Thank you for agreeing to play a very influential role in MCCC's early childhood program by having a student teacher in your center this semester. We hope that it proves to be a rewarding experience for everyone. As you probably remember, student teaching is a time of practice, questioning, and personal growth. We hope that you will be patient with your student teacher as she/he learns more about your children, schedule, and philosophy.

Please encourage your student teacher to take an active role in the room, try things on her/his own, and perhaps, do them in a slightly different way than you do. This will help the student to develop a unique philosophy of teaching, which coincides with developmentally appropriate practice and her/his individual style. At MCCC, we have been encouraging our students to use an emergent curriculum planning approach so that the interests of the children are used in designing the curriculum, rather than developing themes without their input or desires taken into consideration. This simply means that overall goals and objectives of developmentally appropriate programs reflect the interests of the children in your class. We hope that you will discuss emergent curriculum planning with your student teacher and allow her/him to try it during the course of the semester.

We look forward to working with you this semester as we support student teachers in their final preparations for a career in early childhood education.

Meryl Sultanik
msultani@mc3.edu
215-641-637

Elizabeth Lattanzi
elattanzi@mc3.edu
215-641-6411