First and most important I want to thank all my classmates and professor for helping me throughout this course. It was not an easy trip, for it was a difficult ride. I learned a lot from my classmates in their blogs and discussions it made it somewhat easier to understand some topics that were in these modules for the course. I have to say I did find myself struggling and putting my advocate action plan together, but in the end it was a true success. I wish the very best for all my colleagues as they continue to grow in the path of education as professional and advocates when working with young children and families. I know you will all be successful, because I was able to share this experience with you of Blogging and learning from each other. I think everyone had awesome topics on Advocating for children and families, I hope we all continue to grow and make changes to our present and future communities. Best of Luck to everyone and hope to hear from you soon. I want to thank Professor McDevitt for her feedback and advice throughout this journey. I understand it must have been hard managing this class with a large amount of students asking for advice, but somehow you manage to respond back to our emails and phone calls for this I thank you.
The date is almost here for me to present, actually for all my colleagues here in EDU 412 to present. I am sure we will all do very well. So far my plan was to bring my laptop and demonstrate a small presentation with the group gathering plus handouts. In my meeting I will have two parents present, teacher, nurse, parent coordinator, social worker, and assistant principal present. My topic is on parent involvement with lack in healthy snacks during snack time in a Special Education Classroom (parents in this classroom provide the snack, since snack is not funded for children in special education). I am nervous to present, but in the other hand my work colleagues are very supportive. Do you think I should use a screen projector when presenting for a better overview? Do you think I can make a poster presentation (or is that to antique)? Colleagues what ideas or specific resources you think can help me when presenting to a group of 7 totals?
My presentation is based on healthy and nutritionist topics for parents, if you guys have suggestions or are aware of good links and resources than can be helpful for parents and my team in our school building we will definitely appreciate it if you can share. I will definitely add it to my list of resources that I will be handing out to our two parents in our building.
I think this link will help all of us in presenting our advocate action plan. I found this link to be beneficial and helpful.It’s based on how to make presentations be effective. I thought I would share this with you all, but I think having feedback from my colleague’s perspective will help me gather useful information.
Quote: "Your role as a leader is even more important than you might imagine. You have the power to help people become winners." --Ken Blanchard
What inspires and excites you most about your advocacy plan and being an advocate?
Being an advocate is something we are born to be. You either have it or you don’t. Advocating for something you believe in its just remarkable. What inspires me about my advocacy plan is reaching out to parents/guardians, family, staff, colleagues, other professionals in the field to help parent involvement be successful in our community. I feel motivated to inspire and help families feel safe and comfort. I feel motivated to bring a community closer. The families and children where I worked at inspired me to precede such topic. I really do believe changes will come out of this action plan. All professionals in the school building where I’m putting my advocacy plan into preparation are a big influence to my action plan as well as the new knowledge I am learning.
What challenges and/or anxieties do you feel related to engaging in the advocacy efforts you have targeted?
The challenges I feel related to engaging in the advocacy hard work I have targeted are making sure the resources are going to grab my key audience and they will understand the goals of my advocacy plan. A challenge I feel I will come across is communicating with the families in the community to really understand children in their early years and the importance nutrition is at this age. People don’t realize young children need this when they live in low income homes, but this is when they need it the most. I ask myself questions like, “what if they do not cooperate”? “What if it’s something that might not capture their interest”? There are just so many questions in my head. My anxiety with this Advocacy Action plan is making sure I am doing this plan correctly. I want everything to be perfect. I want to be ready for my plan and see results rite away.
What do you believe will be most effective in helping you overcome any challenging emotions you may be feeling with regard to presenting and implementing your Advocacy Action Plan?
Presenting my advocacy plan will be overwhelming for me. But I know that I’m an advocate and I need to reach out to families, teachers, nurses, parent coordinators, we are a community and we are here for the children. The most effective way to help me overcome this challenging emotion is communicating more with families and colleagues. I need to constantly remind myself I am an advocator and this will be a positive change for children and families. I feel comfortable knowing that I have a supporting team behind me; this gives me the encouragement I need.
How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?
I think all my colleagues have brilliant topics and seemed prepare for their action plan. I think it’s amazing to know that there are advocates who really want to make changes in their community. Slowly but steady changes will occur to solve issues that young children in the early childhood field of education face. I think it’s important we all stay focus and not get off track in thinking changes are not going to happen, because they will happen. I would like to see everyone working together cooperatively and alliance to each other.
Best of luck to you. Ashley I know you will succeed in your future because of the experiences you’ve had in this field. I think we all have learned important information from all of our colleagues and field experiences that we will be able to apply our own in to our future teaching. I love your expressions you have on Early Childhood and for having such positive feedback to give to us you will be great as an advocate. Take care best of luck!!!
Brittany,
Thank you Brittany for your awesome post and experiences you had in your observation. I learned a lot of insights from your experience. I think it was awesome that you had the opportunity to work with first graders and observe their work. Best of luck in the future, and I know you will be an excellent teacher and advocate for students and families. Take care!
Thank you colleagues for a great semester. I can honestly tell you this was a great experience for me, I learned a lot from all of my classmates and especially the school I had the pleasure to observe and interview. Among these interviews I had the pleasure to interview professionals and families who were more than delighted to share their insights and experiences with me. It was a learning experience that will benefit me in the long run. Thank you Mrs. Sisie and classmates. Happy Holidays!!
For this module my observations and interactions were mainly focused on the children and their families. On November 18, 2011 Round Lake Preschool had a Parent Day Involvement before we went on Thanksgiving break it was a success. I had the opportunity to observe families and their children play and participate together. This helped me further understand were the parents where coming from. In this special Ed classroom there is a child name Hunter (using a different names) he is diagnose with hearing impaired, he uses a hearing headband to help him hear in the classroom and at home. When his mother arrived to parent involvement she was very happy and ready to help her child and participate in any activity she was able to assist. Her exact words, “I love when the school does these types of activities” Mrs. Hunter (Hunters Mom again different name) says, she enjoys these type of activities this helps her understand more the program of special ed and allows her to ask questions to the teachers about play. I also explained to her the importance play is for her child. We enjoyed our conversation. New insights I learned from Mrs. Hunters point of view, is that parents appreciate the resources the teachers provide about Special Education, she also says building relationships with your children’s teacher is very important. She said she is very pleased with Hunters teachers and therapists because they are working hard to help Hunter succeed and they try to communicate with her as much as possible.
In another case, it was the opposite with Mrs. Perez (change name) for her it is difficult because she is a non English speaker and it is harder for her to communicate with the team and teachers. She told me she is always in need of someone to provide the help she needs sometimes she does not have that options and it makes thinks harder. For example, she mentioned a conference date they had and no one was available to translate, she said, it was the hardest thing ever. The next day she asked her niece to call the teacher and set a date when they can meet again to do the conference but this time with her niece to help her understand. As an advocate for families who have children in special needs it’s very important to meet the parent’s needs, because they need to know their child education. I also was able to observe Mrs. Perez play with her child; she was more interested in starting conversations with other parents than playing with her son. I knew this parent need it a lot of redirection, she is a great parent because she wants to learn and set goals for her son. Mrs. Walker said that she tried to get involved in all the activities as much as she can. I am an advocate for families and one of my topic led to the conversation me and Mrs. Walker were having, I said the school need it more parent involvement days and more resources for the parents in the school. She completely agreed with what I was saying to her. Mrs. Walker is an awesome teacher she tries to do what’s best for the children and always strikes for the best. I’ve learn so much throughout my observations and interactions in the special education field.
