Reflecting on Learning

My most passionate hope for the future as an early childhood professional is to continue growing and exploring other resources that could be use for the children and families I work with. I have learned a lot, but I still have more to learn, knowledge that I will obtain from the children and families I work with as well as from the day to day experiences. I will continue provided quality care to all the children I work with, without making any extinction or discrimination, creating and maintaining an atmosphere of equity and justice, where you parents and children can feel welcomed and accepted as part of our classroom family. Promoting and encouraging an anti-bias environment were children feel free to express, learn and question. Where parents feel welcomed, appreciated and valued as important members of our society.

Thank you all for your wonderful comments and resources that over the course you have shared with us, we have all learned from each other. I look forward on hearing from all of you again in this coming course as well as during our currier as Early Childhood Educators.

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

After reviewing the struggles countries face in various parts of the world I choose to explore more about Eastern and Southern Africa, focusing my attention on “Malawi”. Malawi, currently suffers from serious condition due to the deadly combination of chronic poverty, bad weather conditions, bad harvest, a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS and an outbreak of cholera.

About 40 percent of the population which is a total of 4,916,000 people are in need of food assistance, due to this 48 % of children under five years of age in Malawi are stunted and 22 % are underweight or malnourished. Despite the effort to reduce these percentiles, they duplicate each year affecting directly children under five years of age.  

The humanitarian situation is particularly serious for the rural population. More than 65 per cent of Malawi's population lives below the poverty line. Due to the food crisis these families suffer, cholera is another health hazard that the Malawi population phase.  The country also has an extremely high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, which affects an estimated 16,4 per cent of people aged 15 to 49 and accounts for some 70 per cent of hospital deaths. Some 400,000 children under 15 have been left orphans due to the death of their parents from this illness.

The fact that children are suffering from so many factors, such as malnutrition, poverty, sickness and the trauma of losing many of their family members due to these factors make a tremendous impact on the child overall development. Their ability to grow healty, learn and succeed in life slowly fades away as they continue suffering from these deathly factors.

As a parents and professional in the field of education I fell the responsibility to support organizations such as UNICEF, which does a remarkable job all around the world to alleviate many of the challenges that children and the families are suffering. It is also important that we model and encourage are new generations to also see the struggles other people are facing all around the world and give a helping hand. I we would all give a little of our time, effort and support to others less fortunate then us, this world would be a different place.

 

The Sexualizaton of Early Childhood

My reactions after reading this article was of wanting to learn more about this topic,  I have always been concerned about the messages children were receiving in the media and society in general. My fears are based on behavior, a have observed over the years as a head start teachers, and seeing how things have gotten worse. My first experience of sexualization was in a head start full day classroom 12 years ago. During our group time we were all dancing when one of the little three year old girls started to dance in a way that seemed very sexual and provocative. I remember seeing the others children’s face as they tried to figure out what she was doing. I had to eventually turn off the music, since she just would not stop and started to get to close to the boys while she was dancing. Then I a had a little boy bring one day, a stack of cards of playboy girls that he was showing to the boys during free play, when I asked the little boy were he got them he said that his uncle gave them to him, because all men like see girls like this. I can sadly provide a list of examples that I have been aware of children being exposed to sexual material and behavior that they should not be exposed to. Sadly material that caregivers are not taking precaution in order to prevent this from happening. Children are seeing rated R movies, soap operas and magazines that are full of imagines and sexual behavior that children often play out in school, because they do not actually understand the meaning of what they see. Then my ten year old daughter, which in fifth grade was telling me that her and her best friend are the only two girls in her classroom that do not have cell phones and Facebook. She also mentioned that many of her classmates already have a boy friend and are all exited, because of San Valentine’s day coming. After she mentioned this to me, I tried to talk to her about what each think meant and why they were things that at their age were not necessary to do or have.

In my opinion the implication of racing children in such a high sexualized culture, is as the article So Sexy So Soon mentions “Boys and girls are routinely exposed to images of sexual behavior devoid of emotions, attachment, or consequences”. Girls are growing with the miss conception that appearance and sex appeal are the most importance aspects of being a girl, the sexier you are the more value you have. Boys taught see girls as objects with no feelings or value. What this promotes is more insensibility and violence towards women, men and children as frustrations and self esteem grow as they try to meet the expectation that society places on them.

As a professional in the field of Early Childhood as well as a parent of 3 children, my suggestion is that we should inform parents of the implications of exposing their children to unnecessary sexual images. It is so easy to just ignore or consume products that are not age appropriate and just because they look cute. I would also include activities in my lesson plan that talk about the importance of respecting our body and others. Also activities that talk about things that make us unique and important, things that have nothing to do with being pretty, sexy or strong. The way in which learning more about sexualization of early childhood had influenced my conception, it’s encouraged me to learn more about the subject as well as to inform the parents I work with of the implications as well as seeing these factors more seriously.

Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

I would like to share a personal experience, where I experienced racism toward my oldest daughter when she first entered a daycare when she was 2 years old. We had just come from Mexico, and my daughter had never experienced being in a daycare center, nor speaking or hearing another language other than Spanish. I remember that the first impression I had from the center as I asked for information, was that it was a clean, well organized and child orientated center. Qualities that I was looking for, I also noticed that the teachers were very attentive and nurturing to the parents and children, so without hesitation we enrolled our child right away. After the second day we both my husband started to notice that my daughter was one of two children that spoke Spanish all the rest were either polish or white, and none of the teachers spoke Spanish, and they all were Caucasian. Then we noticed that our daughter was having a very hard time with separation and she would stay crying and when we would pick her up she was still crying. None of the teachers ever approached us to let us know how she was doing and what they have done to help her. The sad part of all of this, was that we were never acknowledged, we were never greeted when we dropped our child nor when we would pick her up it was as we were invisible and not important as other children and families from the center.  

