My Supports

Supportive daily factors in my life are based on my relationships. I have a very large family, who are very close to me. First and foremost is my relationship with my fiancé, whom supports me in good times and bad. My relationship with my mother is also extremely supportive, where I can talk to her, and depend on her. Another support is my professional relationship that I have with my boss, who is really more of a mentor to me. If I am struggling with work or even questioning my career path, I can go to her for a real solid, genuine conversation.

The benefits of these supports are invaluable and without the encouragement, guidance, and emotional support my life would definitely be more difficult. Knowing the people around you can bring a sense of security and a sense of pride. Supportive relationships add quality to people’s lives, this enables a sense of trust where relationships help to celebrate good times and help us through the tough times.  Having strong supportive relationships is known to provide emotional help during stressful times, reduce stress, increase life span and give greater levels of happiness, without them life would be more stressful and less enjoyable. 

My Connections to Play

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

“Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.” – O. Fred Donaldson

As a young child, I loved playing mommy to my many cabbage patch dolls. I imitated my own mother as I pretended to practice the skills to take care of babies and small children, it's so true what they say; children really do learn through play!

A Ball! This was such a simple item, yet it brought me hours upon hours of enjoyment.


Play was supported in many ways, back in the day. Although there were video games, it was not promoted in my household, I was encouraged to use my imagination and was always outside with my friends. My mother would purchase family board games, that allowed me to learn the value of losing and winning. She would also quite frequently buy my brothers and I toys that enabled our creative side like Legos, puzzles, playdoh or just plain crayons and paper. Educators supported play by allowing myself and other children to quite simply, just "play" using our own imaginations, by giving us plenty of recesses and free play time.

Play nowadays is a fleeting idea, where the very aspect is diminished behind the boom of the technological age, and educational reform. Gone are the days of leisurely free play, where children can be open to imaginative creations. It's no surprise that our obesity rates are so high, and the shrinking abundance of play is certainly one of those culprits. Most children would much rather play on an iPad or video game, vs going outside. It doesn't help that the schools have cut out a large amount of recess and free time, in order to cram our youth with more and more academics. I feel that are youth have been deprived of the very innocence that makes childhood, light and carefree. Play allowed me to grow and thrive in all aspects of development from cognitive, to social, and even gross motor that I use throughout adulthood. For example my many adventures playing with my friends, equipped me with the life skills needed to share, be empathic of others, and take turns.
 I hope that through the collaboration of parents like myself who care about what's happening in our schools, and through research that continues to display the postive effects of play, that things will change.

Relationship Reflection

Relationships are an essential part in life and contribute towards one’s health and well-being. The quality of these connections assist in maintaining loving, nurturing happy lifestyles, reversely in negative circumstances it can also enable destructive behaviors. Positive healthy relationships are important to me because they are the foundation and central to all of the things that are meaningful to me. All associations in life regardless if they are, love, family, friendship, or work require effort from both parties in order to operate. In my experience respect, communication, as well as trust are essential in sustaining these relationships. All of these experiences both positive and negative have an effect on my ability to work as an early childhood professional. In any human service field, individuals must rely on their past occurrences from even a young age to facilitate how to care about and treat others. Interacting with early learners, allows for educators to teach, and promote positive social-emotional development that will enable young children to start forming healthy relationships. A great example of this is in preschool, where most programs have a unit on friendship where they learn knowledge of sharing, and feelings.

My Husband and I have been together for 3 years and support each other by having mutual respect for one another and clear and open communication.

My children and I share the closet type of bond that is secured and maintained through love, respect, guidance and commuication.

My younger brothers and I have a close relationship, that has grown more over the years. I am 7 years older then them so we havent always had things in common, but now that they are older and more mature we have more common interests.

My mom and I have had a roller coaster of a relationship, that has endured many ups and downs since I was small. Now that I am a mother myself I am really able to appreciate the type of bond that a mother has with her child.

Professional Thank-you

Hi everyone, I just wanted to say thank-you to everyone for all their input and hard work for this class. All of the comments have really helped me in viewing other peoples views and opinions on child related topics. Good luck to everyone on their future classes!!

Child Quote

I love this quote as it's a perfect indication for how one should teach. Often educators can get stuck with direct teach methods that simply just give information to students instead of finding the methods towards teaching them "how" to think. I try to keep this in mind when I'm teaching, and try to be understanding in thoughts that not everyone learns the same way, but it is my job to provide the "how" so that they can be able to use those skills over and over again. It relates back to another famous quote: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish, and you can feed him for a lifetime."

