6164 My Family Culture

The three things I would take with me if I had to evacuate to another country would be a bible, my Mom’s cookbook, and a photo album.  When I got to the other country with a different culture I think that the cookbook and photo album would be relatively easy to explain.  While they may not contain the same recipes or photos, I think every culture could understand having special foods and memories.  The bible might be more difficult to explain as other cultures practice different religions.  There are even places where my bringing or reading the bible might be a huge offense.

If, when I got there, I was told I could only keep one item I would be okay with that.  I actually had a difficult time thinking of three items that are that important to me.  If my family was coming with me I would be all set.  Material possessions might help me feel like I had a piece of home with me, but I’ve never felt that I needed things to feel whole.  If I couldn’t bring the photo album I would still have memories in my mind and heart.  If I couldn’t bring the cookbook, there are many meals that I have learned to cook without the recipe and my Mom could teach me more.  If I couldn’t bring the bible, I would pray and rely on verses that I know by heart.

From this exercise I realize that some things cross cultural divides while others may be harder to explain.  I also understood that while I had a hard time coming up with three possessions, the things I chose represent my family culture well.  We value faith, education, healthy meals, and spending time together as a family.

6265 Week 1 Blog

One person that I feel communicates very well is my friend Leah.  She is a great listener which you can tell by talking to her as well as watching her body language.  She always looks attentive and is able to repeat what she has heard to check for understanding. One thing I love about Leah is that she listens without looking for an opportunity to talk.  She is actually listening and not just formulating her response while I finish talking.  I would love to have her ability to sympathize but not feel the need to fix a problem or give advice.

When I think of Research...

This course seemed a bit intimidating at first.  I loved how things were broken down week by week, though.  The layout of the course made a big project seem very doable because it was presented in small steps.  One challenge that I encountered during this course was restating terms in my own words during our weekly charts.  It seems like such a silly, easy thing but once I have read a definition it is often hard for me to think of a new way to say the same thing.  I tackled this problem by trying to give concrete examples of the terms each week.  Not only did this help me to define terms without simply quoting a book definition, it also helped me to remember the terms more easily.

One way that my perception of an early childhood professional has been modified is that I have realized that all teachers are researchers.  We may not all have 12-page essays with research companions to show our work, but we all conduct research on some level.  Putting a child on a behavior sticker chart and keeping track of their progress is one way we do research.  If we notice the data is staying the same and there is no improvement we know to move on to the next technique.  Teachers are always trying new things and keeping track of their successes and failures to work towards reaching all learners.

When planning a research project, I realized that there are many decisions to be made.  Every little aspect of a research project involves major thinking and many choices.  The nature of research is that each person is looking to find different information and goes about it in a different way.  I struggled a bit with this in the beginning because I tend to be a very black or white type of person.  It seems that there are no real “right or wrong” answers in research.  Your decisions shape your research and while some choices might be better than others there are no real cut and dry rules.  It caused me to do a lot of critical thinking!

I have gained many new insights from this course.  One invaluable lesson that I learned was how to read a research article.  Without the first week and the documents provided in this course I would have felt very overwhelmed.  I was so pleased to find that there are many aspects of a research article you can skip over.  Practicing the method of what to skip and what to read (and re-read) has helped me to become a better student and a more knowledgeable early childhood professional.

Research Around the World

I chose to explore the website for Early Childhood Australia.  When I looked into current issues I found many budget issues both on a small and a large scale.  Funding for early childhood years from the government came up in many places as well as funding for preschool.

Some interesting topics I found were re-thinking how they allocate money as parents pay more and more for early care, new standards for care are already showing positive outcomes in children’s lives, and an article about quality childcare being more important than cost.

My favorite find on the website was an article called “Fight Against e-bullying Needs to Start Early”.  This immediately caught my attention because social media is on the rise, but I was interested to hear what it had to say about the impact on our youngest learners.  Their stance is that as soon as children are introduced to technology, they should also be educated in proper online etiquette and the socio-emotional ramifications of their online behaviors.  While the article notes that cyber bullying is usually not prevalent in the early childhood years it is never too early to start educating young children.  I agree that this is becoming a bigger issue and needs to be addressed.  The article didn't give any practical applications or steps to go about educating young children, but I found the idea interesting.

One noteworthy observation I made while exploring the website is that there are many similar issues happening in Australia that we are also facing in the United States.  Allocation of government funding as well as adhering to best practices as early childhood educators are both heavily talked about on the site.

Research that Benefits Children and Families

There are many research topics that really interest me.  If I were able to conduct research in an area, I would want to learn more about the effectiveness of certain types of interventions.  I’d also be interested in conducting research and gathering data on retention in Kindergarten.  These are two topics that are close to my heart as a Kindergarten teacher.  Each year we have a handful of students who don’t respond to normal levels of instruction and intervention.  Teachers send home extra materials and projects, work one-on-one with these children, and add them to our reading interventionist’s caseload.  At the end of the year, however, there are still a few that are so behind that we worry about sending them on to first grade.  Still others lack maturity, social, or behavioral skills and have the academic piece.  Keeping children to do a second year of Kindergarten is not a decision we make lightly.  I always wonder if I’m doing the right thing, though.  Does a second year really help?  If they’re not getting something will an extra year of the same thing really make a difference?  I would be interested to track student growth and progress to compare children who were pushed to first grade and lacked skills versus those who were held to do another year of Kindergarten.

This research would benefit children, families, and teachers.  Teachers would have some guidance and insight into when Kindergarten retention in beneficial and when it is detrimental.  Families would be able to understand a recommendation to hold or pass along a child because there would be more information and research to back it up.  Children would benefit from quality care given by adults who have their best interest in mind, but also have the information to back up their decision. 

My Personal Research Journey

My topic for the simulation revolves around the influence of play on a child's academic development.  I am interested in finding out more about how we can link a child's learning goals to their play situations.  This also leads to me wondering about different forms of play as a link to a child's memory or to learn a certain skill.  I know that, for instance, my Kindergartners love music.  They are amazing at remembering information that is put to a song.  I also have seen that so many of their more "academic" learning goals can be learned through a first-hand experience or an inquiry-based situation.  This got me thinking about the connection between play and a child's academic development.

So far in this course I've noticed that there are many things I already knew but hadn't thought of or used in a long time.  I have appreciated the applicable nature of the course.  Often you learn about research (or some other topic) and it seems there is no connection to your work or real life experiences.  That has not been the case with this course and I have loved that.

I am interested in learning from colleagues as they go through this process.  We will be able to share both resources and also experiences.  Learning from one another through collaboration and shared information is going to be very beneficial to our overall success in the course.

Final Blog Assignment

Learning about the international early childhood field had many personal and professional consequences.  The first would be that it opened my eyes to the world around me.  So often we get caught up in our own little world and we forget that there are other places to look for inspiration and information.  The second consequence of international learning was that my knowledge-base and resource pool have grown.  Instead of only using my community and the people I know, I was introduced to the idea of looking abroad.  It would be foolish to assume that the United States is the only place to look for information on how to run early childhood programs or care for young children and their families.  I now realize I should be looking to others outside of my little bubble.  The third consequence was an unintended consequence.  I realized that international contact is extremely difficult, albeit beneficial.  Out of my group, only one person was able to establish contact and she had issues maintaining contact due to the time differences.  When you do gain an international contact, I think it’s important to keep up with them often in order to maintain that contact.

In the future, I hope to gain and maintain more contacts outside of my comfort zone.  This may mean international contacts, but would also include people from different walks of life, different states, and different programs.  Learning from others is so important!  Having connections with professionals from different backgrounds makes you a stronger teacher as an individual.