Observing and Interacting With Professionals/Colleagues in Your Setting- Blog Assignment 2

In my field work this week I was able to discuss some issues regarding developmentally appropriate practice with a third grade and a kindergarten teacher.  From what I heard the teachers describe, developmentally appropriate practice to them means hands-on activities.  From what I observe, I still do not feel they have the best understanding of what developmentally appropriate practice involves.  I feel like if they truly understood there would not be worksheet after worksheet being handed out to the children all day, everyday. 

I also observed the kindergarten teacher's use of developmentally appropriate hands-on activities, and I feel her perception of what constitutes developmentally appropriate practice is a little askew.  While she says she does hands-on activities, the only things I noticed were cookie cutter art and worksheets (some of those included handwriting, math using traditional algorithms, and color by number).  I am not sure if she feels these kinds of activities are what is developmentally appropriate for five and six year-olds, but I did not notice any other hands-on activities that could have feel under what I would consider developmentally appropriate practice.  One thing she does that I do like is she still engages the children in songs.  This is something I hope teachers never give up with the crunch to get the children to meet standards.  Music is a great way to teach different concepts, and I feel that the arts are being pushed out of the public school systems greatly where I live. 

They do have a lot of specials at this school.  I think this does help the students get a variety of learning.  I have not heard of or seen any other schools in the area have so many different special classes to offer their students.  They have gym, computers, and library and music once a week.  The children also take Spanish 3 days a week.  I had the pleasure of seeing one of her lessons, and she uses full immersion as an approach to teaching the students.  Some Spanish teachers focus on basic vocabulary, which does not really teach children how to speak Spanish.  Young children pick up other languages easily, and I feel this is a very good developmentally appropriate approach to teaching young children another language.  I also saw them singing songs and dancing, so I think the Spanish language curriculum at this school is above that of other schools in the area and is going in the right direction with their developmentally appropriateness.