Directed Unit Two Posts

When I was volunteering at Head Start I had a chance chit-chat with the instructors in the classroom. In the beginning of my volunteering work I mainly was focused mainly on researching on  childhood development.  From there I was thinking of doing my research question on how Head Start helps kids develop social skills. One day I noticed one of the instructors writing down observations of  the kids. Curious, I asked what was the benefits of these observations. One of the instructors told me that it was an observations of the child's behavior over time. They do that to help them determine the normal behavior for the child.  Then they compare that to the normal behavior of a typical child of that age. Intrigued, I tried to research more information about childhood development and some possible controversies related to Head Start. I talked to the other group members about the observations that they do in Head Start. One of my group members said that when they were younger like in kindergarten, their teachers would give report cards to their parents based on the teacher's observations. Although I was find some information, I wasn't able to find any good information for a research question.

 

From there, I decided to look to into where Head Start gets it's funding from and how the economy with the budget cuts is affecting them. Well funding Head Start is given mainly by the Federal government I found out.

And although I was able to find some video's  like this one.

But   unfortunately I wasn't able to find enough research material to formulate a good research question. 

So from there I did more in depth research and found that there's a debate, a conversation about how influential the program is. And also how long do  they influence kids?  One day when I was volunteering  I was talking to one of the instructors about any disagreements or discussions that people are having about Head Start.  My position was that Head Start does have a positive influence but to how long did it last I was unsure.  Unfortunately, the instructor didn't know anything about that.  But I did find out that the instructor herself was a former head start child when she was younger. Head Start does have an long lasting impact on children, as an example one of the instructors herself was influence by the program. It got me thinking that definitely this program  does make a difference on children lives.