Home daycare providers laud UFT professional development classes
by Natalie Bell
May 11, 2006 4:28 PM
Fran Streich (standing, right), the UFT�s director of the home day-care provider organizing project, checks in on providers Gladys Jones (standing) and (seated from left) Yvette Laurent, Lydia Montano and Carolyn Roman as they learn skills to prepare their children for school in a class at the UFT Brooklyn office on Saturday, April 1.
The UFT Teacher Center is providing free professional development classes to hundreds of home day-care providers throughout the city. The move is the latest in the union�s drive to organize the providers and comes in response to what many of them have said is an unmet need.
Periodically, the state offers training classes via videoconference to day-care providers, but those sessions aren�t very informative or useful, said Tammie Miller, a Brooklyn provider.
The UFT classes are hands-on and more structured, Miller said, adding that the Teacher Center classes cover skills that providers can use immediately. At these classes, which are conducted twice a month on Saturdays at the UFT Brooklyn and Bronx offices, providers learn about early childhood development, proven teaching techniques, detecting child abuse and other topics.
Bronx provider Bridget Carruth said that, in the UFT classes, �We�re doing what we need to do so that we can prepare the children for school.� After she learned to make playdough from household cooking materials, for example, Carruth found it to be a �wonderful� opportunity to teach children in her care about measuring. Playing with the dough also �helps develop the motor skills in their little hands,� she said.
Miller noted that after each class she has attended, �I can�t wait to start implementing what I�ve learned with my kids.� She spoke highly of Language Literacy Connection, a method for reading aloud to young children that emphasizes asking open-ended questions, which she learned in the UFT class.
�It makes you feel great when you have great training that you know you can master and implement,� Miller said.
Future UFT professional development classes for home day-care providers will be held on Saturdays May 20, June 10 and 24.
The UFT classes can serve as 30 hours of training credit for providers� license renewal. And starting in July, license-exempt providers can earn a higher subsidy rate if they take 10 hours of training. UFT classes may be used to meet these requirements.
Brooklyn Borough Representative Robert Astrowsky and provider Mildred Worrell listen as UFT President Randi Weingarten addresses the group.