Chapter 5 & 6 Discussion Questions
Kishon
Module3Instructions.docxChapter 5
The staff is the single most important determinant of the quality of an early childhood program. Several trends are evident in staffing, including high turnover, low compensation, high job stress, and inadequate preparation.
The director is the person legally responsible for the total program and services and hence the overall program quality. A director's responsibilities include both a leadership and management component. The director must understand and work within the local community because the community and its culture impacts the early childhood program in many ways, such as: hiring and working with the staff, providing needed services for children and families, resource development, marketing, and advocacy.
The director is responsible for hiring a staff that meets at least minimal qualifications for their specific responsibilities. The director must then build a positive work climate to secure the needed commitment to the program. To do this, the director must create and communicate a culturally-relevant vision, collaborate with staff in achieving the vision, and be an effective manager.
To ensure job satisfaction for staff as well as program quality, the director must enrich the professional life of the staff. Some ways include: encouraging formal education, securing mentors for staff members, providing group professional development activities, urging professional affiliations, alleviating job stress, providing feedback related to performance on a regular basis, and assessing job performance for staff improvement at least annually.
Trends and issues are centered on professional development. Many directors are not prepared for their responsibilities and often cannot find the needed training. Although training for teachers is offered in many places, the content may not meet the specific needs of teachers. Furthermore, the training site and hours may be inconvenient. Even for teachers who achieve credentials, problems in career advancement and compensation remain.
Chapter 6
Environments, more than what anyone says, or what anyone does, teach young children about the world and help them find their place in it. Environments create routines and predictability, signal children how they are expected to behave, and can either instill children with hope or create stress and anxierty by being disrespectful or carelessly created and maintained. Successful early childhood facilities require careful planning. The program’s vision, goals and objectives should be reflected in every aspect of the facility’s design.
The environment will influence child–child,child–adult, and child–material, interactions. Every aspect of the facility’s design deserves attention, beginning with center’s entrance, and including its landscaping, fencing, and parking areas which contribute to the opinions the community develops about the facility and the program it houses. The environment extends to classrooms where children and their teachers and caregivers are engaged in teaching and learning; working and playing; eating, sleeping, reading, writing, singing and laughing every day. The environment includes areas for adults, both staff and families, and extends outdoors to the playgrounds.
The building, playgrounds, learning materials and equipment teachers and caregivers use in their work with children must, above all, be safe and in good repair.
When selecting furnishings, materials, and equipment care should be taken to make the environment convenient, beautiful, and full of interesting and sometimes unexpected details. Room arrangement has a signifant impact on the quality of children’s experiences in the program and should be carefully considered.
Learning extends from the classroom into the outdoors. For that reason equal care should be devoted to creating the outdoor environments. Playground equipment and arrangement must, above all, be safe. When carefully planned and constructed playgrounds have the opportunity to enhance children’s learning across many developmental domains in unique ways.
