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: 8/25/2002 11:52:00 PM Author: Cathy (chindle@telus.net) Subject: comments and a couple of questions Wow! I stumbled on this site while originally looking for poems/inspirational stories to share with parents for a parent-night the week before school starts. (That's what you get when you do a search for "Early Childhood". Any of you guys into the "inspirational short stories" thing? Let me know if you have a good one.) Anyway...I should have gone to bed hours ago, but once I got here I couldn't stop reading. Craig, did you expand your workshop/etc. into a book on the subject? If you do, sign me up for a copy! I have a few comments. First, I've never had the chance to work full-time with a male in a child-care setting, but I would love to! We had a male Out-of-School care staff person at the centre where I did some daycare work. He was GREAT with the kids, and I heard only positive things from everyone involved with him. Unfortunately he was just getting experience for entrance into an Elem. teacher-training program. Yes, wages are an issue. A friend of mine worked in child care until she retired, but her husband was an architect. My husband's a courier. Add that to my preschool teacher's salary and try to get a mortgage on a starter home in our area, and I think bank managers have to keep from laughing until we leave. What do men do, especially if they want to have a family of their own? Re. ideas for involving Fathers--our preschool did not have "duty days", but when one of the two teachers was ill we were allowed to have a parent substitute (to assist the qualified teacher). There was a Father I worked with who out-classed anyone who came to help. He was there to interact with all of the children and I was able to run the program for the day almost as if my co-worker was present. Often (--not always--I don't want to start anything here--) when Mothers came in, they paid the most attention to their child and I had to do behaviour-management for the others in the group and could not do my activities as planned. The Mothers had an attitude that suggested I should be grateful they came to help (and I was), but they were not to be told what to do or how to do it. They were the Mothers (I have no children). They weren't interested in trying to hear from me about what was appropriate and what was not in their interactions with the children. We also had Dads at the concerts/parent evenings/parent-teacher conferences. The best time involving Fathers was what became an annual compliment to our Mother's Day Tea in May. We had a Father/child picnic a couple of weeks before the end of school each year (school's over before Father's Day). We had families each provide a sandwich tray, veggie tray, fruit tray, desert tray, pop or chips. Paper plates, plastic forks and juice boxes were the order of the day. And each Father came with a blanket (for the last hour of the a.m. class, and the first hour of the p.m. class). They had lunch with their child(ren) on their blankets on the lawn, and then we played some games, etc. We had the professional Dads -- Doctors and Businessmen, etc. taking the lunch-hour to be with their child at school (and playing hula-hoops and jump-rope and doing obstacle courses with their little ones). We took pictures and gave everyone a keepsake photo of them with their children. (The second year we had no games for the Dads--the Doctor was grateful, but others were disappointed!) With enough notice (from September), almost every Dad was able to make it. Children whose Father couldn't come invited an Uncle or Grandfather to take his place, so every child had a special guest to spend the day with. Back to the political stuff for a minute. At one school I worked for, the one-time President of the Board (non-profit) confided that they had a male applicant for a teaching job, but that they did not even consider him. His attitude was that men --if they teach-- should teach High School, or Junior High. Upper Elementary, maybe. "But a man who wants to work with young children, there must be something wrong with him." I was disgusted by that attitude! This man was a Father to two preschoolers. Just one of those business people who believe men should want to be in higher-paying, more prestigious jobs (unless there was something wrong with them and they couldn't get hired). (This man also did not have much respect for the young women teachers, either, other than to flirt with the ones he liked and to carefully scrutinize the work of the others.) What can you do in response when someone who can get you fired has an attitude like this? (I liked the job otherwise.) How do we go beyond complaining and change the attitude of others in society like him? (Because it is a wider, societal/cultural issue.) P.S. to Jamie from CA -- Thanks for the tips on playing with the boys! One of my favourite toys as a young girl was trucks and matchbox cars. I'll have to try a "truck voice", but I don't think the children will "buy it" from me :). One last question...Any tips from the men on how to really get the boys (3-5) into art? I taught Art for Early Childhood Education students one semester before moving to a new Province. I had never had a problem with boys not wanting to do art, but some of the students did and I'm not sure my suggestions helped. The text mentioned that all children need to do art, but didn't say how to get reluctant boys to do it! When I teach again, I'd like to have some hints to pass on. Thanks, guys! Name: Email: Subject

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