“I agree that personal experience is what makes the entire reading process meaningful. That's why I think what is most important, what best prepares preschool children and kindergartners for reading, is play. I'm referring to well-developed dramatic play, where children take on rich roles and create fantasy worlds that are of their own design. Children develop incredible story lines with their play partners. This kind of dramatic play provides the best backdrop for developing cognitive skills, including symbolic thinking and self-regulation and, specific literacy-related skills such as oral language.”
- Deborah Leong, Ph.D
The African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” summed up for me the commonplace conclusion that, like it or not, we are living in an interdependent world where what our children hear, see, feel, and learn will affect how they grow up and who they turn out to be. The five years since 9/11 have reinforced one of my main points: How children are raised anywhere can impact our lives and our children’s futures.
- Source: 2006 intro to It Takes A Village, by H. Clinton
“As I grew up, I wanted to continue to be a teacher because I had a built in passion that it was important to make a real contribution to the world.”
- Louise Derman-Sparks
“I’m not here to save the world; I’m here just to make a difference in the community that I’m working. To me, making a difference may sometimes mean helping one child be able to be successful in the classroom. For me, that one little sparkle will make a difference for me throughout the whole day. Whenever I get bogged down with all the paper work that I have to do a lot of times, I’m just like okay, take 20 minutes to go see the children so you don’t forget what you are doing all of this for.”
- Raymond Hernandez
I love the quote by Raymond Hernandez. He is so correct, we cannot possibly save the world but we can make a difference in our little area of it.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your quotes. I use that quote it takes a village to raise a child often when I speak to my parents during parent teacher conferences because I want them to know that they are not doing the child rearing alone. I also encourage the parents to read to their children as often as possible. I have even gven out books from my library for parents to read to their children.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand where Mr hernandez was coming from wht the comment..."one child at a time". The Early Childhood field is a work in progress. The up hill struggles can be overwhelming, but when we can see success in one child is is worth it.
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