A classroom environment consists of three components, the temporal aspect, which means the schedule and transitions throughout the day, the physical aspect which consists of the arrangement of the furniture and the materials available to children and lastly, the interpersonal component, which deals with the number of children and teachers in the classroom and how they relate to each other (Gordon & Browne, 2017). In addition to the children, the teacher should consider the child’s family and cultural context. In its position statement, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) emphasizes that one of the three core concepts of Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) is to understand the child’s family and cultural context (Copple & Brendecamp, 2009). Understanding the child’s cultural and family background is important to creating a positive and caring learning environment. The child’s family is the first teacher and it is important for educators to understand the impact that this background has on the child’s learning and development. Vygotsky (Gordon & Brown, 2017 as cited in Vygotsky, 1978) noted that children learn values, skills, and beliefs passed down from the people in their family.
Culture
When we think of cultural and family influences what often comes to mind is ethnicity, religion, or race, but any group that shares a particular way of life creates a specific culture. Military families are a unique culture (Brown, 2016). As pointed out in Brown’s (2016) dissertation titled Early Childhood Educator Experiences Building Relationship with Families in Military-Connected Schools, military families have a sense of shared beliefs and a language that transcends across all branches of the military. Brown (2016) also points out that the educators who work with children of military families are part of the culture due to their experience with the changing demographics of their classrooms because of relocation and deployment of the children’s parents.
The Problem
Through the literature review, Brown (2016) identified a gap in the process that early childhood educators used to develop relationships with military families. Although teachers generally had ideas for engaging families there was not a specific process for building specific relationships with military families. When teachers support military-connected families they are also supporting student achievement and success. Careful attention should be paid to deployment situations that cause added stress to families and children. Brown (2016) noted that parent involvement enhances children’s development, so it seems fair to say that a teacher’s involvement with a family can enhance the child’s development too.
The Study
Purposeful sampling was used, and eight participants qualified. All of the qualified participants had at least three years of teaching with at least 2 years of teaching in military-connected schools. All of the teachers worked in preschool to third grade early childhood classroom settings in a southwestern state. Open-ended questions were used during phone interviews and email communications with the participants. The questions used were ones to help understand the relationship between the teachers and the military families. The questions contained topics such as methods of communicating with families, what training teachers had to prepare them for working with children of military families, and what professional development did they feel might be helpful to them in their work the military families.
The findings. Five themes were revealed from the interviews. One theme was that teachers used several methods to communicate with parents and a second theme was how the parent’s involvement had to do with the way the teacher communicated to the parent as well as the what was happening in the family’s life at the time and the school culture. A third theme was that deployment stirred up a variety of reactions from children and families and educators went out of their way to support the families. A fourth theme that emerged was that educators felt that they had community supports available, but they desired more training and lastly, educators were resilient in their efforts to help new children feel connected to their school environment (for children that were new due to military relocation).
The research goal was to determine what early childhood educators needed to support building relationships with military families in order to create positive and caring learning environments for the children. Brown (2016) used the findings to create a three-day series of development trainings for teachers of preschoolers through grade 3 titled, From Home Front to School Front: Building and Sustaining Parent-Teacher Relationships in Military-Connected Schools. In this training, teachers learned more about the deployment cycle, how to use books to create lesson plans to talk about military families and deployment and teacher resiliency.
Relevant Resources
A few of the many resources that stood out in this study were the ones that pointed to the positive effects that parents have on their children’s education when they are engaged with the teachers and the school community. Shiffman (2013), noted that parental involvement increased the cognitive and emotional development and generally provided an overall enhancement to the child’s development. Shiffman’s article titled Locating Common Ground: An Exploration of Adult Educator Practices that Support Parent Involvement for School-Age Children (2013) also addresses parent efficacy or the degree to which parents think they are enhancing their children’s development. Parent’s that are deployed may feel that they are unable to provide the needed support to their children. In Brown’s (2013) study, one teacher encouraged children to write letters to their parents. In this way, the teacher is helping the child stay connected and finding an alternate way to engage the family member who is not physically available.
A second relevant source used by Brown (2013) is by Johnson & Ling (2013). In their article titled Caring for Military Children in the 21st Century, (Johnson & Ling, 2013) they address the resiliency of children of military families. Teachers need to recognize the strengths of the children of military families and realize that this is a way of life, not to be viewed as a handicap. Understanding military family culture may help teachers to resist making assumptions and stay away from a biased attitude toward how children and families manage situations in their military culture.
A third source used by Brown, (2013) is an article titled, Parental involvement to parental engagement: A continuum (Goodall & Montgomery, 2014). This article is relevant to the study because it addresses the idea of defining parental involvement. Parent involvement or parent engagement is traditionally thought of as parent activity within the classroom or in meetings and conferences. Parents’ engagement can be more than classroom activities as described in the scenario where the teacher had the children write letters to their deployed parents. In this way, the teacher engaged the parents even though they were not physically present. Goodall & Montgomery, (2014) describe parent involvement as the parent being engaged in the child’s education. The focus is more on the parent-child relationship rather than the parent-teacher relationship. It would serve families well if teachers supported the parent-child relationship. Doing so would empower parent’s self-efficacy as a support for their child and it would have a positive impact on the child’s learning and development.
Conclusion
The information from Brown’s dissertation will help to further my knowledge in understanding that a child’s family background and culture influence their everyday activity in the classroom. It is my role as an early childhood educator to get to know and understand not only the culture related to the child’s race, religion, or ethnicity but also the aspects and traditions that the children learn from their family communities. Military families have their own culture, as do families from extreme wealth or poverty. As an educator, I must be aware of any implicit biases that I have so that I can remain open and understanding to all children so that I may foster supportive learning environments through a positive classroom community.
Photo Credit: "Nature Kids Preschool"bySeattle Parks & Recreationis licensed underCC BY 2.0
References
Brown, Y. S. (2016). Early childhood educator experiences building relationships with families in military-connected schools. (Doctoral dissertation) Retrieved from https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/1994
Copple, C. & Bredekamp, S. (Eds.) (2009) Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children
Goodall, J., & Montgomery, C. (2014). Parental involvement to parental engagement: A continuum. Educational Review, 66(4), 399–410. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1080/00131911.2013.781576
Gordon, A. M. & Browne, K.W. (2017) Beginnings and beyond: Foundations in early childhood education. Boston, MA: Cengage.
Johnson H.L. & Ling C.G. (2013) Caring for military children in the 21st century. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 25(4). doi:10.1111/1745-7599.12003
Shiffman, C. D. (2013). Locating common ground: An exploration of adult educator practices that support parent involvement for school-age children. School Community Journal, 23(2), 185–206.