Polly Smith – What our team needs

Leave a Reply Cancel

РезюмеТранскрипцияПовече

I'm very impressed by their commitment to children and to their profession, and to the families. I'm very impressed by their ability to know why they are here. I work to find ways so they will know that. At the same time because I think that I believe in certain cases there are things that need to be examined and we need to think intentionally. We need to strengthen our communication with one another, in order to be more efficient and effective in the way we do run our operation and we accomplish things that need to be accomplished. So we have more time to spend on the things that are most important. And we have more time discuss together, to be collaborative. [02:14:00] The way this center works, because of it being a full daycare, the teacher’s work varying shifts, there's very little time for teacher collaboration, and there is very little time for teacher discussion. The teachers are mostly planning and analyzing their work and assessing their work, and talking about what are we learning from the children, where do we want to take our curriculum next? It happens really individually because their are not many hours in a week or a month for this to get discussed. I would like to think that I could impact on their seeing what they sacrifice and to work harder to make opportunities for collaboration happen, and this is a structural thing, because teachers here have operated their days and their times for their classrooms in a certain way, which minimizes their opportunities to get together. So if teacher were more open to a different structure to their day, we might be able to maximize opportunities to get together and talk more collaboratively. I would like to encourage teachers to see the power of observation, and the power of documentation, to grow in their ability to peel the onion from the inside out. To look at an activity or happening or exchange from the inside, and say, what is the core of what's really happening here? And what am I learning by seeing this, and where should I go next? [02:16:00] I think that is an area in which eve though many teacher are extremely thoughtful about their planning, and their are many good things happening, as a center, this is not something we can talk about together because we don't share the same ideas. If we use the word documentation to one person, it's taking a photograph and sticking it on the wall, to another person it's creating a portfolio of children's work and children's photographs, and anecdotes and stories about the child's experience, and taking time to create meaning out of all those experiences with the child. This is what I would like to influence, and it's challenging to do it, because it's a school that's very strong in the culture that has been successful for them. And it's a school that's very strong in the culture of how they feel good about themselves. I'm finding it challenging to take a staff into areas where they feel less competent, but haven't framed the question yet themselves.

Translate »