Final Thoughts for EDUC 6165 Communicating and Collaborating in Early Childhood

Though I am excited to wrap up another class, I am left wondering will I meet my colleagues again. I have experiences great discussion forums and exchanged lots information with you all. You have trusted me with your personal experiences and all your personal thoughts. I have valued your comments and suggestions throughout the eight weeks. I hope that you all know I am here and you can reach out to me for future help in your courses. It has been a pleasure working with all of you and I hope to bump into you again. Please feel free to always keep in touch and I hope the experiences we have shared has been as beneficial to you as it was to me. To Professor Johna Darraugh Ernst, thank you for opening my eyes to world of communicating and collaborating. I feel more confident that I can continue to strengthen my communication skills while passing on all the knowledge you have bestowed on me. Here is a little quote I read on a shopping bag that made me smile:

"As we grow as unique persons, we learn to respect the uniqueness of others."

Robert H. Schuller

Please feel free to contact me at natasha.khan@waldenu.edu or natashafoizal@gmail.com. 

Team Adjournment (Reactions and Expectations)

This week we learned about the five stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. When considering the adjourning phase of the numerous groups that I have been involved in, I am not impressed by the memories. Due to the lack of communication that existed in the group, I think many of the members were so happy the project was over that they just wanted to move on without any attachment. I think it was a relief when we could end the team work.

I did not have very positive interactions during my group projects. I worked with many people and I did learn about. I was more sad that we could not maintain professional working relationship. During all the groups we successfully completed our task but I also that it could be better if we had a more effective system  that organize the group. 

The groups that I was apart of, I did not feel sad when it ended, I just felt as though the job was done but not to the potential it could have been done. We did not having any closing rituals. we just said good bye and good luck in the future. Some members did not even say good bye at all they just left. That showed the other members that they were never effective team members and did not share the same vision.

Concerning my Walden University colleagues, I can tell that I do not want to adjourn this team. I feel privilege to be working with other individuals that share the same goals and want to establish themselves in the field of early childhood. I have enjoyed sharing personal stories and learning about how other perceive me and my work. I have enjoyed all the constructive criticism and compliments. I feel even though we are classmates online, we have established a trust level that shows we feel comfortable sharing our personal as well as professional  experiences and goals.   

Adjourning is an important part of the teamwork because it creates a level of respect and understanding for all the participants in the team. It allows everyone to offer their appreciation and celebrate together for the achievements that they have created. This always everyone the opportunity to exchange numbers and think about future collaborations. 

Conflict Resolution Strategies

Professionally, I am having some difficulty at work with a supervisor. To me it seems very childish because we are both professionals and we should be making more of an effort to conduct ourselves in a professional manner as heads of our child care facility. I find at times, I am being degraded by actions rather than words because I am given responsibilities that I feel should be completed by the supervisor. I have always had a feeling that I am not valued at all times and that I can be taken advantage of due to my ability to always want to please others. To me we always bump heads because she is aiming to show me up because I have worked with this staff for over ten years and she is new. I do not like that the staff knows when we are arguing because it is simply embarrassing and I wonder if the staff can see our conflicts, what about the parents and the children. This conflict honestly prohibits me from function properly sometimes because it is always on my mind during the day.

After learning about conflict resolution this week, I have come to realize that I need to step back a little and cool my head. When I am anger and I believe that I am right and I cannot see any other point of view. Reading about compassion and non-violent approaches to problem solving, I realized I can neutralize my conflict if I could implemented a few strategies:

1. Listen before commenting.
2. Learn to teach her with the same respect that I would want.
3. Control my anger in order to promote peaceful interaction.
4.  Learn to let things go and look towards the positive aspects.
5.  I also believe we should focus on the points where we are the strongest and most productive.
6.  Learn how to constructively critique the topics that are creating the problems instead of adding to it.

I also feel being respectful, reciprocal and responsive can help to resolve this conflict because it will allow me the opportunity to look beyond my feelings and consider the other side of the story. We have never sat down and discussed the beginning of this situation and I think we are both at fault. We are not being honest with each other; instead we are building more and more frustration on our lack of communication that already exists.  Many people have told me, that we need to look outside the box because we are limiting our disagreement based on our own perceptions of what we feel are right and wrong.

In confidence, I asked a fellow co-worker what she thought of the situation between me and my supervisor. She actually told me that we have a lot in common concerning work ethics and production. We shared the same strong skills and she does not understand why we are in conflict because we make a great team. She said it seems that we have strong feelings and maybe we both want the same power and she did tell me that my supervisor seems to be feel threaten by my relationship with the other colleagues.  My colleague told me I should try to talk about the situation as much as I can in order to find out all the facts. But she also recommended that I try to listen to what the other party has to say to make sure you know what you are arguing about. After hearing this information, I feel I need to take steps to resolve this conflict in order to promote peace and unity for us and the rest of the colleagues. We should set the correct examples for our workers in order to maintain a professional working atmosphere. 

Communicator? That's Me!

Communication, I have always believed it is my strong point. Everyone around me usually knows how I feel about everything because my facial expressions will let you know. I could never hide how I feel behind a smile and I could never allow others to think I understand when I don’t. I do acknowledge that I have learned to accept the things that I may not agree with, but I will still at times try to understand it again.

I offer myself as a good communicator because I feel I can express my needs and desires on a neutral level that does not imply selfishness. I have learned how to professional address my staff by creating communication boundaries that allows us all to speak while others listen. We all can effectively gathering our thoughts and we present our sides of the story without confrontation.

