Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

In the field of education it is common for teachers to look to each other for advice or connect with them as an additional resource. Too often we get use to just looking within our inner circles for help or references but this limits us to the valuable information we can gain if we just step outside our comfort box and seek other educational professionals in other counties, states, and even other countries.

In the past week, I have been attempting to connect with another early childhood professional in Africa. I chose to connect with an early childhood professional from Africa because I have always been interested in the educational issues and trends in the early childhood field in Africa and wanted to learn more directly from someone impacted with this quest to educate young children in Africa. I have struggled this week with trying to find a way to connect with early education professionals or organizations that will help assist me in connecting with a professional educator in Africa.

I started this quest by talking to my inner circle of educators to see if I could find a lead on how to locate and connect with teacher abroad. I found that most of my early education professionals that were in my circle were as lost as I was and did not have a clue on how to connect with others in the field of early childhood in another country. Next, I sought two people that I knew were going to be teaching aboard this year but they had not left yet and had no prior experience teaching in that country. Finally, I went back to the references that were provided by our professor, Dr. Davenna Williams, I reviewed the websites and was in awe of the wealth of information each one provided. It opened my mind to various issues other face as they try and educate young children. This made me realize how important it was for me to build a relationships with others outside of my comfort zone. There is a wealth of information I can gain for building a connection with others who are passionate about the field of early childhood education. I was able to find a contact list including emails of some early childhood professional in Africa, I sent them an email asking if they could help me with my quest to connecting with early childhood professional in their country. I have not receive a response yet but I will continue to look for someone to connect with. I do believe that I will have to use the alternative website for part 1 but, hopefully, only temporary.

If I could share any advice, it would be to start with the resources that our professor provided first. It gave tons of useful information and is a great place to get you going in the right direction quickly. Second, in your email you can provide our professor email so that they can verify the assignment. This might ease any hesitation someone might have about the authenticity of your request. Lastly, leave the link to your blog so that they can see your pervious posts. This is a great way for them to get to know you and your passions.

Good luck on your journey. Please leave any suggestions, questions, or advice.

My Supports

My primary support system is my family it includes: my husband, mom, dad, siblings, and my sister in-law who is also an educator in their field of education. My parents have always provided me with the emotional and physical needs to succeed in what ever I wanted to accomplish. My husband helps me in every aspect of my life and is influential in my career. He helps to set up my classroom, find material I may need, run out to the store last minute just to pick up some supplies for the next lesson, or help me develop fun and engaging lesson plans. My siblings are always they’re helping with special programs and events I might put on. My sister in-law is an essential part of my life she because we both share the passion of young children, we constantly support each other in our classrooms, with lessons, and curriculum. She helps me find materials and resources to promote best practices in my classroom. She is also the one who introduced me to Walden University. I'm not sure how I would make it with out them because that help to make my dreams come true, they push me until I succeed, and provide me with the tools I need to be successful.

At work, I use a variety of support systems to help me accomplish everyday goals. Some of the people who provide support are my principal, vice principal, teacher's aide, and colleagues. At my school we all support each other by collaborating and bring our expertise to the table. I can ask for advice or seek help from anyone of they with the fear of rejection. We have a community of educators who common focus are the children and how to best meet their needs. At times, this cause for us to collaborate and work together to figure how to accommodate each child's unique qualities. If I did not have this support I was not be able to be an effective teacher. The quality of the care and education I provide would not be satisfactory without the support of others with diverse background, education, and experiences. 

I can imagine of I had a life altering disability like the loss of a limb. I can understand how difficult simple task might become. I know my parents would have provided with what I might need to ensure I was able to function to the best of my ability. They would also be a big factor in providing emotional support helping me to understand and except my situation. My husband would provide daily support helping me complete any task at hand. In fact, I'm not sure how much will change. Knowing my family, friends, and colleagues I know that they would support me regardless of a disability. Without them would be the problem, it would be the hardest thing for me to do. I'm not sure if I would be able to accomplish my dreams without them. My support system is very important to me and without them and not sure where I would be?  

