Blog 9

The more time I spend at my service learning site, the more I am able to connect what we discuss in class to a real world situation. In class we have discussed education its contribution to the poverty circle seen frequently in America today. I have mentioned this before but, the place I spend time at, Educare, is a head start pre-school. I have never heard of a program like this before and interestingly enough, lately there has been discussion of these programs in several of my classes. In my history class we have been discussing President Johnson and his push for the development of programs such as Head Start pre-schools. In my other education class I recently had to read two positions articles on Head Start programs. One of the authors discussed the notion that the programs are not really achieving their goal, to close the education gap between children of low income families versus children who do not suffer from poverty. The articles also discussed issue of which things are more important to teach these children (social aspects or force academic learning), and possible solutions to improving and adding more accountability and regulation to these programs. I have been doing a lot of thinking about these issues. When I am at the pre-school I can tell right away that this place is the only place where the children have the accessibility to things that will enhance their learning such as puzzles, books, and arts and crafts. I think this program does whatever it can to ready the children for school. They close the education gap as much as they can, it is later on when the children start to slip, and therefore I think more accountability needs to be placed in elementary schools. I think this is really where the education gap thickens.