I have attended many workshops at the request of my teammates in order to help everyone improve their skills. I know it takes effective communication between a staff to create positive results and with hard work I always try to improve my skills.

I represent a team of men and women, who have to be role model for children, so I always ask for their input after team meeting and functions with parents. My team is good at constructively critiquing by offering suggests and letting me know how the audience took it. Gradually, I have learned to control facial expressions and body language in order to look more professional. My team gives me advice on how I can improve my communication. Overall, I know they feel I can communicate effectively but there is always room for improvement.

I am surprised that my team sees me as an effective communicator because it shows me they respect my judgments and know I have their best interest at heart. I do sometimes; have to insist on them to tell me how I have bought my point across to ensure I have not offend anyone.

After completing the assessment sheets, I noticed that I was good in all of them. My listening was the highest from my own self assessment and I surprised at how well I did with the other two individuals that evaluated me on my communication skills. I choose a co-worker that I have worked with for over ten years and my husband that I have been happily married to for four years. The results were overall really good, but like I always say there is always room for improvement. 

This week I have learned that we can all improve on our communication skills because every day is a new learning experience. I have also learned that not all communication ends in a solution, we all need to learn that communication is the exchange of information and not always an answer. Working on communication this week allows me to be more aware of the changes and improvement I can make in my professional and personal life. Improving my skills will continue to benefit myself and my team. Having a good working relationship helps to promote my people skills while ensuring positive production.

In my personal life, I have great communication with my husband because communication is the key to a success marriage. Having solid foundation and trust between each other allows us to take on each situation together even when we agree to disagree. As long as we respect each other and give each other the time to explain our feelings, we can work through anything. Communication is the path way to understanding.

Effective Communication Strategies

I am definitely guilty of communicating differently with many of my colleagues, family members and personal associates. During professional time, I have learned a lot about my colleagues and how they feel about certain aspects of life concerning race, religion, politics, sexual orientation and disabilities among children and staff. I do not discuss in details with others about topics that are very sacred to them or connected strongly with their family views. One thing I do stress is that these feeling do not affect their work because I will not tolerate that. We all have our religious beliefs and our political choices, but I also say we keep these parts of our lives to ourselves because in this program we teach our kids about the world and that includes every religion and holidays that we can.  I do often find myself avoiding conversations with certain individuals because I know we will continue to butt heads and that just leads to more miscommunication.  Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to allow people to speak their minds without passing judgment. Being a good listener can help me to become an effective communicator and allow others to feel comfortable with me.

            Concerning family members, we have spent our lives getting to know each other, and we know what topics to avoid. I have family members that follow different religious paths e.g. Muslim, Hindu, Christianity and Pentecostal. We all know who celebrates what holidays and we do our best to respect each other’s special time and we definitely restrain from making comments. Religion is a big topic in my family that we cannot agree on, so we “Agree to Disagree.” I know my communication varies depending on what role I am in because I try to learn and absorb information that is provide to me by the people that I interact with. I keep my relationship happy by respecting. My family and I have learned to share our joys and sorrows with each other and we have learned how to support each other in a productive manner. In my family sometimes staying quiet is the best advice you can give. We are very big and giving hugs and making each other laugh, and that usually removes the tension in the room.

In order to make my communication more effective, I try to maintain a professional manner by following three strategies:

1)      Learn to listen without talking.

2)      Do not offer my opinions or suggestions unless they are asked for.

3)      Remember respect and acceptance builds try relationship while ignorance creates more conflict.

Communication is important me because it a way that I get to know people and the way I get to express who I am to others. I always feel people tend to “Judge A Book by its Cover”. I want to change what people think of me when I express who I am underneath. 

Week 2 Blog Assignment Non-Verbal Observation

For this assignment I choose to record an episode of Elementary entitled "An Unnatural Arrangement". 

The show began with who I assume are the main characters involved in a somewhat observation conversation. They were staring into a jail call and then speaking on what they were seeing. followed by a crime that was accruing to a women. A man was sitting in a waiting position for a home owner to come home. The women was startled and frightened by the facial expressions she exhibit. It also seemed as they she did have want the gunman wanted. Throughout the show I was introduced to more characters who all seemed to be police officers. My conclusion of profession was they attire and their badges that they had on their waist. It also seemed the women were important to one of the officers by the way they embraced.

As I continued to watch the show, other characters were introduced in different scenes. The two main characteristics has sarcastic looks on their faces as I assume they were trying to solve the case. The lead male appeared goofy at times by his use of body language and extravagant facial gestures. The lead female seemed profession but also lead by her partner.

During many scenes the main character seems to be the center of the conversation. His mouth continues to control all aspects of the conversations. Any scene he is in is primarily controlled by him. The other characters do not seem bothered by that, instead they at certain points seem impressed as their faces light up when he has reveal something important to the case. They seem to be working together very week. I could see their relationship was understanding and very comical as well. To me it looked as if he was heavily relied on because he seems to have all the answers. He also behaves very cocky as well and his body language seems to sway with whatever he was talking about as if he was using sign language.

After watching this program with no sound I was able to understand a lot even though there was no sound. My assumptions were mostly correct because when I watched the program with sound I learned Sherlock was the main characters followed by Waston the next lead character. They do work together to help police solve crimes. I was also correct in label a deep connection with the victim in first scene because is the police captains wife.

If I was watching a show that I was more familiar with I think I would have been able to provide more depth understanding of relationship because I would have known more about the characters. I learned that non verbal communications skills are just as important as language. Body language and facial features and gestures can communicate exactly what you what to say.  Everyone's body is a tool that offers multiple ways to communicate and interact with others. This was an interesting assignment and I encourage my colleagues to try to observe situation without listen and see if they are able to understand what is being communicated. Communication is truly a complex state of learning and exploring for all.

