Standard 2. BUILDING FAMILY AND COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS

Key elements of Standard 2

2a: Knowing about and understanding diverse family and community characteristics

2b: Supporting and engaging families and communities through respectful, reciprocal relationships

2c: Involving families and communities in young children's development and learning

Personal Analysis

I strongly feel that I have grown tremendously towards mastering the competencies for NAEYC standard 2. When I first began in this program, I knew little about how many different kinds of families children could actually come from, and even less about how to effectively support and engage these diverse families. In my earliest field placements, I did not have extensive opportunities to interact with families, but as I began to learn more about the diversity among each family in each classroom I was in, I made more and more effort to respectfully represent these family and community characteristics in the classroom environment and in the children's learning experiences.

This standard specifically connects to my own philosophy of education, because I believe that families are a vital component of children's development and learning and should be included as much as possible in their children's education. Student teaching has impacted my philosophy by making it all the more clear to me that families are such a vital part of young children's education and development. In my first student teaching placement, I had more opportunities than in previous placements to communicate with and involve families, but it proved much more challenging than I had anticipated. Often, a large number of families did not (or could not) attend school or class events, and sometimes it was difficult to form a reciprocal communication with family members about important information. This made me realize that I want to work even harder going forward to support and encourage families to be involved in their children's development and learning by finding the best strategies to form respectful, reciprocal relationships with each family.

In the context of this standard, I have certain areas of strength and weakness. I feel that I am very passionate about the children in my class, no matter where I am teaching, and that always motivates me to try to involve the parents in our class so that they, too, can see the amazing things their children are accomplishing. I also find myself to be very culturally competent and accepting of diversity. While some may see it as a challenge to have a class full of children of many different cultures, I would see it as an exciting opportunity to support and engage each family in sharing their culture with the class. As for my weaknesses, however, I believe I still need to work on the reciprocal aspect of forming "respectful, reciprocal relationships" with families. I understand that it can be challenging to communicate effectively with some families due to any number of circumstances, but I want to improve in my ability to think of strategies and new ways to include each and every family in their children's development and be able to have that reciprocal communication.

Artifact: Family Event Plan

1. Description

The artifact I have chosen for this standard is my family event plan and reflection from my first student teaching placement in the fall of 2016. As an assignment for student teaching, we were required to plan and implement an event that engaged families in the classroom. My class was a kindergarten class of 22 typically developing students of various cultures and socio-economic statuses. I implemented this event initially at the school's open house and curriculum night early in the school year, and was able to continue the program until the end of my placement, at which point my cooperating teacher took over. I introduced to the families our class's "book-in-a-bag" program in which children could take home a bag of one or two books to read at home with their family members for a week, then bring it back to school and trade it for a new one. At the event, families were given a handout about the many benefits of reading to your children at home, as well as a library card craft that they could complete at home with their child. The library card was a template with a box for a picture of the child that the family member could put on, as well as a line for the child's name that the child could write him/herself, and the child and family member could decorate the rest of the card however they wanted. This library card also acted as an accountability piece for the children, because when the children returned the completed card to school they used it to "check out" a new bag of books each week.

2. Analysis

NAEYC Standard 2 is all about building family and community relationships, and that it exactly what I intended to do with my family event. Element 2a of this standard is "knowing about and understanding diverse family and community characteristics." At the point in the year when I planned this event, I had not met most of the families of my students, and so it was my goal to learn more about each family so that I could understand each diverse perspective. Even though not all of the families attended the event at open house, we did have a relatively large turnout, and so I was fortunate enough to meet at least half of my students' families and was able to understand more of their backgrounds and diverse characteristics. Many of the children come from families with divorced parents or live with extended family, so there are a lot of family members in their lives. I took this into account each week if a child did not bring a book-in-a-bag back to school, because I understood that it was very possible that they did not get to read their book with everyone they wanted to yet or maybe they left it at one parent's house but came to school from the other parent's house, etc.

Element 2b of this standard, supporting and engaging families and communities through respectful, reciprocal relationships, was actually a specific goal of mine with this event. I understand that it can be difficult for families to come to events in person sometimes, and communicating via email or letters sent home in a folder is not always as efficient. At the initial event, I made every effort to engage the families that were present and support them in reading with their children at home. For those who were not able to attend, I sent home all of the materials including the handout, a letter summarizing what I had talked about in person, and the library card craft for them to complete with their children. The reciprocal aspect of these relationships was more difficult, because you cannot really make someone communicate with you, but I was fortunate enough to receive library cards back from nearly every family, and was able to continue to form that respectful, reciprocal relationship with each of them.

3. Reflection

My family event ended up being very successful, although it started of fairly slowly. The reason I say this is because it took a while to get back a lot of the library cards. In addition, some parents/family members just completed the entire library card themselves without working together with their child, but the children still were excited to bring it into school and exchange it for a book. I started off with about 4 or 5, then after a week or two of everyone else seeing those children getting to bring home a book-in-a-bag every week, we started getting back more and more library cards because the children would go home and remind their families. By the end of my placement, almost everyone in the class (except for maybe 3 or 4 children/families) was participating, and it was going really well. Some children still forgot to bring the books back at the end of the week to exchange them for a new one, but I didn't usually mind too much because maybe they didn’t get a chance to read their books with their family members yet and they need an extra weekend with that book.

I think the families are hopefully learning from this event that by reading with their children at home, it gets their child excited about books and about reading in general. They were always so excited to get a new book each Friday and take it home to share with their family, and even more excited if the bag they choose has a book that we had recently read in class that they could talk to their family about what they already know about the story. The children also learned how to be responsible through this activity, because each week if they hadn't brought back their book-in-a-bag, they could not pick out a new one.

One factor I overlooked when I originally planned this event was not including the children and families who never returned a library card. I would respect the family’s decision not to participate if they didn't want to, but I would have still liked to include everyone in being able to read at home with their children. If I were to do this event again, I might try to get more face-time with the families by holding a separate literacy night instead of making my event part of curriculum night/open house. This way I could talk more in depth about the book-in-a-bag program and its benefits, and the families and children could create their library cards together right there as part of the event where materials would be provided. I could also talk about the local library and encourage families to extend upon this event and book-in-a-bag program by bringing their children to the local library and getting them a library card, and letting them pick out their own books from a wider selection.