Monday, February 15, 2010
Dealing with different situations as an educator
Holidays are always interesting to celebrate in K-12 schools. Public, private, and charter, they all have their rules and guidelines on what you can and cannot do on these days. More and more we are finding that holidays can be offensive to different types of people. Well as you know, this week we celebrated Valentines day. In my kindergarten class there are two children who's religion keeps them from celebrating such things as birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, and Valentines Day. But, it is fair to the other children to limit the activities they can do although the rest of the school is doing it? The way we compromised this problem is, we did the activities anyways. We felt that as a classroom the majority could join in the activities so it was only fair to keep it available to these children. So, for my lesson this week we made homemade Valentines and the two children who do not celebrate the religion didnt come. The teacher expected this, but the arrangement I had made for these two were to have them make a card that didn't have a connection with Valentines day. As an educator there are going to be many different situations that I am going to have to deal with, and this was a good lesson for me to get first hand experience with one of them.
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What a great blog topic, Alicia. Your blog is really easy to follow, and I like all of the pictures that you have of the kids that you work with. At the same time, I'm just curious if you need to have the parent's or school's permission to post their pictures on your blog?
ReplyDeleteI've often wondered about how teachers deal with situations such as the one that you described here. With religion being such a taboo topic in our schools, it's scary how something as seemingly innocent as Valentine's Day cards can turn into a crisis. It's too bad you weren't able to try your alternate card idea with the kids, but I suppose that it all worked out in the end anyway. Good luck as you continue your internship!
Thats a great question! The school has a media permission form that the parents have to fill out when the child enrolls. I have been informed which child's parents have declined this permission, but documentation is a big part of my research so I have made sure I can photograph and post. They can be in the newspaper, news, internet... really anywhere that is open to the public.
ReplyDeleteDid the kids come to school at all that day?
ReplyDeleteAs for the pictures, I do wish there were more of them. I don't believe it is as necessary to have the kid displaying their artwork, however, it does make it more engaging to see visuals as well as the description of the project. e.g. the butterflies.