Home Hot Topics Articles Directors' Choice Awards About Us / Contact Us Activities & Curriculum Activities for Outcome-Based Learning Arts & Crafts Music for Learning Recommended Reading Sharing Boards: What Do YOU Think? NEWSlink Current National News Conference Calendar Topics In Early Childhood Education Art and Creativity in Early Childhood Education Job Sharing Board State Licensing Requirements Stay Connected! Each month we'll send you an email filled with articles and ideas for your classroom. Subscribe Now Date: 1/18/2006 3:45:00 PM Author: Crystal Subject: I have had many a director come into my ... I have had many a director come into my classroom to make changes. They either remove items I have put in the room, rearrange the furniture or shelves, or add items to the room without discussing it with me. Sometimes, after I do some "spring cleaning" and rotate items into the storage room, I have had the director come in on the weekend and move some of them back. I have not worked at a center where we had a universal curriculum. Therefore, I have developed my own ideas of what works. I do not use ditto sheets of any kind or art projects where I wind up doing half the work. My director has criticized me many times for the "messy" art I display on the walls. She says that parents like to see "nice art" on the walls and need "neat projects" to hang on the fridge at home. I don't have posters on my walls either, and have come in on Monday mornings several times and found posters put up. If I miss a day of work, inevitably, there will be a color sheet copied, colored, and taped on the wall. Why do some directors feel the need to undermine their teachers? I arrage my room the way I need it to be to make my curriculum work. I choose items from the storage room to meet my needs, and rotate them so the kids don't get bored. This expands to making a shopping list for the director too. I make a list of the items I need each month to complete the projects I have plans, but when the director goes to do the shopping, she buys what she thinks I need, and if an item isn't something she thinks I need, she doesn't buy it. Then I'm left short or buying my own things. I understand that the director (in my case) owns the center. But she should respect the teachers enough to at least discuss changes with us before making them. I need to feel like my opinion is valued, even if in the end we make the changes the director wants. Name: Email: Subject

© 2007 Excelligence Learning Corporation, All Rights Reserved.