Community/School Partnerships

One of the partnerships Muncie schools have in the community is with Ball State University.  Through my education classes, I see how many Ball State students are sent out into these schools to work with the younger students.  There are many different reasons Ball State students go to Muncie schools, including tutoring, teaching, and observing.  I am also doing an Immersive Semester in the Fall, in which I will be working with a Muncie School as well as the United Way of Delaware County.  While there are a few different organizations in the Muncie community that have partnerships with Muncie schools, there could definitely be many more.  To advocate these partnerships, I could research different organizations that could be useful to Muncie schools.  I could talk to these schools and explain the benefits for both the schools and the organization if a partnership were to be in place between the two.  These community/school partnerships can be very beneficial to the schools.  They can encourage the students to learn and make goals for the future.  They can help raise money for the schools in order to improve the quality of the students' education.  Also by more of the community being aware of what is going on in the schools and the condition of the schools, more will be done to address any problems that the school may face before the problems get out of hand.  Overall, while there are a few partnerships between Muncie schools and the community, I think there could be many more that would be very beneficial to the schools.

Parent Teacher Conference

Being in the position of the teacher today was hard for me.  It was an experience that I am not used to, and made me feel kind of uncomfortable.  It is easy to think out what you want to say about the child, but you don't know how the parents will react.  It is not like a letter or email to the parents where you just say what you need to say.  It is two way communication.  For example, there were many times that I was expecting the parent to comment on what I was saying or give their input, but they just stayed quiet and continued listening.  Also, during the difficult conference I was taken off-guard.  The parent was angry about the time of the conference because she was missing work and was therefore very impatient with me.  I thought this was a very helpful experience for being a future teacher, even though you can't know what to expect or what factors might influence the conference.  This project taught me just that, you don't know what is going to happen so be prepared for anything.