My Connections to Play

Two Quotes that really represent role of play in my childhood

“The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” –Erik H. Erikson

“Play is the highest form of research.” –Albert Einstein

When I was a young child I loved to play outside. I would spend hours climbing trees, collecting bugs, digging in dirt, and making mud pies. When I played I viewed my self as a scientist make new and wonderful discoveries. I would collect insects and draw them, write about interesting things I observed, and try to find out more information bout the insect. In my backyard we have two apple trees and I would pretend I was a apple farmer and collect apples; sorting by color and even counting them while placing them in my mothers basket. Those tree helped me to master a multitude of skills all before entering kindergarten. My parents encouraged me to play outside they would even let me bring in all the interesting creatures I found. My dad would even help me to collect them and my mom provided me with endless amounts of mason jars.

Here is some of the play items I could not live without:

My apple tree

Mason jars to catch bugs

mud and flowers…and my mom pots :)

Sticks

I wish play was still as supported as it was for me. I know that I lot of parents are fearful to let their child play outside and may be weary about letting them climb trees. Many children are limited to the amount of outside play they receive because of the fear of dangers. During my years teaching I have across countless of parent who say, “My child has never been outside or I never let my infant on the floor.” This saddens me because I know the valuable lessons, discoveries, and enjoyment they are missing out on because of fear. My hope is that parents support their fear aside for the empowerment of their child. I’m sure my parents were fearful with me playing in the city streets of Northeast Washington, DC. but they clearly understood the benefits of the freedom of my imagination.

My hope for young children today is that adults who understands and respects the significant of play in a child’s development will surround them. That they will foster and support the art of imagination and help facilitate the experience. The role of play is vital to the development of children it helps them to master skills needed for future development. Play is the platform for self-discovery and expressions. As we grow the ideas, dreams, interests that we discovered through play, will help to drives our motivates in adulthood. As a child I played teacher with my friends; I would always be the teachers. Giving assignments, passion out homework, and grading papers. They playful activity I engaged in as a child become my reality as an adult. Through play a child might discovery their passion and that passion might change the world someday. 

Relationship Reflection

Relationships are the strongest human bond we create. Out of these relationship energy is born and produced. It is important for us to connect with other on a variety of levels social, emotional, physical, and mental to feel complete as a human. As I reflect on relationship I have established through the years I think of unconditional love. All the people who I have a positive relationship or partnership loves me at times more then I can love myself. 

Here are list of the people in my life who I have a deep and everlasting relationship with:

My parents- both of my parents have been so influential in my life they were my first supporters, teachers, and role models. They provided me with all the basic necessities and with almost all of me wants. They gave me fundamental values that has stuck with me to this day. Through out the years our relationship has matured over time and has transitioned from parent- child relationship to a true friendship. We have discovered each of our unique qaulities and differences and come to except them. 

My siblings- I have two sisters, two brother, a brother in-law and a sister in-law. We are all really close and get a long great know that we are all older. When we where young we fought like normal siblings but as we got older we naturally got closer. We spend lots of time together, talk and consult each other for advice, and support each other through discovering their dreams. 

My niece and nephew- I just love them both so much. My niece is 13 and my nephew will be 1 in July. I really try to be apart of their lives, I spend a lot of time with them, and treat them like my own.

My husband- I just got married last August and I'm completely in love with my husband who is my best friend, business partner and biggest supporter. He has two sons who I am now developing a wonderful relationship with. I enjoy spending time with them and having the family I thought I could never have. My husband and I are extremely honest  with one another and communicate with each immediately if something is bothering us. We respect each others opinions and try to understand how they feel.

