Open Minded free essay sample

Learning to be More Open Minded Head Start is a government funded pre-school program. This program is available to low-income families, foster children, and children who have a parent in jail or prison. Our goal is to help these children be prepared for kindergartens; as well as helping their families make better choices for their futures. We offer services to help them succeed in life and become more involved in their community. A few services we offer are GED classes, monthly classes on topics to help them in raising their children, as well as health and dental services.Many of our families do not have a vehicle or only have limited access to one, so we do help with transportation to and from doctor appointments and back and forth to school. The centers offer monthly classes to help caretakers with many subjects such as nutrient ion and diet. The majority of our families are on public aid, receiving food stamps, and often purchase processed foods because of the cost. Our hope is to show them ways to stretch their dollars as well as give families a well-balanced meal. Our classes also include budgeting, teaching your child how to have high self-esteem, and how to deal with temper tantrums.Although these do seem like basic life skills many of our parents were never taught these skills. During my first few weeks at Head Start I found myself being very judgmental. It was hard for me to sit and listen to how bad these parents said they had it, only to watch them come in wearing clothes and using phones that were way out of my budget. My parents always taught us that your children’s needs come first. So to me, seeing them with all of these material items yet, applying for a free pre-school program was a bit hard to swallow.Some days I it made me question my choice to work for a government run program. After many nights of thinking and discussing it over with my husband I decided that I was there for the kids not their parents. The students should not be punished for things their parents had done. This was my chance to teach them the â€Å"right† way. Now, a few months into the school year, we were all settling into our routines. I had been in many of the class rooms at most of the centers, so I was starting to get to know each child and learn a little about their home lives.It was pretty plain to see whose parents were involved in their children’s lives and whose were not. By this point, I had made a mental list of the â€Å"bad† kids and the â€Å"good† kids. I guess by â€Å"bad† I mean challenging. Working at one particular center was always very difficult for me. Whenever I would get the call to head to that center I would cringe. The whole drive there I was my breath praying I would not be going into room three. The reason, a four year old named â€Å"Logan†. â€Å"Logan† was disrespectful, extremely loud, very mean and hateful toward everyone and never listen or followed the rules.His vocabulary consisted of many four letter words and used them toward the teachers and other students all day long. He would make threats to kill people in such detail that I would find myself actually being afraid of this four year old child. Many occasions I would find myself not wanting to include him in small group time and I never wanted to work with him one-on-one. It seemed so easy for me just to ignore this child. Day after day â€Å"Logan† would be put in time-out, sent to the office and rarely was he able to go outside for recess with us. We sent home letters to â€Å"Logan’s† parents and we would never hear back. Logan† rode the bus to school in the mornings and rode the bus home in the afternoons. It seemed almost impossible to get ahold of any adult in â€Å"Logan’s† life. His behavior on the bus was just as awful as it was in the classroom. He was often in trouble for punching, kicking, cussing at and calling other children names. The bus driver also sent home many letters by never received a response. This child was out of control and it seemed no one in his life even cared. The final straw for the bus driver was the day â€Å"Logan† chocked the child next to him making him pass out on the way to school on morning.After this incident our center supervisor drove to â€Å"Logan’s† house to explain to his parents that â€Å"Logan† was no longer allowed to ride the bus to or from school. She explained to them that he was still welcome to continue to coming to school but that someone would need to bring him and would have to pick him up every day. Mom said she understood and would see to it that â€Å"Logan† made it to school every day. Dad on the other hand was livid. Yelling, saying things like we were picking on his kids and that we needed to learn to do our jobs and none of this would have happened to begin with.Secretly, I hoped that this child would not be back. We have a policy that reads if a child misses more than five days of school due to loss of transportation because of their behavior then that child can no longer be enrolled in our program, because we do have such a long waiting list of other clients we could be providing services to. All of this took place on a Thursday and I was off that Friday. I spent that weekend thinking about â€Å"Logan† and his dad and the way dad had reacted. It was a lot like the way â€Å"Logan† acted in class.I started too wonderful if â€Å"Logan† had only been doing what he had been seeing at home. Monday was â€Å"Logan’s† second day missed and I had started to think maybe the wrong choice had been made about this child. By the end of the third day I started feeling a bit ashamed of myself. My husband reminded me why I had taken this job to begin with and why I chose to go into this profession. This child needed someone to help him learn the right way to act, and give him the care and love that he seemed to be missing, not someone who had been judging him the way I had.