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” Confucius 

Modeling Competency

    

When I think if a person that I admire as an effective communicator, I do not go far from home. I admire my mother's communications skills. My mom is a wife, a mother, a sister and an aunt. She is the communication leader of my family. We always know how she feels and what she expects of us. My dad and mom have a great relationship, they are the couple that never keeps anything from each other. My mom always tells me that you should tell your husband everything because communication is the key to happiness. When you don't communicate that leads to problems and consequences. Between my brother and me, we were always told what to do in the best possible way. My mom had a way of giving us chores and responsibilities like she was giving us gifts. We felt proud to get opportunities to show her what we could do.

I chose my mom because she always had time to talk to me and my brother. We would sit at the table and have dinner together so we could talk. We would share our days, the good and the bad. We always communicated to each other without judgement. My mom would offer suggestions and tell us, when you have a problem you have to communicate, do not assume people can read your mind. As a family, my mom held us together because she always promoting sharing whats on our mind.

Now that I am working in the field of early childhood education, I do my best to follow what I have learned about communication from my mother. I do my best to tell everyone in a professional manner how I feel about the situations that occur at work and the implementation of new programs. I would rather have the mines of communication open with my staff and we do our best to meet at least one a week to discuss new ideas. Promoting the skills I have learned from my mom would allow me to be an adequate leader that staff can rely on.

Communication is the most effective way to tell people how you feel. Body language is a form of communication that we continue to use without knowing what signals we are giving off. I hope during this course, I can learn how to effectively communicate in all aspects of my life.

Professional Hopes and Goals

                                            

I hope as I continue to work with children and families, who come from diverse backgrounds, I can maintain the ability to provide them with programs that support all their needs. I also want to provide an environment that can further their growth and development while maintain their family culture. Diversity is an issue that I plan to keep myself aware about by continuing to read and distribute resources to my staff. Staying well informed will help me to make the decisions I need to make to keep maintain a diverse facility.

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is the process of continuance. By that I hope that the field can continue to build and promote knowledge through researches. I feel if the field can continue to grow and develop as they learn more about these issues, we can someday eliminate prejudice and biases that affect our children. As I continue to work in the field, I plan to share the knowledge that I acquire with other professionals, so we can support each other in our professional and personal growth.

To all my colleagues, I thank you for sharing all your personal stories, hopes and goals throughout the course. Thank you for all your positive feedback and your words of encouragement over the past eight weeks. It has been a pleasure getting to know all of you and I hope I can work with you again as we all continue our studies here at Walden University. I am honored to work with individuals that share the same passion of helping children and promoting appropriate early childhood education.  I want to extend to everyone, please feel free to contact me as we continue to grow and learn. I feel as they I have made life long relationship here at Walden and I hope you all feel the same. I wish you the best of luck on your future hopes and dreams. See you all the finish line where another journey in our lives will begin.

Until we meet again, Natasha Khan

Welcoming Families From Around the World

For this blog assignment I choose the country of Yemen. I am not familiar with this country and I would love to know how children from Yemen are exposed to early childhood education.  In the scenario, I have chosen to operate my own licensed childcare center. I have just received news that a family will be relocating from Yemen and I have a spot available for their child to start right away.  Now being the owner of the child care facility. I have to prepare myself to welcome this new child by learning all I can about her and her background.

Five ways I would begin to prepare myself to welcome this new child to my child care center:

      1)   My first step would be to create a welcome guide for the new child and her family. I would take pictures of the classroom, and translate the words into her particular language. I would include pictures of her new classmates and teachers with their names. Creating this welcome packet will allow the family to become comfortable with the school and know where everything is. In the packet I will give all the names of the staff and do my best to provide local places where they can get food that is close to their home cuisine.

       2)    I would need to find out the history of the country of Yemen. Learning about the history, cultures and traditions would give me a foundation of what to expect.                                                                               3 )   I would also prepare the current students by giving them some information on their new classmate. I would encourage them to make drawings that they can present to their new friend as a welcome gift.

      4)   Learning the languages that are spoken would help me to get familiar with keywords. I would make some notes to myself, of how to say important phrases such as “Hello”, “Good morning”, “how are you? “, “Welcome to your new school” and  “We are excited to have you here!” Key phrases will help this particular child feel welcome as well as her family. This information will be passed on to the teachers, current families and children.

       5)      I would purchase some supplies for the classroom, which would support this particular child’s family culture. Books, supplies, materials that would represent her home life because her whole environment will be different due to her relocation. 

It is important for me to complete these tasks because I want the any new child to feel welcome and respected. It is important to have a program that presents a culturally diverse atmosphere so families can feel reassured that we are presenting a well-balanced program that can cater to everyone’s individual needs. My program needs to support children and their families by giving the basic supplies that are needed to adapt to a new environment. Allowing myself to learn about different cultures gives me the ability to learn and accept new things. I am always hoping to set an example to my staff and current children that we can open our doors to all people around the world if we open our minds. Being a part of diverse community allows me have numerous amounts of information at my fingertip.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

            In 2009, I met my husband Foizal in Guyana while on vacation. I do not travel often to South America because my parents migrated from there when I was four years old. I do not have many memories of my birth country. During my vacation, I fell in love and returned to Guyana, three months later and we married in a simple ceremony. I made frequent visit to see my husband and always enjoyed learning more about the country where I was born. Each trip was a new adventure and I was ready to take in all the knowledge. My last trip to Guyana, I had a terrible experience in a local village shop.  I usually pack my suitcase very carefully each time I take a trip, but unfortunately this time I forgot my perfume.