What I have learned over time is that ever relationship will have its tough times but it is through these time that  character is built. the ups and downs of relationship helps to build social competency and if appropriate guidance is provided along they way you will be able to gain more effective ways to build positve relationships. As an early childhood professional I understand how important relationships are when dealing with young children. Children need to establish positive relationships with caregivers, peers and other adults. They skills to build effective relationships through see how other close to them build relationships and interacting with other and building their own relationships. It is my job to help young children and their families understand and foster the relationships that they build around them by facilitating and modeling appropriate ways to communicate, resolve conflict, and support the people who are the closest to them.    

My husband and me

My father and me

My mother and me

The Power of the Whole Child

I love this video…Teachers get the Kleenex ready; this is a real tear jerker. This video shows the power a child has when they are free to used their interests and passion to create. This type of learning just comes natural. As a teacher, I'm striving to teacher my children in this fashion. This is the future of teaching; allowing children to be themselves use their gifts and knowledge to create new and innovative ideas and ways to express themselves. We focus on "teaching" so much that we forget all the valuable lesson we have learned from just exploring the world around us. Play is such a critical part of learning it is a shame that it is not widely appreciated in the educational community. Please watch and become inspired and see how many academic domain or common core standards are visual through this documentary.

Assessing Young Children: Should We and Why?

As much as I love my job teaching Kindergarten, and enjoy seeing my students develop in all developmental areas; I hate assessing them. I'm often frustrated with the lack of developmentally appropriate questioning or format of the test.  Assessing children in public school is completely different from assessing in a daycare environment. When I work as a preschool teacher, I enjoyed assessing my children through collecting artifacts of children works and observations. I was able to get a glimpse of the whole child and understand how their development translated to their everyday experiences. It was easy to modify the environment, adjust lessons, and bring in new materials all based on their current developmental needs. Children were less frustrated when being assessed, never developing anxiety over taking a test, or feeling the need to cheat because they just wanted to do well. The question now is what so different between that type of assessing I was able to conduct in preschool and the type of assessment I'm mandated to due through the school system? How are children from other parts of the world assessed; like Canada? These are just a few questions that wonder in my mind when I think about the practice of assessing young children.

According to, Assessing the Development and Learning of Young Children a position statement written by the Southern Early Childhood Association (SECA), "The purpose of assessment of young children is to collect information necessary to make important decisions about their developmental and educational needs. Assessment must always serve in ways that enhance opportunities for optimal growth, development, and learning. The process of determining individual developmental and educational needs informs early childhood education practices and provides a template for setting individual and program goals."  There are many different ways in which to collect this data such as formal and informal assessment, observations, work samples, projects, and work samples. 

Understanding the purpose of assessing young children is not the problem most early childhood professionals understand that assessing children development is essential to providing quality stimulating care. It how you asses that make the difference in the quality, purpose, and effectiveness of the data collected. Such laws as the "No Child Left Behind Act" has directly linked standardized test to overall school success.  The SECA stated in their position statement that test are not adequate tools for deciding important decisions like merit pay, the development for a school improvement plan, or comparison of students. So if assessment are not used for any of the things listed above what should they be used for?

Appropriate Uses for Assessment  

• Emphasizes emerging development in all developmental domains: physical/motor, psychosocial, cognitive, language, and literacy development
• Focuses on individual strengths and uniqueness
• Is based on sound principles of child growth and development
• Emanates from authentic (logical, meaningful, relevant, and applicable) curricula
• Is intertwined with instruction
• Is performance, process, and product based
• Is ongoing and occurs in many contexts
• Recognizes and supports different intelligences and learning styles
• Minimizes or alleviates child stress to ensure best (or most successful) outcomes
• Is reflective and analytic, honest and accurate, instructive and useful
• Is collaborative with learners, parents, teachers, and professional specialists as needed 
***Supplied from SECA***

Appropriate Styles of  Assessment  

• Work Samples
• Teacher Observations
• Checklist and Inventories
• Parent Conferences
• Teacher Constructed Test or Projects
• Referral Decisions 

