Changing Demographic and Diversity- Connections between Theory and Practice

The organization I have chosen to learn about and subscribed to e-newsletters is the National Institute for Early Education Research, at http://nieer.org. This organization’s main focus is to provide research-based advice to professionals in the early childhood field, those who make policy decisions, and researchers in order to create and maintain high-quality early education. They also work with policy makers on the state and national levels and other organizations to stimulate research projects and disseminate information into the early childhood field.

This week I browsed a couple of articles found on NIEER’s website that spoke of the importance of early education. One focused on how quality early education can lead to closing gaps in skill-sets in the workforce for the future, while another focused on how quality early education reduces the chance of children requiring retention, remedial services, or special education. The issue is clear: quality early education is key to future success in children, and as such, needs to be supported more by policy and funding. Despite the clear benefits of quality early education, the current programs are not abundant, and so many children who may be considered “at risk” do not receive the services they so need!

I learned quite a bit from the resources of this week. Much like adapting curriculum so it meets the learning needs of individuals and is culturally responsive, it is also important that teaching strategies are individualized to the different issues children may be facing, such as immigration (the change of coming to a new country) or displacement of children and families through wars, as they may need different supports. It is also important to not just acknowledge a child’s culture, but to actively teach acceptance and social justice through structured experiences and modeling it in our lives.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

 For part 1, establishing professional contacts, I have attempted to establish contacts with professionals in Ireland and Greece. Unfortunately, I have not heard from either contacts, and so I may need to take part in the alternative. I will continue to try to get into contact with these professionals, however, and may just need more time. In the mean time, I have looked at the World Forum Foundation to learn about early childhood education around the world. I am starting to see the importance of looking at the early childhood field as a global concept, as it is our responsibility as early childhood professionals to advocate and support all children and all families, and that we can learn much from one another.

For part 2, I found it a bit more difficult to choose one website, as there is much to be learned from all of them! I did make the choice to dive into the National Institute of Early Education Research, as it offers newsletters, publications, research, and opinion pieces that cover a wide variety of early education topics.

My Supports

I receive many different emotional, practical and physical supports throughout the week at home and at work.
Emotionally, I get much support from my fiance and my family. My fiance is the one who supported me to go back to school and helps me when I am very stressed out with balancing schoolwork, my career, and keeping up the home. He reminds me that the work is worth it, and helps out where needed. He is also very good at helping me turn frustrating situations around to see another side of it. He is a cheerleader of sorts during mountain hikes and snowshoeing trips, helping me push myself to my limits. My sisters and mom are also very supportive emotionally. They can tell whether I am seeking advice, or just need an ear to listen, whether my conflicts are work-related or personal.
Practical supports I use most often in my life are routines and schedules, lists, and my weekly planner. Routines and schedules help me balance the many aspects of my life, such as work, school, and family (and soon- wedding planning!) Lists help me keep track of paperwork that has important deadlines to keep in compliance with special education law. My weekly planner is another way I organize my routine and schedule, and helps me to remember what is coming up that week.
I do not have many physical supports I need. Around the classroom and home I am in need of a step ladder to reach top shelves, and can only perform two-person escorts when responding to children who are a danger to themselves and/or others on the rare occasion it is needed.  When I have parent meetings, I often have found it helpful to dress a step above the usual professional dress, so as to appear my age, as I have been told more than once by parents that I don't look old enough to teach (that can make it difficult to begin building relationships!)

The challenge I chose to imagine was a sensory challenge, as I work with a couple students that have difficulty with where their body is in relation to other people and objects around them. Imagine being out on the playground, surrounded by loud children zooming by you, and not knowing whether or not they will crash into you or not. Imagine walking over to get your backpack from the coat rack, with all the other children jostling and pushing into you. Supports I would need as an adult with this sensory challenge may include tools to help me keep my materials organized, and places to eat lunch that are not super-crowded. I may need self-calming techniques to help me manage the anxiety that comes from coping with new situations where I am unsure of how many people will be there or how close together we will be sitting. These supports would be essential for me to carry out my job, which includes occasional crowds, meetings and conferences, and lots of paperwork. Without them, it would be very difficult to carry through every-day activities.

