My Connections to Play

 

Essential Play Items in my Childhood:

 

    

Many of the adults and children around me as a child allowed me to use my imagination for the majority of my play. Many of the adults in my life would play with me and make believe along with my imagination. This encouraged me to be playful and imaginative. My parents also allowed my brothers and I a lot of free time outside to play with each other and the neighborhood full of children. I ended every day after dinner playing imagination and physical games with 10-15 other children throughout my childhood.

 

The main difference to me in play today is the addition of technology to young children. It was not until I was in middle school that technology became easily accessible to me and my friends. I have noticed with my students now (between 5 and 6 years old), most if not all of them not only have access to technology but they also usually have their own personal piece of technology that is a part of their daily or weekly play time.

 

The biggest impact my play had on me throughout my childhood and adulthood was the ability to take chances and explore the world around me. I was also able to grow vocabulary by playing with the adults and older children in my life.



Relationship Reflection

Relationships are an important part of my life because the people I am close to in my life are the foundation that almost all aspects of my life are built upon. The relationships I have are my lifelines and are not only there when I am struggling but are also consistently available to me when I am celebrating and making life choices.

I would categorize the close, daily relationships in my life into 3 parts. The first is my husband (and our dog), the second is my parents and the third is a small group of friends that are like sisters to me.

My relationship with my husband is a partnership. He is my other half and is literally and figuratively my life partner. I contribute the success of this relationship to our commitment to each other as well as our souls' connections. My relationship with my parents has become a friendship and a major support system in my life. My parents are always available and willing to support me in any way and I am for them as well. I consider this relationship a constant in my life. I am committed to having a positive and close relationship with my parents no matter what because they are my family. The relationship I have with my friends is based upon our ability to pick up where we left off no matter how long it has been since we have connected. My friends and I lead very busy lives but we are also committed to seeing each other, texting each other, calling each other and communicating in any way possible no matter our schedules. My friends are my biggest cheerleaders. We are independent, nonjudgmental women that love to what each other succeed and be happy! 

The biggest struggle in maintaining meaningful relationships for me is making time for each relationship. With my husband and my parents it is seamless for me to have them in my daily life but with my friends I have to schedule times to meet with them sometimes months in advanced because our schedules are all so different.

I think the ability to listen to people and be empathetic to peoples' life experiences is an essential part of any relationship and is also an important part of being in the early childhood field. I also think committing time to relationships is an important part of being a good teacher and connecting with each of your students as much as possible.

 

 

 

A quote to think about...

There are so many quotes that inspire me about children and my students that it was hard for me to pick just one for this post. I have recently been trying to make an effort every day to think about this quote in the way that I talk to each of my students. Sometimes the idea of how much of an influence I can have on their lives and their self confidence can be daunting. But at the same time, I find it to be a great honor and privilege to be able to touch so many children in so many different ways. I have a great job!

Childhood Assessments

Considering the child in a holistic manner, I think there should more than just one factor in an assessment given to school-aged children to measure their growth. One of the aspects of an assessment I believe should be the cognitive stance of the child compared to other children that same age to give a baseline of their development. I also think children should be assessed on their social competencies and their relationships with other children (ie: working well in a group or solving problems independently etc). I think assessments should be measured based on data of where children can developmentally be at each age. I also think there should be more of a window or range for "successful scores" to allow for children of different ability levels to still be considered showing growth.
Finland is one of the leaders in education in the world and has had an educational reform since the 1970's. Finland does not have standardized assessments to measure student growth. Students in this country receive narrative feedback form their teachers that include examples of growth and suggestions for future growth instead of letter grades. "Samples of students are evaluated on open ended assessments at the end of second and ninth grade to inform curriculum." Students are also the center of their own learning in Finland. It is rare to see a teacher lecturing students in front of a classroom. Most students create their own weekly goals with their teachers and work at their own pace within the curriculum. The center of this curriculum seems to be real world problem solving and higher level reasoning and questioning. The idea is to teach children how to think in an abstract way to solve any problem, regardless of the subject, in a meaningful way.
Reference:
http://www.nea.org/home/40991.htm

Childhood Stressors

The childhood stressor that I have been most in contact with through working at a homeless women and children's shelter is poverty. I have seen many children living in poverty and the effect it has on them. I have also seen mothers that grew up in poverty that are now raising their children in similar circumstances. The main way I have seen children coping that are living in poverty is to pull close to their siblings. I am thinking of a particular family of three children that at times were living with a violent, drug using and neglectful mother. The children ranged in age of 6, 4, and 2. The children in this family were so bonded to each other and cared for each other. The oldest child acted so much older than he really was. He cared for the younger children and treated them in a way a parent would. I saw these children surviving by relying on their relationship as siblings. This family also relied on government assistance for food and clothing and non profit services for shelter and schooling.