            My husband took me a shop where they sold perfume from the U.S. because I would be more familiar with the brands. The store was lovely and there were two local village girls working there. When I arrived in the store, they were both assisting other customers. I began to walk around and look through the different bottles. I felt a strange vibe but I ignored it without making a big deal. My husband was looking at men’s colognes as I continued to browse. I noticed one of the girls had finished with her customer and then I heard her say she is taking her break now. The next young lady was done with her customer, but she never approached me or acknowledged that I was waiting. Another customer walked into the store and she offered assistance to her. In a slightly assertive voice, I stated I was next and would need assistance just in case she really did not notice me. She looked at me and said I thought you were still browsing.

            My husband asked what happen, I told him the sale woman is ignoring me and that is mean. My husband told me maybe she did not honestly know you were ready to be attended too.  Finally when she did come to where I was standing, I asked her to see a few different perfumes, and she spoke to me very rudely and would not pull out the ones I wanted to see. I asked my husband to take me somewhere else and he agreed. As I was leaving the store, I decided to ask to talk to the person that was in charge. I told the manager, that his workers refused to serve me and I do not know why. As I proceeded to leave the store, I could hear them arguing and I heard one of girls say she is not Guyanese, she is a foreigner. I was insulted and I could believe that I was judged based upon my looks and my language.

            My feeling of equity was diminished by the lack of service I received. I was not seen as a customer, but as a nuisance to the two girls. I was treated as if I had not right to be in the store and my money was of no value to buy in there. I told my husband that this incident made me sad because, I always had positive interactions wherever I went. I enjoyed visiting different stores and learning about Guyana, through his eyes. But during this incident I felt single out and de-graded as a human being. In order to have the opportunity of equity, there needs to customer services rules that regulate the worker’s behavior. Your personal biases should be left outside your professional working environment. When dealing with any business that requires face to face interactions with people, you learn to show respect for all differences and present fairness as one of your abilities. Customer services is a job that many people perform all over the world and if we all portrayed the way we feel, our business would not succeed.

              I was unfortunately single out by the two women because they felt I should not be shopping in there store, even though I am a paying customer. I was targeted by biases and prejudice feelings that made me feel inferior. I was very sad, but I ended up going to another store where I was treated with respect. I just keep thinking if I am Guyanese by birth and I was treated that way, how the people that are facing severe poverty in Guyana treated by their own people. In this world we are all connected because all of us face the same problems and we are all looking for a solution to make our worlds full of harmony and respect for all people. 

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

This week we all learned about microaggressions and it's affects to the people that are it's target. Now that I have become aware of this particular word, it has made me look at my life (past, present and future) to see how these types of situations have come into play in my world.

For this assignment, I had to think back to when I first started work at this particular child care center. There were two other Guyanese workers along side me at this program during that time. One day we had a breakfast celebration for the ending of the school year. I took a glass of orange juice and another co-worker pass me the container of salt. I asked her why she passed me the salt. She stated "Don't you all like it that way". I replied, "What are you talking about?". She took a while before she spoke, she tried to explain and I still did not understand. Then I asked her to just tell me why she made that assumption and she began to tell me a story. 

My co-workers told me she observed one of the Guyanese workers put salt in her orange juice and she asked her why she did that. She told her I like to do that to remove the sour taste. She said I found that very weird because she has never seen anyone do that. She told me when she saw me take  the orange juice, she assumed I would want salt as well because I was like the other worker. I did not feel insulted because I did not feel she was insulting me, just making a conclusion based on what she saw. 

Now that I am aware of this particular term and I can say my co-worker did not intentionally mean to insult me or my racial heritage. She was making an assumption because of her interactions with someone else that shared the same racial heritage as I have. I am not down playing the situation, but I was not offended. I don't know how someone else that is Guyanese would have reacted but I can see how her comment was inappropriate in many ways.

This week's observation experiences has changed my perception of the effects of discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping due to the way people can fall prey to these types of insults. Your best friend could hurt your feelings without intending too, or a random person can insinuate a comment that hurts you. People that faces these types of insults are very unlucky and I hope they can be strong enough to stand up for themselves. No one deserves to be judged and insulted for being themselves. This week, I have taken a good look at myself and how my words are affecting the lives of the people around me. 

Being the target of microaggression, is not easy or at all fair, but now that I am aware of how easy it is to become one, I will definitely stand up for myself and any other individual that faces the same scenario. Everyday is a learning experience and I believe that because I am learning so much about myself during this course. 

Different Perspective Views on Diversity and Culture

I choose to ask three professionals from my working environment. Kai Summors is an African American women, who has spent the last 17 years as an early childhood teacher. Maria Vega is a American with Puerto Rican heritage, she has been working in the field for over 13 years, as a babysitter, tutor and now a full time teacher. Marie Arbeeny, is also American with Irish/Italian heritage. She has been teaching for 22 years as an infant toddler head teacher. Marie is a devoted Catholic and celebrate all her important days by going to church.  I choose these three individuals because they are different from me as they were all born here, but what I liked is that they maintain their culture as a part of their every day life. 

Kai Summors

I define culture as a person’s beliefs, traditions and values. For example in my culture it is a tradition for the family to make a quilt to tell the story of our history.

My definition of diversity is acceptance, respect and openness for all people such as women, men, various ethnic groups and people with disabilities.

