Why is it  so hard to bring our community in the classroom?

While reading this chapter I thought to myself we living in a community, yet there is no sense of the community in the program that I work for. Why not bring our part of our daily lives into the classroom to make it more meaningful to the children.  I thought about my own center and thought why not open up the classes and let them mingle and see what happens. I’m an extended day teacher and work with three year olds. The site I work at has two three year old classes and two four year old classes. The three and four year olds have separate buildings. In each building there are two classes (same age group) which are separated by a sliding door. I would like to see it opened now that I have read this chapter.

I was captivated by the scenes in the beginning of this chapter. All scenes made even the reader feel welcomed because I could feel how the characters would’ve felt knowing that they are welcomed in their children’s school. I wished that would be the feeling when the parents picked up the their children are the end of the day. It made me start thinking of what I do to welcome the parents when they pick up their children. I noticed that the parents are more willing to talk in the afternoons because most have to rush out in the mornings to get the work or drop off other siblings. My partner and I try to talk with the parents and most times they want to know if their child had a good day in school. I find myself distracted because we do have to supervise the rest of the children in the classroom. This also made me think about our rules in my preschool and we have a strict policy which allows the parents a 10 minute window to pick up their children from extended day and leave. If we wanted to make a time for parents to connect with their children and the teachers I don’t know how that would be possible at my particular site. It is something that I’m going to look into.