When we asked how our daughter was doing the teacher answered “Well she cries mostly all day, and we really can’t comfort her, because we don’t speak Spanish and we can’t understand what she is saying. The teacher also mentioned that she would take her to the quiet area to give her some space, but she would stay there for most of the day, and refused to interact with anyone else. After hearing this, my impression was that they didn’t even try to help my child, and that they had a certain bias against Spanish speaking children, because of the distinctions both my husband and I observed. We both were disappointed to the point that we also adapted the same behavior towards the teachers, behavior that was not health for u or our child. We ended up taking our daughter out, after two weeks of invisibility. This experience affected the whole family,  in regards to our ability to trust in others ability to set aside their personal bias an actually do the work that needs to be done. It was until my daughter’s kindergarten teacher that we actually felt valued and respected, our language, culture and values we just as important as the rest of the families in her classroom. Until this day our 17 year old daughter still remembers her teacher and the many moments that we shared our food, stories and cultures with the rest of her class and teacher.

How important it is that as teachers we provide an environment were all children and families feel welcomed, were all feel just as valuable as any other, and were language, skin color, culture etc. do not affect the level of the quality of work we do with the children and their families.

Observing Communication

I had the time last Monday to volunteer in my son’s new daycare center, since I had a day off from work due to the holiday. My son’s daycare did open so I took the advantage and visited the center. My son has been attending this YMCA center for the last two weeks, so I still had a lot to learn in regards to the way the teachers interacted with the children, parents and other staff from the center. The first thing I was able to see was how the teachers interacted with the children and parents as they arrived and picked up their children. One thing that I observed was that as parents and children were arriving she would greet them in a friendly way, but in several occasions she would stop what she was doing with the children in the circle to speak to the parent about the behavior of the child in the classroom. She would tell the parents in front of their child, as child was taking off his jacket all the bad things he did in the classroom. You could observe the non verbal communication expressed by the parent, child and teacher as this was done.

 In my opinion the way the teacher would approach the parents and the way she would share the information was appropriate, parents would leave upset and the child would start his day feeling bad about himself. By the teacher leaving the circle without informing the children, took away from the activity and purpose of that particular moment, by the time she returned the children were everywhere and had a hard time focusing.

In my opinion, if the teacher had several concerns about the child the teacher should had arranged a meeting with the parents to find ways to help the child succeed in school, and a way that feel less invasive or negative. It’s not just about telling the parents what their child is doing bad, but actually sharing first his strengths and then discuss ways to help him work on his challenges together as a team.

Another thing that I was able to observe was that the teacher would constantly tell the children when they were having a hard time listening that she would tell their parents about how they were behaving, and they would not be very happy. I also did not like her technique to manage classroom behavior the teacher used, instead of focusing on the rules she has in the classroom and the importance of respecting others. The teacher would just would threaten the children about telling their parents whenever they didn’t want to listen she seemed more like a mother than a teacher. I guess many times teachers forget that they are the professionals that need to model and guide children and parents, to be the ones  that can help the parents educate their children and work as a team for the better of their children.

Creating Affirming Environments

If I had the opportunity of creating my own Child Care Program, as Adriana Castillo did and shared with our in her video, I would definitely include many of the tools she used to promote communication between her and the parents. I would take her idea of having a parents board at the entrance were parents would see the menu, lesson plan and any important announcement, in the family’s home language not just in English. There is nothing more valuable to improve communication between parents and teachers then having information in the family’s native language available. I would also include pictures of the children and their families as a way of promoting diversity among our classroom. I also like how she set up her child care to reflect defined play areas and at the same time an atmosphere of an extended home, were children felt welcomed, loved and safe.  I would also include her idea of having a place where the families shared materials from home that represented their culture, values, believes and traditions so all the children could see, learn, appreciate and respect.  It also creates a sense of pride and value to the families, feeling safe to share a little about themselves with us is important. Having representation of the families in the classroom says more than random pictures or posters we could have of diverse families. Families appreciate more if they see themselves as the culture that is being served then what can be more as stereotypes in the common posters we see in the classrooms.

I would also take into consideration the importance of parent involvement, the participation of the parents in the education of their children is crucial. This also gives me the opportunity to learn more about the way they interact with their children, what are the families challenges as well as their strengths. This will also serve as way of opening the doors to communication and team work among the parents and me. I believe that by creating an environment that is welcoming and safe for the children and families, you will be able to provide a better service to all including you as a teacher.

 
                                    

Creating Art

No matter where you are, diversity is in your face
It’s in our neighborhoods, our churches and in the marketplace
We need to have awareness of others all around us
Something we must all learn and practice is others’ acceptance

We can’t just talk about diversity, but it must be in our thinking and in our actions
No one group of people can get in their mind that they are the main attraction
It is a wonderful thing to live where there is such diversity
we must take advantage and learn from each other

And not criticize or discriminate others because they are different

Being different is not a bad thing, it is just the way we are and we must all be accepted.

I have learn so much in this course in regards to diversity, now it is my responsibility to teach and motivate others to respect, value and love all. As educators we must model to our children that differences are not bad, they are what makes each and one of us special. We must also teach them that we can learn from each other, in order to become a better person, a person that understands others ideals, values, needs and dreams.