Maria Vega

Culture to me is the distinct ways in which a particular group of people live. Some of the aspects of culture are language, food, music, religion and holiday traditions.
Diversity is the differences between individuals or groups, whether it be race, color, language, gender, culture or social and economic status and our acceptance of them.

Marie Arbeeny

Culture is a particular form or way of life to which one is born into. Knowing one’s own culture helps with understanding those who are of the same heritage, beliefs, way of life and religion.

Diversity is different forms or ways of life in which people live. Knowing and understanding how people live will help me at work and in life in general. To be aware of our surrounding will help me to understand people.

After reviewing my colleagues responses, I am amazed of how they see culture and diversity. They all define culture as being personal to how they live their own lives. When reading through their definition it is obviously they are aware of the differences and how important it is to accept people. Learning about new cultures provides all of us with more knowledge about our surrounding. One important thing that I learned that relates to my course, is the definition of culture and diversity has its own meaning to everyone. We all know that their are differences out their, but we still value what is unique about us. 

Working in a field with such diversity individuals, allows me to see how everyone values and traditions can be applied in the classroom to benefit our children. I they have encompass all the course work that I have completed so far. They all have their own identities and their culture has helped in defining their identity. After reading through their definitions, my ideas and thoughts are re-enforced about the important of culture and diversity in the world especially when it comes to teaching children. 

I have realized that being open to other's definition gives me more knowledge to experience the world and have a greater impact in the field of early childhood education.

My Family Culture

Facing a major catastrophe in my country that faces me to relocation to another country that is providing refugee will be very difficult. Leaving all my personal belonging and having to pick up and leave would make very sad. Seeing that it is important to save the lives of my family and myself, I would leave right away. Three items that I would take with me is a photo album, tawa and my country's flag. I have chosen these items because they mean a lot to me in order to maintain my family culture.

The flag for me is a symbol of my birth place, and what my countries represents. The flag has five colors that hold symbolic meaning. The green represents the land, the white represents the waters of the country (Guyana is known as the land of many waters). The yellow represent the mineral wealth of the country, the black represents the thrusts that the people have continues to go through to create their independent country. Red represents the zeal and dynamic power of the country to continue to build forward into the future.

The tawa is a piece of cooking equipment. The easiest way to explain it's purpose, is for toasting. It is very similar to a toaster as it purpose it to cook dough. My son and my husband love to eat roti, bake and dumplings which is a main dish for them throughout their daily lives. I could not imagine not having them fulfilled with a reminder of sweet Guyanese style food.

The next item would be a special photo album that I have maintain during my youth. I have pictures of all my family members and I hold this book to be very important. I created this book so I could show my kids their past generation of families. It is important for my kids to know who and where they came from. I also feel it is important to remember what our relative looked like because children's features can be so different or similar to their parents. In my family my son looks like his father but he has a slight resembles to his cousin that he has never met yet. I love to look at old photos and remember how everyone lived at different times and to see how our family tree has grown and developed over time.

Arriving at this unknown place of refugee, and having to face another dilemma of giving up two of my items. I would feel horrible but I honestly believe I would keep my photo album because of it's importance to me and the generations before me. I would have to do my best to adapt to the new country. During this exercise I have begun to think about the value of items in my life. It makes me think of people that lose their homes and all their personal belonging to fires. They have to start over and they do, they build their house again to make new memories. The most important thing to me is having my family around me and that is my culture. Spending my day making my husband and my son happy brings me great joy and gives me my identity as the type of person I want to be seen as. A loving wife and mother , who is full of compassion. I love children and I hope throughout my life I can continue to be a significant figure in the field of early childhood education.

When I Think of Research...

Reflecting on what insights I have gained about research during this course is amazing. I use to look at research as a long and drawn out project that was aimed at subjecting participants through harmful studies that did not benefit many people. Now I see that it takes a long time and lots of effort to work through these studies. I also see the amount of scrutiny that these studies have to go through before they are allowed to continue. After these eight weeks I have gained so much respect for research that I am so moved by my ability to now understand and interpret the data. 

I have learn many lessons when it comes to planning, designing and conducting research throughout the course. I can see how they all relay on each other to make the study work. Planning and designing are very complicated as they can change dramatically when you decide how to conduct your research. their are many types of design that they can implement and researchers need to make decisions that best suit their study and that will help them explain their hypotheses or prove it. These lessons have shown me that research takes time to happen and when done correctly it can help to change the field of early childhood education. 

My ideas about the nature of doing research has changed a lot, because I can see the potential of research to the field of early childhood education. Research helps the field to make important decision for children as they grow and learn. So many studies are being done to help children during conception and in the womb. Research has provided parents and educators with the data they need to provide and care for children from conception to birth, which I believe is wonderful. Research is not always harmless and pleasant, but I am glad that we have structures in place to make sure the research produces greater results with minimal risk. It is good that research has it's own checks and balances to answer to, so participants are treated with respect. 

During this course, the only challenge I had was learning how to read and interpret research. Research documents can be very overwhelming due to it appearances and length. During this course I have learn how to break them down by using research charts. I have learn how to gather the information that is most important from the research documents. This accomplishment has come through working on assignments and learning how to create and design a research simulation of my own interest. 

This course has shown me that dedication and perseverance is what allows these early childhood professionals that ability to conduct research that helps to shape the field of early childhood educations. They work hard to design and create their research topic in order to provide their field with information that can help shape the lives of our children, future educators and our society. I have always respect professionals that work with children because it is not easy but at the end it can be very rewarding to help put a smile on a child's face. I am even more impressed with the individuals that take the chances to help answer the questions that so many us ask when working with children. Their work and dedication is what allows us to help and support our field, our children, families, and society. 

