I have been following the Harlem Children’s Zone organization for the last four weeks. During this time frame, I have learned a great deal of information pertaining to the early childhood field. As I clicked on the tab titled “Early Childhood,” I came across a section titled “Harlem Gems.” I knew that this early childhood organization was dedicated in helping the children and families in Harlem but I did not know that they had a program specifically designed to the early childhood field called Harlem Gems.
Harlem Gems is an all-day pre-kindergarten program that gets children ready to enter kindergarten. Classes have a 4:1 child-to-adult ratio, teach English, Spanish and French, and run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. HCZ runs three pre-kindergarten sites, serving 200 children. I found this to be quite remarkable. The fact that they have professionals who are bilingual in Spanish and French is very impressive. I am a little fluent in Spanish but hope to take a language course to refresh what I already know and to expand on that as it will benefit not only me but my students and their families.
I did sign up to receive newsletters through this website but I have not received any recent news lately. Immediately, I went to the search engine and typed in “equity.” A link popped up titled “Workshop Descriptions” and I clicked on it. Upon reading the article, I found that it features four workshop series, one of which includes engaging the community and assessing needs. It went into depth about how developing a strong and ongoing relationship with the community is critical to ensure an initiative is addressing needs that are important to the community, that the initiative evolves as the community does, and that community leaders and adults understand the role they need to play as role models for young people as well as how the surrounding environment strongly affects children’s growth and development. This information really did add to my understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education. I learned this week that not many families are able to access education for their children. At least this organization is involving the community in deciding what needs need to be met and how to exactly go by doing that.
Other insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field that I gained this week from exploring this website are:
- Strong leadership at multiple levels forms the lynchpin of a successful initiative.
- A strong commitment to setting, measuring, and analyzing both intermediate metrics and long-term intended impact is critical to ensure that a neighborhood-based initiative can continuously assess and modify programs and practices to achieve its mission and to sustain committed high level funders.
- Collaborations with other organizations can be an effective and efficient way to bring together services and expertise for families you serve.
References:
Harlem Children’s Zone (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.hcz.org/
Stacy,
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed reading your posts about Harlem Gems. I can't imagine a 4 to 1 ratio! The children would get very individualized attention. I also was very impressed with the classes teaching English, Spanish, and French. Thank you for sharing.
Alissa
Wow Stacy,
ReplyDeleteFirst off 4:1 ratio, learning all types of languages, and not to mention attention from 8 to 6. This is something that is quite remarkable and shocking. Imagine if there were programs in many of the diverse cities. How lucky children would be. I think this program is sensational, and should be considered in other places that are in need of such a critical program.
Thank you for sharing. I'd love to see what there days are like in there.
I'm going to explore the site on my own time and enjoy it.
Stacy,
ReplyDeleteThe information in your blog post about the Harlem Gems was very interesting to me. I think that the French and Spanish speaking teachers are a wonderful resource. I myself plan on expanding on the Spanish that I know currently in order to be able to better help the children and their families. Good luck to you on that endeavor!
Thank you for sharing! Have a great week!
I too think that Spanish and French speaking teachers are a wonderful resource. I took French in high school and my teacher was a valuable resource. She made us aware of schooling in France. I remember her speaking specifically of how the people there really valued time being spent with families Every day in France, school would be shut down at a certain time and everyone would have to return home to have lunch with their families. Then, as lunch would end, everyone would return to school to finish the school day.
ReplyDelete