Working with Families in Urban Communities Fall 2000 This class meets Monday nights (not every Monday) from 4:30 to 6:30. The teacher is Amy Boyle. This class came as a surprise to me. I thought it was going to be a little one credit class on how to deal with families. Little did I know! This class is a required class for a different major, and just about everyone in the class knows each other except me. There are about 7 or 8 of us. It's also a fieldwork class! Completely set up for early childhood! Ha! The first day of class, when she was explaining everything, I just kind of sat there, shell-shocked, wondering what I was going to do. I couldn't just drop it (financial aid reasons, mostly), it was too late to add another class, so I sat through the initial discussion to listen to what it was all about. The premise to this class is the idea of early intervention by a team of staff, including educators, to at risk kids age 0-5. Here was me thinking, "Okay, I'm a high school teacher with absolutely no interest in younger kids. What am I gonna do?" The more I listened, however, the more interested I became. I think of this as my "thinking outside the box" class. It has been fascinating to see another view of education! One of the assignments we did in class was a reading that involved a teenage mother. Everyone in the class talked about how they had to deal with the child and couldn't do anything for the mother, while I sat there thinking how we had to get that mother (16) back in school, looking to the future, etc. I've really enjoyed looking at something from a new angle! We've had many interesting articles on early intervention ideas, which I plan to set up on another page soon. We also did an assignment to look at our own cultural biases which was great (and will also be set up on another page soon!). I may even take the second part to the class in spring semester! Return home Email me! This page hosted by Geocities