Research Around the World

European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA)

http://www.eecera.org/

EECERA is an international association that promoted early childhood research. They are a non-profit, independent organization that has world-wide members that obtains its own funding and receives no outside funding. They aim is to promote and maintain the rich tradition of the European early childhood. They are well known for their by their pioneers Pestalozzi, Owen, Froebel, Steiner, Vygotsky, Piaget, Malaguzzi  among others as well. The organizations aims to support these pioneers and also add new development and research that can be associated with Europe's pluralist and diverse culture. Their Journal is one of four top journals in the field that is located in Europe and their annual conference is the largest one held in Europe that helps to promote research, learning and scholarly work among educators in the field. 

 

Current international research topics that are being explored in the EECERJ are:

1. Promoting play for a better future
2. Play and playfulness, basic features of early childhood education
3. Is it play? Towards a reconceptualisation of role play from a activity theory perspective.
4. Digital play in the early years: a contextual response to the problem of integrating technologies and play-based pedagogies in the early childhood curriculum
5. Adult play guidance and children's play development in a narrative play-world
6. Teaching science through play in kindergarten: does integrated play and science instruction build understanding?

After exploring the EECERA website, it is very interesting to me how they are continuing to solely fund their own journal and annual conference with no outside resources. Early childhood education in Europe is promoted to the fullest development and they are highly commited to providing the best for children. Their dedication to their pioneers and the acceptances of new information shows their commitment to the development of early childhood education in their country. 

The information provided on this sites gives you resources that credible and provides lots of data on the different aspects that can affect and promote early childhood education. The information provided allows individuals to promote their own understanding about the field and gives you the opportunity to absorb more knowledge. This site provides future researchers, scholars and educators with great fundmental information on how early childhood education is represented in Europe. 

Research that Benefits Children and Families

I have chosen to follow a study that I learned about several months ago. The study was being conducted in Canada and the reason I was knowledgeable about it was due to a parent at my school. She had recently taken her daughter to the emergency room because she need stitches after falling at the playground in their neighborhood. Her daughter was hysterical in the emergency room and screamed when the doctors came next to her. The doctor told the mother that she wanted to play some music for her daughter to see if that they make her more comfortable. The music actually calmed her daughter down and the doctor was able to numb the area and apply the stitches that she needed. The doctor told her that a colleague of hers was performing a study in Canada to help emergency room doctors that have to deal with children with injuries that require IVS to be put in. The mom came to work and told me about the experiences with her daughter and I thought that was pretty fascinating. 

The report was just published a week ago in the JAMA Pediatrics journal. The basic outcome of the study proved that children that were able to hear music that was unfamiliar to them were distracted enough to allow doctors and nurse the ability to put in their IVS. Children that did not have any music playing were difficult and uncooperative making the procedure more hard. 42 children participated in the study and parents gave their consent for them to be video taped. 

Before the study began children were given different sheets of paper that had diagrams on them where they were able to point out how much pain they were in. The study aimed to assess the pain value in the beginning so they could have data to compare the children's reactions to after IVs were put in. The study showed that children who did not have music reported a higher pain level after the procedure while the children that had music recorded the same or lower level of pain. 

Lisa Hartling stated the professionals acknowledged how much easier their jobs were when dealing with children. It became easier to distract children and keep their pain level downs. Other professionals that did not use music stated their procedures remained difficult with children and pain level increased.  

The study was recently published as I stated before and I am hoping to gain access to the full report. This study was conducted and children were not harmed but instead they were helped during a time when it is needed. You can fine the most recent information at the link I am proving below.  

Reference

Branswell, H. (2013, June/July). Music helps distract kids from painful Emerg Dept procedure: Study. The   Vancover Sun. Retrieved                   fromhttp://www.vancouversun.com/health/Music+helps+distract+kids+from+painful+Emerg+Dept+procedure+study/8662947/story.html

Personal Research Journey

Building Research Competency 

Working this week on my assignments has shown me how exciting and how difficult research can be. Searching through the Walden library for journal articles bought my attention to how many studies have been conducted involving inclusion. It was nice to see that my passion was held by so many different people that wanted answers and were able to make sound conclusions after they completed their own research. 

My simulations topic is: How does the practice of inclusion in school programs affect teachers?

It took me a little while to narrow down my questions because I was going through so much information, that I felt my topic was going to change or I would not be happy with my direction. Since learning about the practice of inclusion, my curious has increased. I have worked in this field for ten years and I feel unaware of the affects of children with disabilities. Now that I have begun to read more about the classification of disabilities, I can relate to some professional experiences to what I have learned. Knowing this practice exist but it is not in existence every where makes me feel sad. I believe all children need the same opportunities when it comes to education. Since I am not that familiar with children with disabilities, I do not what to make any assumptions about how effective the practice of inclusion can be. Hopefully as I continue to read more about how teachers are affected, it will give me more insight about it benefits from their point of view. Working with children is a gift that we should all treasure because we as educators have a front view of what children are capable of. 

So far, I can share with you all my fellow colleagues, that research is a wonderful tool that can help you understand so much. Should you have any questions that you think about or ponder on, just take a few minutes and use the library. I am sure you will find answers that will intrigue your curiosity even more.During these two weeks, I have come to realize that your passion can be answered if you take the time to figure out what it is you really what to know. The research chart is a wonderful asset that keeps me focused on what areas of reports I should be looking at. There is so much information that research provide us with, that it can get overwhelming, but with this chart, you can narrow down everything to just the facts that will help you use the report as a resource.  I would love it if anyone of you is familiar with the practice of inclusion, and could share any resources or site where I can get more information, that would be great. Please feel free to reach out to me on my blog or in the classroom. I will definitely look out for any topic that I may have some information on, and I will gladly share any resources that I have. 

