"The passion to create a safe, more just world for kids is there and I suppose it will be there until I die... maybe even after."                                          Louise Derman-Sparks

"When ever you get bogged down with all of the paperwork that you have to do a lot of times, take 20 minutes to go see the children so that you don't forget what you are doing all of this for." 
Raymond Hernandez MS ED 

The phrase “parents are children’s first teachers” has always concerned me because parenting is distinct from teaching in many ways. They are not opposites! Certainly, parents do teach their children many important things, and teachers of young children do sometimes provide parental kinds of care and concern for the children they teach. For example, it is appropriate for a mother to demand good care for her child and to have strong emotions about the care her child receives and about promoting her child’s interests. It is likewise appropriate for a teacher to make her own knowledge, skills, and care equally accessible to every child in the class. Teachers are to be optimally rational, whereas mothers or parents are to be optimally emotional, biased in favor of their own children. As Urie Bronfenbrenner once said, “No one in his right mind would become a parent”!                                                                                                                                   Lilian Katz

My Personal Childhood Web

My Cousin Cindy

My Cousins Cindy and Westly (Her Brother)



My Aunt Wanda



My First Grade Teacher and Classmates
 



  I have a very small family.  This is my Aunt Wanda.  I wish I had a picture of my Uncle Bud, her husband, but I do not.  My Aunt Wanda is my mom's sister.  My cousins, Westly and Cindy, are the Children of my Aunt Wanda and Uncle Bud.  They are my only cousins.  We were raised almost as close as brothers and sisters.  My aunt, uncle, and cousins were my second family and were very influential in my early childhood.
  I put a class picture up.  I am on the far bottom right in the pigtails!  It may be hard to imagine, but I live in a town with 600 people.  When I was in school each grade had one class.  You started kindergarten with the same 10-15 kids that were in your class until graduation.  These same kids were in my life daily from the time I entered school until I graduated.  We were family.  We knew each other's middle names, birthdays, siblings, etc.  They were a huge part of my early childhood.
  I also made sure that it was my first grade picture because that picture has Gina Bowling, my first grade teacher.  I didn't have many positive relationships with adults as a child, and especially not teachers.  However, Mrs. Bowling was different.  She touched me and hugged me.  She let me whisper things into her ear and I always did so in order to feel her hair because it was so soft.  She was loving and treated me like I was special.

My Dad and Mom

  My parents and two brothers were also very influential in my early childhood.  My younger brother died of a heart attack when he was 21 and my older brother has made some really poor choices which has caused me to choose to no longer include him in my life.  However, in my early childhood, my brothers both played a huge role in shaping me into the person that I am today.  We (along with my cousins Cindy and Westly) spent many hours playing, pretending, running, plotting, etc. which was a large part of my childhood education and experiences.
  My parents influenced my by modeling the values and beliefs that I would one day adopt or adapt in order to create my own system of beliefs.  They both worked their tails off day in and day out just to try to make a bettter life for us.  My experiences with them were not always positive, but still shaped me into who I am.  They were the chicken noodle soup when I was sick, hugs when I was sad, and punishment when I acted out.  They worked really hard, provided for us, and always acted out of love for us.
  The people that were in my childhood web aren't really a part of my life any longer.  My brothers are not in my life at all.  I don't communicate with any of those classmates that were part of my daily life as a child.  I still see my cousins from time to time, but it is usually in passing at Wal-Mart or some other public place.  My parents are still in my life, but it is usually just here and there.  Probably less than 30 minutes a week.  My web of the people that influence me now is very different than my childhood web.  However, these early childhood relationships still impact my life every day.  It was those early childhood experiences that laid the foundation for who I am today.  Not a single day goes by that I am not reminded of something said to me by one of these people.  Not a single day goes by that I don't have a memory of one of these people that I can use to put a current situation into perspective.  These people from my early childhood are the people that made me who I am today.