My Connections to Play

"Children do not play for a reward-praise, money, or food. They play because they like it."  Francis Wardle, Ph.D.

“Play is children’s work.”  Miquela Rivera

I was a very imaginative child growing up. My twin sister (Kat) and I were very shy, and pretty much inseparable, and though we had friends, our preference was to play just the two of us until we reached grade school. Though we preferred our own company, Mom ensured that we played with neighborhood kids as well, and when we started school, my parents insisted we be in different classes, so we could make our own friends and not become too dependent on each other. Both my parents were always very supportive of my imaginative play. I still remember Dad bringing home large cardboard boxes from the jobsites, and Mom would help Kat and I build blanket and pillow forts. Using cardboard boxes and forts, Kat and I pretended we were different types of dinosaurs and wild animals. In the process of these interests, we learned much about animals, as this led to watching the discovery channel. Kat and I spent a lot of time playing outside, finding snakes and bugs to put in Mom’s canning jars, and chasing each other with sticks of slime from the swampy forest behind the house (hence the picture of algae). Dad made us wooden toolboxes so we could “build” stuff with him down in his shop. Through my pretend play, I experimented with creating things from Legos or blocks and practiced using tools (no power tools until I was in about the 4th, and only with supervision). In place of Saturday morning cartoons, I watched “This Old House” and “New Yankee Workshop” with my dad, as well as quite possibly every documentary created about the building of the Grand Coulee and Hoover Dams. T.V. did not take up a lot of my playtime, as Mom believed we should be outside playing. Or inside playing. Really, just anywhere but in front of the T.V.

Because of my experiences in play, I feel a deep sadness about many of the children I see at the school I work at. Where I was fortunate enough to live “in the sticks” while growing up (and have every intention of my future children doing the same), where there were trees to climb, bugs to catch, and slimy green algae to chase other kids with, many kids today do not have opportunities to play in the great outdoors. I see children’s pretend play centers around video games they play, instead of out of their own imagination. My staff and I work hard to incorporate items into the choice time area that push towards imagination, requiring students to build and create- and they love it! I feel that children today still have the same need for play that I did when I was a child, however their options are often very different. This may be because I work in a school that is in the middle of a city, as opposed to my childhood school that was in a rural area. Regardless of community, there is still a lot more technology available to children, and it has an impact on their play. While technology is not a bad thing, it must be allowed in moderation, so children still just play.

Play is an important learning tool for children. Through play, children enjoy experimenting, discovering, and imagining. Play is the foundation for many skills and characteristics to evolve that will last a lifetime: intrinsic motivation to learn, social skills to build relationships and work with others, and discover new interests passions.

Relationship Reflection

Relationships and partnerships are important because we, as humans, are not made to be solitary creatures. We learn and grow by taking our cues from those that are important in our lives. Healthy relationships are a delicate balance of give-and-take. I have learned that it takes both people in a healthy relationship to give and receive. Relationships where one person does all the work will eventually lead to a breakdown of trust and a build-up of resentment, whether it is consciously or unconsciously felt. Relationships and partnerships take work. There will be times when energy or commitment may flag, but the important this is through commitment from all sides, the partnership or relationship come out on the other end whole. Recognizing that it does take effort and commitment to build and maintain healthy relationships and partnerships helps me in the Early Childhood field as I recognize the importance of interweaving relationships with a variety of professionals and family members in order to fully meet the needs of each individual child.

James

My fiancé and I support each other’s careers and both strive to expand our education. It was James that gave me the confidence I needed to see I could handle going back to school while working full time. I have supported him, in turn, taking his classes and going out of state for work. We have kept positive attitudes during this recession, as construction (his profession) has tanked, and will come out on the other side together. We also push each other to try new things. We look for things to do together (we recently took up snowshoeing) as well as respect that we need time for ourselves every once in a while. “True love” isn’t like the fairy tales- it isn’t all happiness and bliss every step of the way. A relationship takes work sometimes, and a lot of that give-and-take. Like my mother says, “Your love is not someone you can live with, but someone you can’t live without”.

