government - diversity in child care practices

Detailed Description:

One of the greatest challenges in providing culturally sensitive child care is the inevitability of "clashes" between personal practices, center practices, and family practices. Staff often find themselves in confusing binds, juggling competing beliefs and practices regarding child care. For example, they may personally believe children should be potty trained when they are a year old. Guidelines set forth by the National Association for the Education of Young Children's [NAEYC] Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs, Revised Edition suggest that children should not be forced into potty training before they are ready (some children aren't ready until they are four years old). And some families start potty training their children at nine months of age - before the children can even stand by themselves. Issues like these come up all the time and have no easy answers. Yet, staff must be prepared and willing to discuss with families where differences lie and explore how to deal with those differences. �Staff will be presented with cases/scenarios that focus on child care practices in Head Start centers and in children's homes. The cases/scenarios will be linked through underlying themes to help staff see connections between content and issues and to foster exploration, self-reflection, and problem solving.

Because this CFH is geared toward adult teaching staff in migrant Head Start centers, and staff are encouraged to set their own learning goals, assessment will be flexible and depend primarily on goals identified by staff. Education coordinators, who typically oversee the education program for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers in the migrant Head Start centers, may also choose to evaluate teachers' on-line and group discussion contributions and journal reflections and identify for topics and issues for further exploration.

Learning Outcomes:

The learner will be able to:

Increase knowledge of diversity and communication issues that can exist between teachers and families.
Increase awareness of one's own reactions, attitudes, experiences and feelings regarding diversity as they relate to child care/child rearing practices (cognitive reflexivity).
Improve ability to temporarily suspend judgement about practices with which one disagrees in order to see other perspectives.
Increase awareness of problem-solving strategies for negotiating and resolving conflicts caused by cultural differences.
Develop metacognitive skills/learning strategies.
Practice/improve English reading and writing skills.
Gain skill in using the computer (e.g., keyboarding, using the mouse), and experience in using the computer as a tool for learning.