Blog 24: Exit Interview Questions

1. What is your essential question? What is the best answer to your question and why?

My EQ is: How can a child care provider create an emotionally and physically healthy child care environment?
My first answer is knowing how to communicate well with a child in order to build a trusting relationship. This answer came about from Sara Gable's article. My second answer is to have a proper child to staff ratio in a daycare at all times. My third answer is to always follow the sanitary care regulations. Both my second and third answer come from the California State Guidelines and Regulations concerning the care of children in a daycare.
My best answer would have to be my first answer: knowing how to communicate with a child to build a trusting relationship between provider and child. Having a trusting relationship with the children at a daycare will allow you to not only see how they are doing physically, but also mentally (emotionally). With my other two answers, its only concerns are the physical aspects of a child's health. With communication, you can get into the mind of the child and know how they're feeling and what exactly they are thinking.

2. What process did you take to arrive to this answer?

Child care was the main topic for my senior project, and my EQ came about when I started to focus on the well-being of the child and how the environment around the child affected them. A good daycare is one that would allow a child to do better in school in their later years. So I researched on what exactly it was that allowed for children to do better in later years of life, and I found countless articles about developing a child's cognitive ability, communicating well with them, and raising them in a sanitary environment. My potential answers sprouted from these articles. My first answer was about the importance of communicating properly with child. My second and third answers outlined the importance of a safe and sanitary environment. But my best answer is my first answer, and this conclusion was formed when I came across an article by Sara Gable called Communicating Effectively with Children. In this, she outlined the significance of talking with a child according to their ages. Its the same as when an adult communicates to people of different standings - you communicate with children of different ages in different ways. Better communication with a child leads to a trusting relationship between a provider and a child.
I think the fact that my second and third answers didn't include the emotional aspect of my essential question, which plays a big part in creating a safe environment for a child, was what led me to have my first answer as my best answer.

3. What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

One of the problems I faced was finding a place to do my mentorship. It was not so much finding a daycare that would accept me, but more of finding a daycare that had a convenient commute for me. I needed to find a place that I could get to by bus, because I still can't drive on my own or have a car, so public transportation was the only way to go. It took me about two days to search for and call all the daycares that I could easily access, and I was finally able to find one that could meet with me and discuss a schedule with me. This happened around the month of October, and I was able to finish all my mentorship hours at Footprints Child Care Center.
Another problem I faced was finding activities to do for my two hour presentation. The activity I had done for my 30 minute presentation had a few kinks that needed to be worked out, and I looked for ways to fix them, but it wasn't until I talked to a friend that I was able to come up with an even better activity. It still has the same concept and idea behind my old one, but her input vastly improved on how the activity would be executed.

4. What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

I think my two most important sources were my fourth interview and The Child Care Problem by David Blau. My fourth interview was very helpful because it Lily Velasco's answers to my questions reinforced a lot of what I had learned in past experiences and in research. She helped me to confirm that my answers were of importance to my EQ and that they had reasons that definitely backed them up in many ways.
David Blau's book was of importance because it was what lead me into the direction of my EQ and answers and what the entire feel of my senior project would be. It basically set up the foundation for everything I know now.

5. What is your product and why?

My product is learning how to communicate well with children and other providers. Providers need to be on the same page when the safety of a child is in question. They need to make sure that no harm comes to a child while in the daycare and in the hands of someone other than their own parents. It's also especially important of someone of my age who volunteers or works at a daycare to know the exact expectations of the older and more experienced providers, and to know all the rules that need to be followed in the daycare. This communication between me and the other providers allowed me to not be so shy when it comes to talking to others. I had to ask questions in order to know the correct way of doing things around the daycare, as any mistake could be potentially harmful to anyone in the daycare.