Pros & Cons Of "Labeling"

Pros & Cons of "Labeling"

I believe that the process of assessing children should involve a well-rounded format that enables all aspects of development, and progress to be measured. Unfortunately, in today’s rigorous competitive educational system that is not the case. Now more than ever students are bombarded with demanding testing systems that that really only assess one type of learning, in which the students either know the answer or they don’t there is no other type of opportunities in most cases to show what knowledge they have acquired. A key focus should be on building his confidence and desire to learn. Thus, assessment should focus more on providing information on the learning progress of the child that would allow for better support in the areas of social and emotional welfare of the students. Institutions need to develop courses in such ways that offer students teaching and learning materials, experiences or tasks that can be applied to real world situations. One of the advantages of holistic assessments is that they can be utilized to evaluate various aspects of the leaner. For example portfolio assessments provide a multidimensional perspective of the leaner. Secondly, students are actively involved in the learning process. I believe that if federal and state levels would implement a multidimensional assessment that was designed to take a more nuanced, textured, or rich approach to assessment students would not only benefit in their educational and career phases in life, but educational institutions would see a positive shift in the overall outcome.

         Japan is known for being one of the best education systems in the world. Teachers at all levels of schooling consistently assess their students through teacher-developed tests and other forms of student-based work. Homeroom teachers often spend many years with the same group of students and are involved with their lives outside the classroom, making the assessment process easier, more precise and more accessible to parents. Standardized tests are also used in the where classroom teachers provide summitive tests that fit the structure of each unit and allow students to demonstrate their learning through a variety of modalities that address the learning styles of the students in their classroom. A notable difference is their focus on moral education and "special activities." "Special activities" refer to scheduled weekly time given over to class affairs and to preparing for the school activities and ceremonies that are used to emphasize character development and the importance of group effort and cooperation. Students take school-developed exams at the end of lower secondary and upper secondary schools, both of which have an impact on their placement in the next level of the education system. Admission into senior high schools is extremely competitive, and in addition to entrance examinations, the student’s academic work, behavior and attitude, and record of participation in the community is also taken into account.

References:

Japan Instructional Systems http://www.ncee.org/programs-affiliates/center-on-international-education-benchmarking/japan

Racism and the Developing Child

As I observe my son in his present youth, I often reflect upon my childhood, and the way I was brought up. I note the dramatic differences between our upbringings. I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta Canada and was one out of two children that attended my elementary school, not only was that a notable difference as one revved the physical differences between myself and my classmates but in the general population as well. Quite noticeable I didn't look like anyone else except those that were in my own household. It wasn't even that I thought in my young mind that anything was wrong with it, it was just a plain fact. I also had a mixed household with a younger siblings whom were both half white. It wasn't until I was 5 years old that I really noticed the negative effect on the physically characteristics, when one day when I was walking with my mom in the mall and a little girl pointed and laughed at my hair making a comment on my ill Afro puffs. A year later I started kindergarten, and was called the "N" word. In that instance I developed a sense of self-consciousness about my appearance. As I entered school, I made numerous amounts of friends, as I strived to be the best at everything else that was within my control, fashion, sports, and a clique of friends. Negatively, that also caused me to develop a need for people to like me and be "cool", I got caught up with the wrong crowd in high school, among people who liked to party hard. My last year of high school, my family moved to the America, where the majority of my mom’s family lived. and I was in complete culture shock, not only did I look like the majority of people but where we moved to in Maryland there was a rarity of any other race in that proximity besides African Americans and Hispanics. It was then that a new difference was discovered in which I didn't act or sound like the other students and was labeled as "acting white". However, by that time I was surrounded with a large number of family members including ones that were only a few years older than me. They became a major influential role models to me, as many of them had similar upbringing. I was able to cope by leaning on the support of my family and close friends, as I slowly came to the realization of self-empowerment, and self-love.

     I would like to know my family's native country, which is still considered a third world country. I know of the struggles that my family went through during their childhood, like poverty would like to know of the present struggles that are apparent in 2013. The country currently struggles as a developing third world country, vast aspect of poverty and the ever effect of developing its industry. As a result many children struggle to acquire the very basic needs needed to sustain life. Additionally, the education system suffers dramatically, where shortages of national expenditure on education were seen as serious drawbacks. In the past few years Guyana, like most of the developing countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and Asia (all referred to as the Third World) are commencing in a similar phase; in other words, their education systems began undergoing a transition from the stage of educational underdevelopment to one relatively developed one.