Good luck to everyone, and I look forward to reading about your simulation topic and all your research. 

Issues and Trends Final Blog Assignment

Issues and Trends

During this course, I have learned so much about early childhood education through a global perspective.  It was not easy to learn about all these issues and how children are being affected in other countries outside of the U.S.  I have gain so much knowledge from the resources that have been provided throughout the class. During the course I was unable to make and international contact, so my many blogs were focused on the Children's Defense Fund website. They provided me with so information about the world around me and especially the U.S., so many efforts have been put into practice to help our children around the world.

Three Consequences of learning about International Early Childhood Field:

1) The lack of early childhood programs in the world.
2) The world is becoming so small in my eyes due to the shared issues that affect us all.
3) The hard work that is being done by so many organizations but yet the need for help is still continuing to grow.

These consequences I will carry throughout my professional career because I never want to forget because they will continue to motive me to make a difference. I hope I can continue to make a difference among the educators that I work with as well as be an example for the children and their families at our child care program.

My goal that is related to the international awareness is to up keep my knowledge about what is going on around the world. I have sign up to receive newsletters and emails from Child's Defense Fund and I hope that as my path to my Master Degree continues, I can use my colleagues as resources to learn about their parts of the world. IT is important to me to know what is going on because I can see we are all contacted no matter where we live. Everyone sees and knows the importance of early childhood education and I am glad to know so many organizations are doing their best to bring awareness and help to all.

Little Extra

I just recently got in contact with my international contact: Her name is Shariffa Keshavjee she was born in 1945 in a town called Kisumu along Lake Victoria, which is the largest lake in Africa. She attended Aga Khan Nursery school followed primary and then high school. She attended school becasue Ismaili parents where encouraged to educate their children. Parents had to chose between boy or girl and they would always chose the girl because they believed when you educate the girl you were educating the whole family (Jamat). The Jamat would be beneficial to the community and society.

After high school she taught in the Sikh Siri Guru Singh Saba community school. After a few years she attended Keele University in order to pursue education. Later she taught at Kianda College.

In 1970, she opened a pre-school facility called "Rosebud Kingarten" at home in Nairobi in Kileleshwa. After that accomplishment she established a Day Care Center called "Bambi Daycare in Canada.

So far, my international contact has given me some amazing details about her life and I felt I should share that. I am looking forward to keeping in contact with her and finishing the assignments from the course so I can get to know more about early childhood education from her.

Thank you to my colleagues and Dr. Parrish for another eight weeks of knowledge and empowerment. 

Exploring and Gathering Ideas/Insights from UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education”

When I started at Walden University, My first course asked me about my professional goals and I shared three of them:

1. Gain the knowledge I need to become a leader in a child care setting. I would love to be a director or principal that can maintain a school and enrich the services we provide to children by gaining the knowledge and credentials I need from Walden University.
2. Create a supportive and effective organization that implements positive reinforcement and personal/academic achievements for staff members. I want to be a person my staff can depend on to help them further their educations and become more confident in their role as teachers.
3. Provide support to families and children by providing programs appropriately to improve the quality of life and ensure achievement of outcomes.

I am very much still proud of the goals I set out for myself because I am well on my way to achieving the standards that I hope will make me a force in the field of early childhood education.

Looking at the UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education” webpage (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/), I am so impressed to see that organization is in sync with my professional goals. They provide so many opportunities for professionals to learn and acquire knowledge through their site. Individuals who what to learn about the needed skills and new developments in the field can access all that information.

One thing that caught my eye was the http://www.unesco-iicba.org/. This organization’s goal is to strengthening teachers in Africa but focusing on the quality of their educations. Their main focus is providing adequate teaching for their children by improving their teacher’s development. They promote educations and literacy for everyone, so no one is left out. There are reaching out to different developmental building in Africa to assist with the challenging nature to promote training, development and recruitment opportunities for all teachers and facilities. The Capacity Building for Teacher Policy Development and Implementation aims to support the togetherness of all teachers to follow the same policies to have a more unified teaching environment and quality.

Another insight, this organization provided me with is the promotion of redistribution of funds in countries that do not provide for the poor children that have limited access to early childhood care and education. The 1990 Jomtien Declaration for Education reminds everyone that education begins at birth and we must do our best to include all children.  This helps because everyone needs to be aware of the importance in education for children and its benefits.

Another aspiring insight is the global affect that this organization promotes. They have Centre and Institutions around the world the help to promote need educational developments in each region, for example:

International Bureau of Education (IBE), Geneva, Switzerland.
Enhancing curriculum development and educational content.

International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), Paris, France and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Helping countries to design, plan and manage their education systems.

UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), (former UNESCO Institute for Education), Hamburg, Germany.
Promoting literacy, non-formal education, and adult and lifelong learning.

Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE), Moscow, Russian Federation.
Assisting countries to use information and communication technologies in education.

International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNEVOC), Bonn, Germany.
Improving education for the world of work.

Regional

Africa

International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Strengthening Africa’s educational institutions.

Asia and the Pacific

Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development , New Delhi, India

Latin America and Caribbean

International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC), (website in Spanish), Caracas, Venezuela.
Developing and transforming higher education in the region.