Issues in Assessing Young Children in Canada  

After watching the video, Provincial Assessment Program, which is about a assessment program that is used in Canada to assess young children in elementary school to prepare them for a national test that compares their academic gains to other peers around the world. In viewing the video, although it was well recorded, the children were all setting nicely and working, and the teachers showed passion; it made me sad. I was sad because I know that the assessment was not truly for the benefit of the child but for the glorification to gloat about the academic status of a country. Student can make the same academic gains from working to together collaborating, using trial and error to self discover answers, presenting their finding and using supported resources to support their position. One test does not dictate future success for a child, a educational program, or a teacher. Why can't we assess children in the most natural way, using real life experiences, with topic that can relate too, and integrate in with all subject areas?  

    

Resources

Southern Early Childhood Association. Assessing Development and Learning in Young Children: A Position Statement of the Southern Early Childhood Association. Little Rock, AR

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuEpgTqgLDo

 

Chaos and Children of War

There are many things that can stress children and each stressor comes with its own affect of the child's development. As teachers and early childhood professionals, we may have encounter with a child who is dealing with some sort of stress. It's important that we understand the type of stressors that impact our children. We can not teach the child with out meeting the child's basic needs a safety and security.  

When I think back I can remember a child who was struggling and endangered of  failing. As a concerned teacher I contacted his mother and asked her to come in for a parent teacher conference. During the conference I expressed my concerns about the child having missed more then half of the first quarter of school, his inability to build effective relationships with peers, and being apart of the classroom community. Before meeting with mom I had made my own preconceptions about what was wrong. I thought that if only he came to school of time and everyday it would fix all the issues he was having in school. I was so wrong...

During the parent teacher conference I found out that the mother was pregnant with her third child and that she was extremely sick and had been on bed rest for most of the pregnancy. Recently, she had broke her pelvis and was not able to get out of the bed for two months. The family had just moved to a new home and she moved in with her current baby father. Unfortunately, that has been a difficult transition because her and her child's father was arguing and getting in to physical altercations, in which my student would try to protect his mother during these situations. Finally, she also informed that his father was just locked up and he was not able to see his father. I was shocked to learn that my struggling student was dealing with chaos. This chaos was a stressor that was impacting his ability to successfully build relationships, obtain academic success, and be apart of a community.

I knew that in order for my student to be able to be successful and I had to develop a plan that would meet the needs of the family. I referred my student to the school counselor who meet with him weekly. I restructure my social studies unit to include diversity in family structure, and spent two minutes of child-directed engagement with him everyday. I asked the mom to ensure that he comes to school on time and everyday. To try not to argue or fight in front of him and seek counseling for the family and I provided her with some additional resources to find a family counselor.      

My student is doing well, he has improved academically and has established positive relationships with his peers and teachers. Mom is doing well and the baby is healthy. Family counseling has help to provide emotional support for the family as they go through this transitional time period. The stressor of chaos in this child life has gone.

In many different countries around the world also deal with stress in another way through war. War is a stressor that impacts millions of children around the world. Recently, I saw a video on YouTube entitled The Effects of War on Children by Human Appeal International organization,  about a little boy who was going to the market with his brother and two cousins when they were struck by a bomb killing the littles boy's brother and cousin. The little boy and his cousin was left critically injured. Situations like this is happening all over Syria right now and children are the most impacted. Some are left with no to no family at all, abducted, and greatly injured. There are many organizations that are helping children all over world who are victims of war. Like War Child International which is an organization dedicated to shed light on the issues children of war face. UNICEF has also dedicated many of its efforts to support children of war and their families.

All of this made me wonder...What are our roles as teachers when it comes to stressors that impact children? What rescoures do we have available to assist children who are impacted from these stressors? What are the long terms effects these stressor can have on young children?  

Here are some additional resources you can use to explore this topic more:
http://www.unicef.org/graca/
http://www.warchild.org/links_resources/childsoldiers/childsoldiers.html#articles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpCpUUdUkUI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-kawjo5lPM