Mom

Of course, one of the most important relationships in my life is with my mom. She has taught me that her children are NOT perfect, and she is well aware of it, and that though she will always love her children, sometimes we are hard to like. Now I know at first this sounds terrible, but the ways she has taught me these things isn’t quite as it initially sounds. My mom is an amazing woman. She taught us that we weren’t perfect, but we could do anything we could set our minds and hearts to. Had she taught us we were perfect, she would have created children who thought they were entitled, and without ambition. She always has made sure we know she loves us. But unconditional love is different than liking someone. To be liked, and to be able to like someone, people need to think of how their actions affect others. She has taught me honesty, respect, responsibility, and what it is to create and maintain meaningful relationships.

Kat

My twin sister and I have always been extremely close. In college we drove one of our professors nuts, as we would finish each other’s sentences, carry on two conversations at once (in a way only we knew what both of them were about, and left conversations half-finished because there was no need to finish them. Even when she got married and moved an hour and a half away, we have kept conversations going almost daily. She is someone I can talk to about any type of problem, and she can tell if I need advice, reassurance, or just need to vent, and she can do the same with me. Our honesty with each other means we call each other out on faults and biases, and look at things with a different perspective, as she is very big-hearted, creative, and by her admission, flakey, while I am more of a Type A personality and very practical. We balance each other out, and it works wonderfully.

Elza and Teresa

In my current position as a special education teacher in a K-6 Functional Academics program, I rely heavily on the positive relationships I have with my paraeducators. We work together as a team to meet the wide variety of needs and abilities that walk through our classroom door. In working closely together, we share our insights about our students, as well as problem solving and supporting each other through ordeals in our personal life. We recognize our own strengths and challenges as well as those of each other, and help each other use our strengths to build relationships with our students so we can give them our best every day

When I Think of Child Development...

“Children are one third of our population and all of our future.” 

Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health, 1981

I was drawn to this quote because as early childhood professionals it is important we keep in our minds that children are our future. It is our responsibility to help them grow to be successful, functioning members of society, whatever that may look like for each individual. It is our joy to ensure children truly experience childhood. It is our privilege to work with families and communities in the raising of our future.

Testing for Intelligence

Children in the United States who are referred for special education assessments may or may not be assessed holistically. A child between the ages of 3 and 21 may qualify for special education if he or she meets the eligibility criteria for one of the 13 disabilities defined in the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and the disability adversely affects his or her ability to access education. Though a child may be labeled through the school or through health care professionals, the areas and extent a child will receive special education, is based upon results of standardized assessments. Children may be assessed holistically, being tested in academics (reading, writing, math), social/emotional, adaptive, behavior, cognitive, fine motor, gross motor, and communication (receptive language, expressive language, and articulation). Sometimes a child is determined to be in need of assessment in all these areas, sometimes only a few.

I believe this holistic approach is important, because there are many factors that affect how a child learns and is able to access education. Children with disabilities may have more than one “area” affected. A child who misbehaves constantly in the classroom may be doing so out of frustration because academic expectations are out of his or her understanding, or because he or she doesn’t understand much of what the teachers are hearing. To fully understand the extent of areas affected (or rule out those that are not), the child should be assessed not only in academics, but communication as well. This will help the educators and caregivers determine how to help the child: does he or she need academic modifications or communication support? Or both?

Environment, primary language, and sometimes rate of absenteeism may influence whether or not a child receives a label. Professionals must decide if a child may be struggling due other factors not measured by standardized tests. These may include cultural or language barriers, homelessness, or lack of exposure due to high absenteeism. Professionals must consider these factors so children are not labeled with a disability when they truly do not have one.

The country I looked into was Mexico. The identification of disabilities in schoolchildren are done with a holistic approach much like in the U.S. A significant difference is these assessments are not necessarily standardized. They are based off work samples, informal assessments, student history, and educational experience.

The benefit of Mexico’s way of determining whether or not a child receives special education is that it is more closely based on how a child does in comparison to peers in that community. The children therefore are able to access accommodations and modifications that allow them to be successful in their community. This is not always true in schools in the U.S. Standardized tests in the U.S. are based on national norms, however academic requirements vary from state to state. I often see children in the school I work at struggling academically because on standardized tests they score average or low average, but those do not accurately match up to the state standards.

References:

National Research Center on ADHD

http://www.help4adhd.org/education/rights/idea

Learn NC Editions

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/brdglangbarriers/1911