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.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
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.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
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?
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***
• 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
Saturday, March 29, 2014
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
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
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Is breastfeeding really the best?!?
Well, according to many, "yes", breastfeeding to the most nutritious and health way to feed your infant. On UNICF website under nutrition there is an entire page dedicated to informing people about the undeniable benifts of breastfeeding. They explain, "Optimal breastfeeding of infants under two years of age has the greatest potential impact on child survival of all preventive interventions, with the potential to prevent over 800,000 deaths (13 per cent of all deaths) in children under five in the developing world (Lancet 2013)."
I'm curious to know why breast milk has so may beneficial qualities and what research has to say about breast-fed children compared to children who have not been fed breast milk?
What I discovered about breastfeeding:
Resources
UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_24824.html
Reference this document as: EU Project on Promotion of Breastfeeding in Europe. Protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding in Europe: a blueprint for action. European Commission, Directorate Public Health and Risk Assessment, Luxembourg, 2004. It can be downloaded from: http://europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph_projects/2002/promotion/promotion_2002_18_en.htm
I'm curious to know why breast milk has so may beneficial qualities and what research has to say about breast-fed children compared to children who have not been fed breast milk?
What I discovered about breastfeeding:
•Supplies
balance nutrition and adjust to age of baby
•Decress
infant death, illness, childhood asthma, and allergies.
•Higher
IQ and more likely to attend college
•Less
likely to be come obese or suffer from illness due to obesity.
•Simulates
mother-child bonding
•Reduces
the risk of breast cancer for the breast feeding woman.
You can check out the UNICEF website for more amazing facts about the benefits of breastfeeding! http://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_24824.html
While researching I found this interesting document on a blue print for breast-feeding in Europe. In the document called, "Protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding in Europe: a blue print for action", it addresses a plan for the country to institute to help promote breastfeeding in their country. Their goal was to develop strategies to encourage mother to breastfeed their infant until at least six months which they believed would give the optimal health benefits. Some of the strategies they implemented to encourage breastfeeding was developing polices and procedures for encouraging breastfeeding, provide information, educate and communicate to families and health care provide about the overwhelming advantages of breastfeeding, provide trainings to health care professionals so that they can properly support families in the breastfeeding process, provide protection for mother's who breastfeed by promoting support of public breastfeeding, and careful monitoring to ensure and chart success.
If you would like to view the document in it's entirety just click here! http://iblce.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/eu-blueprint-english.pdf
If you would like to view the document in it's entirety just click here! http://iblce.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/eu-blueprint-english.pdf
Resources
Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person
through childhood (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Reference this document as: EU Project on Promotion of Breastfeeding in Europe. Protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding in Europe: a blueprint for action. European Commission, Directorate Public Health and Risk Assessment, Luxembourg, 2004. It can be downloaded from: http://europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph_projects/2002/promotion/promotion_2002_18_en.htm
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