Monday, April 8, 2013
Introduction- Developmentally Appropriate Practice
Hi Everyone, welcome to my blog on ECE advocacy. I would like to do my blog on developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood. I am extremely concerned with how public schools in the state of Michigan run their curriculum. From the classrooms that I have observed I am not seeing a great deal of attention focused around DAP, and I would like to advocate for the issue. This topic came to me this past week when I dropped my daughter off in her kindergarten classroom at a charter school that is advertised as "for Advanced and Creative Studies". I carefully selected this school and drive 160 miles total everyday to take her to school there, as I was confident that the name of the school reflected their educational philosophy. I was sickened to talk in and see the children doing subtraction on a worksheet using traditional algorithms. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that perhaps since the school is supposed to be "advanced" that they were past understanding what they were doing with the algorithms. Unfortunately, as I began working on her homework with her this weekend I noticed the same worksheet in her homework packet, and I was not surprised when my daughter had no idea what tens and ones places were, yet she was drawing a line dividing the two columns. I decided to show her what all of this meant in an attempt to help her make sense of the process she was using and why she was using it, instead of senselessly subtracting numbers that she saw on the paper using a meaningless strategy her teacher taught her. Unfortunately I am a working mother and cannot afford to stay at home and homeschool her, plus she really enjoys school and her friends. I feel like her school has so much potential to use DAP, yet they are not properly trained in how to do so, as the elementary education program (from what I have been told by graduates of the local universities) does not teach them in such a manner, but rather in old fashioned models of teaching which are doing these children any educational justice. Through this course I hope to really find some information to back up my strong feelings towards this issue, and hopefully by the end of the school year I will be able to bring my concerns to the board of education, as well as their Dean (principal), and hopefully I will be able to propose this to the teachers as well, so that perhaps we can develop a plan as to how to make this school live up their name and the expectations parents have for their children's education.
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Hi Laura
ReplyDeleteThis is Sherrell, and this is a test.
This is a working blog
ReplyDeletewow Laura great job on your blog! I envy you... you really know what your doing here I am not having as easy of a time with all of this!
ReplyDeleteLaura,
ReplyDeleteIn response to your comments on my post on early childhood intervention I like to say I like that you refer to the classroom as “our classroom” instead of my classroom, I feel this way help students to feel like they are a part of it not a product of it. It instills a sense of a classroom community. I feel that as Early Childhood professionals we must be aware of community resources to help our families in need. So many children come from homes that are in need. Getting to know our families, building trust and establishing a good relationship is what we should strive for. I have to say that the program I work at is great at doing this. We also have a lot of items donated to our program and we make sure it goes to a family who can use the items. Home visits help to establish trust and allow us to better understand the child by his or her home life and experience. Not to judge parents but to be professionals and respect our families and not look down on them.
As far as “Developmentally Appropriate Practice” goes I feel agree with the third grade teacher its “hands on”. Unfortunately in our schools today it’s a lot of work sheets that are used to teach children. Some work sheets are fine and are needed, but what happened to not all children learns the same and the value of hands on learning? This is something I don’t understand? Research shows that children learn from hands on and a variety of activities geared at their age and abilities but in kindergarten we use too many worksheets, in my opinion. I was in a first grade room for some field work and there were very little hands on learning going on. I d like to see teachers add some hands on experience to the worksheets so those children who need to be taught another way are given that chance. I know teachers have a tough job, classrooms are full and they are often instructed to teach this way, which is a lot of worksheets and less of any other kind of learning experience. As we strive to build test scores, I believe that in will only continue this way. We have incorporated technology in today’s classrooms, and that’s can help break up the worksheets some.