Advocacy as a Community Effort
When communities work together with programs, early educators, schools, and families, advocacy for young children becomes a shared, personalized endeavor. Through formal and informal interactions, particular areas of strength and need become apparent that provide communities with the information they need to set priorities and distribute resources. Teachers and caregivers are in a unique position to facilitate this process; besides membership in national professional organizations (see Chapter 1), at a local level, they can:
- Participate in local or regional professional association activities, such as the NAEYC’s Week of the Young Child
- Serve on site-based school improvement councils
- Volunteer for community improvement projects and initiatives
- Write letters to local government or private-sector representatives to identify areas of need or opportunity
- Collaborate and network with educators in other programs
As you gain experience and knowledge about families and the community, your understanding of how to connect these resources with your curriculum will grow. You will see that the curriculum can respond to, include, and reflect unique perspectives that reinforce John Dewey’s observation that “the school must represent present lifelife as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the play-ground” (1897, p. 78).
Chapter Summary
- Collaborating with families and communities involves communication, engagement, and shared decision making between teachers, programs, and families. Research documents the many ways in which collaboration among teachers, families, and communities benefit all involved.
- Ecological and family systems theories provide a basis for understanding how productive relationships can be established and maintained.
- Despite challenges such as building trust and logistics, family involvement at school or the child-care program can be effectively accomplished through formally established programs or grassroots efforts.
- Helping parents understand learning standards includes providing information about standards, accountability systems, and developmentally appropriate assessment.
- Teachers use many different strategiesincluding curriculum documentation, technologies, and interactive eventsto help families understand and connect with the curriculum.
- Teachers gather information about children and their families to gain insights about the kinds of ways in which they can be considered primary resources for the curriculum and to help them identify and respond to interests and needs.
- Teachers also gather information about the community in order to uncover opportunities for enhancing the curriculum with real-world, meaningful experiences.
Discussion Questions
- Identify aspects of working with families that you feel most and least confident about and what you might do to either strengthen or enhance those capabilities.
- From what you already know about the community in which you live or work, brainstorm an initial list of possible curriculum resources; use the card format from Figure 5.6 to record information about them.
Place Your Order Here!