I am interested in researching childhood poverty in the United States. I would like to know more about poverty in our own country because I feel it connects with my first hand experience with this stressor. In 2011 it was reported that 23% of American children (roughly 16 million) are living below the poverty line and their family's annual income is less than $22,00.00 for a family of 4. 1 out of every 4 children are living in a family where they can no longer afford to live in their home. The poverty rate among African American children in the US is 38.2%, which is higher than any other race in the country. One last affect that I found shocking was that only 3 other countries (Mexico, Chile, and Turkey) in the developed world have a higher childhood poverty rate than the US. Some of the things being done to support children in poverty include government assistance like food stamps, and housing assistance. We also provide free and reduced meals in our schools for children living in poverty to reduce the harm of this stressor. There are also countless non profit organizations that provide mentors, food banks, clothing and supply drives and counseling to children living in poverty. The US government also provides monetary support for schools that have a certain number of low income children attending.

References
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/social-issues/poor-kids/by-the-numbers-childhood-poverty-in-the-u-s/

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/06/25/child-poverty-America

The Impact of Healthy Water in Child Devleopment

   I chose to research this topic because I read that so many people and children are affected by not having clean drinking water throughout the world. I was shocked to read that up to 1 billion people in the world do not have access to healthy drinking water. When I read that statistic, I realized this was a relevant topic to research for anyone in the early childhood field. 
   Because this topic is so widespread throughout the world, I decided to research world-wide facts about drinking water and also to focus on facts from Africa. Not only is clean water a problem in Africa, but so is a consistent, stable water supply in general. On average, women and children in Africa have to walk 3.7 miles to collect water. That water is not guaranteed to be clean water or to be free of parasites that could cause sickness or death. I also learned that not only do people around the world have a lack of water supply but they are much more likely to become sick and even die from the water they do consume. One statistic that I found shocking was that "about 1.8 million child-deaths a year are due to diarrhea". which can be caused by un sanitized water and the death can also be caused by dehydration. Africa and Asian countries seem to be suffering from a lack of clean water greatly. "In a typical year in Africa, 5-10 times the number of people die from diarrhea than of war" and "In a sub-Saharan country a child is 500 times more likely to die from diarrhea than a child from Europe".
   The more facts I read about the lack of clean water for children in other parts of the world, the more sad and shocked I was. I wondered why this is such a big problem for so many parts of the world, yet in America we use and waste water because we have no restrictions or lack of supply. I wondered why there is such a huge disparity between my life and a child's life in other countries. As I was reading, I also found many organizations that offer help to people living in these water conditions. One example of an organization is The Water Project. Their projects work with communities to build clean water wells and educates people about how to create clean water. The Water Project also encourages people to drink only water for 2 weeks (to save money from not drinking other products) and to donate the money they saved ($23) to provide one person to access to clean water. Another organization that donates packets of cleansing chemicals to communities that purifies their water (P&G Children's Safe Drinking Water and PUR).
   The information I have learned in the very least will make me more cognizant of over using and wasting water in my home and every day life. I would also be interested in donating or running fundraiser through The Water Project. They have a free packet on their website with a lot information packets and posters that would make it very easy to start and run a fundraiser in a school or church setting.
Reference
Scott, M. 2009. 40 shocking facts about water. Retrieved September 14, 2013 from http://matadornetwork.com/change/40-shocking-facts-about-water/.

 

 

A Birthing Experience

I have never been able to witness a birth first-hand, so I am going to reflect on what I have been told by my parents about my own birth. I am the second child of my mother's and was carried full term. My older brother was born via cesarean after almost 12 hours of labor. My mother wanted to have a natural childbirth free of medications or surgeries if possible. I was born in a hospital in Baltimore, MD after almost 12 hours of labor. The main story my mother has told me over and over again is that she was very upset and scared towards the end of her labor because her doctor had to use forceps for me to be delivered. I also know that my mother was relived to find out I was "only" 10 pounds because my older brother was 12 pounds. My personal thoughts on childbirth are that everyone has a different experience. I think that every woman has to decide what is right for her body and her baby and should feel accepted by the people around her for her decisions. I think that childbirth a lot of times is the first glimpse into how a person will parent their child. I know for myself, my mother had as natural a childbirth as she could in the early 1980's and her parenting styled mimicked her births in that way.
I explored childbirth in the Philippines. I was interested in this country because I lived there for 3 years when I was in elementary and middle school. I always love to learn more about that country through adult eyes. What I read said that there is often a lot of superstition practices throughout a woman's pregnancy and also tied to the use of birth control in this country. There were two main options for the actual childbirth. The first was government run hospitals for the nearly 40% of urban poor or at home childbirth. I also read that childbirth can be seen as a family event and there is not much privacy for a laboring woman. Every female relative is usually present at a birth and throughout the labor. What I read of the government run hospitals for much of the urban poor is that you need to have cash and family members to care for you during your labor. The cash is so that you can pay for the materials that are needed for you labor or baby. I also read that in some government run hospitals, sanitary practices are not the same as those in the United States. One midwife described a doctor running surgical instruments under tap water before using them on a mother and having 4-5 mothers laboring in a group bed at the same time. Researching births in other countries is interesting to me because even though people birth different ways and may not have all the luxuries we have in the US, woman still have beautiful experiences that end with beautiful children.