Enlisting and Providing Support from my classmates in 412

            I think that this advocacy assignment has been the most difficult one in my entire experience at Kendall College.  I have also had this plan come to meaning just this past week as I haven't been able to, according to my grades, been able to get on track with it.  I am getting a "D in this class and have never had that sort of grade before.  I try to do things by my self and did the same with this project.  I need to learn to be humble and ask for help or be open minded enough to realize that I may have to start the whole plan over and start from scratch.                                                                                                                              

          I know what I want to attain, and that is that my audience of teachers and parents will unite with effective communication by building partnerships.  What this means is that the teacher will communicate ideas in a way that will provoke responses from the parent to get involved in their child's classroom life, whether before, during or after school.  The parent will feel welcome enough to offer any resources, answers, and after school help to their child.  This will be done with newsletters, conferences and informal gatherings to a smaller scale of emails, notes and bulletin boards.                                                    

          One question that I ask myself is will the information I present be enough for motivation on both sides to make a change that will ultimately help the child.  For the parent to get involved is crucial for that child's academic future as I will show the connection to parent involvement.  I know that a key roadblock is time.  We all have "x" amount of time in the day and to start or request a change, requires extra time in the beginning.  I hope though that my advocacy plan will enable those involved to make a change and know that it will be a positive effect on the child.  I am not concerned with the actual presentation of my effective parent and teacher communication plan as the staff has been very supportive of my plan and are looking forward to what I will put in place for them.  I am concerned that the staff will not continue and carry on with it as it will only benefit those involved.                                      

          My questions to my colleagues is that how open-minded would you be to someone coming to your place, to present a plan on effective parental involvement and what resources and information would you seek if you were looking for effective parent/teacher communication?  My final dilemma is that I keep vacillating between effective parent involvement and effective parent teacher communication.  I know that the two go hand in hand but I can't seem to narrow down my focus.

          I have found http://www.hilltopcc.com/ to be a wonderful place to visit for ideas as two teachers from this center presented at a Leadership Connections conference I went to a few weekends back and the topic of the seminar was "Building Partnerships with Families."   They had a chock full of ideas such as reenacting a play together, as parents, using their child's lines verbatim that they had the teacher write down.  Again, it boils down to how much time does a parent have to get involved I guess.

Module 3 Blog - Advocacy 412

A quote that I found from the Family Preservation Advocate.com is: "Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.  Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself." - William Faulkner

What inspires and excites me most about my advocacy plan and being an advocate is that this is something that will relate to my home daycare business.  My advocacy plan is to get effective parental involvement, specifically, how to get the parents to work with their children at night on skills they have attempted during the day (partnering with their teacher), as well as showing the child that what their child does is validated and not just "busy work". 

The challenges and anxiety I feel is that the teachers will not like my plan as they have had a resentment built up already against the parents.  Hence, which is where I come in.  I think a "seasoned" teacher will not be up to the challenge, mostly due to time, and rightly so.  Anything with change entails time and when you are tired and have been challenged by your students all day, the last thing that you want to do is to create something out of your comfort zone. 

I believe that if I just go ahead and plow in with my plan with the gusto and passion that I feel, I will have a positive reaction and outcome to my plan.  As I have become educated with those I am addressing and getting on board with my plan, I will be more calm and less stressed with the whole plan, especially when I present it.  So I guess that practice makes perfect and will help me with any challenging emotions I may be feeling with regard to presenting and implementing your Advocacy Action Plan.

I can encourage others in their advocacy efforts by telling them to not give up, to reach out to those they feel may help their plan or for feedback as well as helping me stay on track (or get on track) with my plan of parental involvement.

Resources: http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/p/inspirational-quotes.html

I am having a hard time with this course.  I felt that I know what direction I want to go in, but I don't
know if it's essential.  It's hard to stay focused as well as addressing one of so many issues that are out.  I started out with the intention of having my focus be on effective parental involvemenbt that included volunteering, donations, etc. but now I have narrowed it down to the fact that the parent needs to help with the child's progression towards their kindergarten skills.  The teachers at the center I am observing think that the parents are not getting involved and that they are doing their work in vain.  I tell them to continue to do what they are doing and that every little bit helps.

Just checking to see if my followers can see my new 412 blog.