These help to promote so much development around the world. Looking at my goals concerning myself and my hopes for professional development, I am certain we share the same focus. I would love to be powerful enough one day to share my knowledge and my support to others that can make a difference. I am here to help our children succeed in life with the right guidance and this organization is on the same path as well. Helping our families and communities see the importance of quality EC programs will help bring more involvement and awareness to the development of our children. Professionals are important to the field of ECE because we help to build the foundation for all involved. I have gained so much knowledge by exploring this website; this is an amazing organization that is dedication the field of education for all. 

Sharing Web Resources

Exploring Children Defense Fund


While exploring the CDF website, I have come to realize they are well recognized all over the globe. They continue to support children and their families where ever they can reach by sending representatives that work for their funds to collect information to better assess the individuals that need help.

I decided to check out how many offices that the fund has in order to reach out to so many people. I choose to explore the CDF Texas and see how their site is contributing to Texas needs. http://www.cdftexas.org/. While going through the Texas site my attention was captured by some articles that were present: http://www.cdftexas.org/research-library/documents/children-in-the-states-texas-1.pdf

I looked into the research aspect of the site to find out what is the number of children that are living in poverty in the state of Texas because this situation is so devastating among the world and our 50 states.
I was taken to a fact sheet that was recently updated March 2013, I am listing the information that was provided to me:

6,875,255 children live in Texas:
2,323,123 are White, non-Hispanic 1,959,608 are under the age of 5
841,872 are Black 3,498,153 are ages 5 to 13
3,327,775 are Hispanic 1,502,977 are ages 14 to 17
244,456 are Asian/Pacific Islander 5,001,130 are ages 5 to 17
38,924 are American Indian/Alaska Native
262,972 are two or more races

In Texas:
A child is abused or neglected every 8 minutes.
A child dies before his or her first birthday every 4 hours.

Texas Ranks:*
33rd among states in percent of babies born at low birth-weight.
Best state is Alaska; worst state is Mississippi
23rd among states in its infant mortality rate.
Best state is Alaska; worst state is Mississippi
43rd among states in per pupil expenditures.
The District of Columbia is best; Utah is the worst state
[*1st represents the best state for children and 51st represents the worst state for children in the country]

Child Poverty in Texas
Number of poor children (and percent poor) 1,829,214 (26.6%)
Number of children living in extreme poverty (and percent in extreme poverty) 762,622 (11.1%)
Number of children receiving cash assistance from Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) 95,371
Maximum monthly TANF cash assistance for a family of three $260

I could not believe the numbers that were in front of me because of the state of Texas concerning the treatment of children these numbers are unbelievable .

This website exploring shows me how much the world is struggling to deal with equity and excellence in early childhood care and education. To look at one state and see so much devastating is concerning to me because organizations like CDF are doing so much good for these states, but the yet the economic rate of poverty is increasing so rapidly. It is almost like the accomplishments are been outweighed by the persistent situations of poverty. Equity and excellence is goal that will always remain in sight but we have to work hard to get their and when we do get their we have to have the dedication to up keep our goals.

One insight that I gain from my exploration this week was no matter where we are children need to be our first priority because they are our future. Many would state that because they believe our economy is the most important factor but personally for me as I grow older I would like to see a generation that has values instilled in them to help more children become successful adults. Some days I would like to see parents and their children spend more time enjoying each other instead of worrying about the what the future holds. Love is the best medicine for a successful childhood and adulthood.

International Contacts Part 2

 Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative”

Each week, I am introduced to new information about work that aims to promote global awareness to how we can help people all over the world and more importantly help our children. This center is committed to helping nations build themselves up by investing in economic productivity, health awareness and a nation that works together. The center aims to increase the present of quality of life to the whole nation from the poorest to the most influential people. Their attempt is to have everyone work together to reach one unified goal for every one's benefit.

The Center has created three important sections to focus on:

• early childhood development;
• child mental health; and
• children in crisis and conflict situations.

These are the key areas that they would like to focus on in order to accomplish or at begin to move towards their goals.  The more people know about ECD that better they can assist their children to reach their full potential. The center aim which I feel is amazing is to educate the people that are already in power to the benefits of how ECD can help their nation to improve and grow. How the opportunities of providing health can be beneficial to our children and the nation as a whole. 

The new insights that I have gained are the new projects around the world in different countries. Mother Child Education Foundation (AÇEV) of Turkey, Un Buen Comienzo of Santiago, Chile and Zambian Early Childhood Development Project. These projects aim to promote quality and help people to increase their knowledge and understand of the crisis that is going on in their particular country. Zambian ECD helps to children to get the best possible start that they need by getting the assessment that can help them. They are assessed physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development before and throughout their schooling careers. Un Buen Comienzo, looks at the type of education that four to six year olds are receiving. They believe if they improve the teaching standards and concentrate on language development this will create more positive school experiences for children. They also hope to increase school attendance by improving the quality of teaching. The Mother Child Education Foundation is also impressive due to the support they give families and children. They help to improve the quality of living and help to keep everyone informed about the needs of children.

These are just some of the activities that are promoted by the Global Children's Initiative. This organization is so impressive because it allows for so many people around the world to get the help and education they need to make a difference. I am amazed every time I read something new about the help that people are getting around the globe. If we continue to support the work of such organization we can definitely make a difference in the world for our children and their families.

It is plain to see that any organization that aims to support children and their families want to make sure there is quality present so everyone has the best opportunity. Providing quality early child care and educations takes dedication to your job and the children you teach. Teachers should also continue to learn more and more while they begin to teach children what they know.