Community Blog

In my community we have some after school programs such as YMCA Kids Club, Big Brother Big Sister, and we used to have Latch Key. The YMCA Kids Club has a bus that picks students up at their school and takes them to the YMCA. There they can play games and do homework until their parents get off work or until about 5:30. The down side to the YMCA Kids Club is that you have to pay for your child to attend. Big Brother Big Sister is a program that has older students come to the elementary schools to help younger students with their homework, and can play games with them. The problem with Big Brother Big Sister is that it does not meet everyday, so there are sometimes when a child has no place to go after school. In my community we used to have a program called Latch Key, I am unsure if the program still exists in my community. One thing that I could do is to help provide an after school program that children could go to everyday, and that does not cost money. I could try and find other teachers to help me organize this after school program. I could also try to get a grant to help fund the after school program and provide snacks for the students.

Parent Teacher Conference

During my parent teacher conference I learned that you never know what to expect before a conference. You never know how the parent will react to the information you tell them about their child. I learned that it can be very uncomfortable to talk to a parent if their child is causing problems or not doing well in class. I also learned that the better prepared you are for a conference and the more documentation you have about the child, the more respect a parent will have for you and your suggestions. 

Drug and Alcoholic Families

After watching the video I learned a lot about how drug and alcohol addictions can affect the life of many young children. This would raise many issues in a school or classroom such as not being able to have friends over because your parents are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Children would also not be able to go to friends houses because their parents were to drunk or high to take them. Those situations would affect a child's social life at school and in their future life. If a child were being abused at home then the child could be very distant from their classmates and have no friends at all. Having a parent addicted to drugs or alcohol could make the child learn to care for themselves at a very young age. This would then take the parents out of the picture at a very young age, and the parents would have little involvement in the schools.