrolled, she saw it as nothing more then a daycare.  Tess soon realized how much more it was.  The program helped her overcome family issues regarding alcohol and even gave her the courage to get her bachelor's degree.  This story helped prove that the Head Start programs are much more than a preschool.  They provide the children and the families opportunities that they might not get if they tried on their own.


Your opinion regarding why or why not parent/family involvement is an essential system element for all strands of service in the early childhood field:
Parent/family involvment is extremely important when it comes to sevicing the early childhood field.  Having volunteered in Head Starts, it is obvious which families take the time to help their children succeed and which ones do not.  Having the families and parent's involved shows the children that they care about what they are learning and what they are doing in school.  Parent's are their children's first teachers.  If they do not make the effort to help promote what the teacher's do within the classroom, the children will not be able to get the most out of their experience at the Head Start setting.

2 comments:

  1. I loved listening to the families talk and hear how much they felt they had learned and changed. It was really inspiring.

    Betsy Carlin

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  2. Jacqueline,
    This week's video showed how parents enjoyed working with Head Start to improve learning for their children. Parental involvement is very important to children's development and learning. Parents also benefit from the relationships with teachers, because, they can help to tailor learning for the children.

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