Olivia Teja - Early Childhood Educator
Key Elements
2a: Know about, understand, and value the diversity of families.
2b: Collaborate as partners with families in young children’s development and learning through respectful, reciprocal relationships and engagement.
2c: Use community resources to support young children’s learning and development and to support families, and build partnerships between early learning settings, schools, and community organizations and agencies.
2a: Knowing about and understanding diverse family and community characteristics.
Evidence and Artifacts
2b: Supporting and engaging families and communities through respectful, reciprocal relationships.
Evidence and Artifacts
2c: Involving families and communities in young children's development and learning.
Evidence and Artifacts
Reflection
As a teacher, we need to understand diverse family since we have more children from diverse language and cultural groups.
I learn that culture refers to explicit and implicit values, beliefs, and patterns of behavior that are passed on from generation to generation. In addition to visible elements (Food, Clothes, Music, and celebration), the invisible elements are important as it truly influence behavior and decisions.
If we fail to understand the influence of children’s background on their development, it can lead to misunderstanding and miscommunication about children and their families.
As a teacher, I can make inaccurate assessments of children’s competence and ability that can lead to ineffective teaching that does not meet the needs of all students.
To avoid it, I can integrate diverse perspective into my teaching by engaging in critical self- reflection to uncover implicit personal biases and assumptions, and bridge understanding across cultural groups.
Reflection
I believe parent’s engagement help with student’s achievement. As a parent and as a teacher, we have same goal “We want our students to be successful in life and in school”.
To create a respectful and reciprocal relationships, I will ensure that parents know that they are welcome to come to class to volunteer or meet with the teacher anytime they need.
Due to COVID, I have been changing the collaboration with remote meeting and routine check in to ensure that the students are doing well. I also encourage them to call or send email if they have questions about their children.
Pre COVID, I encourage parents to come and volunteer so I can build relationship with parents.
I want to make sure that parents know that they can come to meeting for shared decision making at school together to get more buy in from family.
Reflective Connection
I believe when we involve families and communities, we actually help student’s achievement as we have common goal “Parents and teachers want their students to be successful in school and in life”.
When I involve families in student’s development, the students will perform better in school since parents are their 1st teacher.
When parents feel welcome and engaged, they will provide more support for their children to be successful.
To support students with disability, I learn from the InclusionPlanningChecklist.pdf that IEP (Individualize Education Plan) can be created by partnering with parents, admin, as well as specialist. With IEP, students with disability can become more successful in their learning.
