WK 8 :Time Well Spent

 

My three deeply felt learnings from this program are that the early childhood field is much bigger and various than a simple bundle of preschools and daycares, that there are a lot of professionals with passions for advocating for children in the early childhood field, and that every early childhood professional can make a change for children. I now understand the complexity of the early childhood field as the Wordle in the “Merging Vision, Passion, and Practice” shows. This gives me motivation to involve with it as more than just a teacher. I learned the importance of having passions. I got to know the early childhood professionals through the course materials. I learned that people who accomplish a big achievement started from a passion inside them. Through the capstone project, I thought about what I can do for the early childhood field. I learned that I have background and experiences I can use to make a change for children and that the actions of each of us make the early childhood field better for children.

 

My long term goal is to support immigrant children by providing environments where they can learn their language and culture on top of proper early childhood education under an English environment.

 

Dear Dr. Teri & my colleagues,

Thank you very much for supporting me through the program. I feel that I am very lucky to have Dr. Teri for this course and my peers through the program. I gained a lot of insights from you and the passions you have for children and self-growth helped me to push through hard times and assignments and finish the program, and this will help me go on in my career when I face difficulties.   Good luck on your future careers.

My contact info is ariatoairi@hotmail.com. Please let me know when I have something I can help you with or when you have any updates in your career J

Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: Internationally

SOS CHILDREN’S VILLEGES (http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/About-us/Working-with-us/Job-offers/Pages/Continental-Programme-Development-Advisor.aspx)

I chose this organization because they help families all around the world to take care of their children instead of taking the children away from them to take care of them. The position I found is Continental Programme Development Advisor. The skills you need for this position are an advanced degree in social work, social pedagogy, psychology or international development, at least three years of work experience in child protection and care, fluency in written and spoken English and Russian and knowledge and experience of deinstitutionalization and child welfare systems.

 

ChildFund International (http://www.childfund.org/child-sponsorship/sponsor-a-child.aspx)

I chose this organization because I am interested in organizations that provide child sponsorship programs. This position is not currently available but there was a position called Early Childhood Development Sr Specialist. Skills you need for this position are a Master’s or Doctoral degree in early childhood development, over 8 years of experience in early childhood development, experience working with children experiencing deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability, and their families, experience with proposal development, including technical strategy design and narrative writing, experience with USG donor agencies and grant making processes and so on.

 

International Rescue Committee (http://www.rescue.org/careers)

I chose this organization because they help children and families when emergencies occur and stay there as long as needed. The big earthquakes, tsunami and floods that have occurred in recent years made me think that these kinds of organizations are very important and needed. The job I found is Emergency Child Protection and Education Coordinator. The skills you need for this positions are a postgraduate degree in International Development or Education, excellent professional track record with at least three years of international management level experience within NGO leadership working in emergency / humanitarian program implementation within conflict or immediate post conflict environments, successful experience working within a volatile security environment, previous experience managing programs financed through US, EU, UN and private foundations, solid managerial skills and experience in an international multi-cultural setting; strong project planning, organizational, interpersonal, and communication skills and technical writing skills.

Roles in the ECE Community: National/Federal Level

1.      Zero to Three (http://www.zerotothree.org/)

I chose this because it is a nonprofit organization and it helped me a lot earlier in the course with resources to know about children and issues they are facing. Also since this group “informs, trains, and supports professionals, policymakers, and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of infants and toddlers” (Zero to Three, 2013), I feel that it has the power to really make changes in society. The job I found there is one for a Policy Analyst. It requires a Master degree in early childhood, public policy or social work. The skills they ask for the position are knowledge and experience in early care and education, family support, infant mental health and communication skills including oral, written and organizational communications.

 

2.      National Institute For Early Education Research (http://nieer.org/)

I chose this because I am interested in learning more about children after I finish my degree and they do research that are intended for use by policy makers. The job I am interested in there is as a Research Assistant at Rutgers University. The skills it requires are that candidates should be enrolled in education, child development, psychology, public policy or a related field, and have experience with early childhood practice, research or policy.

3.      AdoptUSKids (http://www.adoptuskids.org/about-us)

I chose this because I am interested in a job that makes a family for children and couples who need a new family. This organization is a service of U.S. Children’s Bureau and the missions are to “raise public awareness about the need for foster and adoptive families for children in the public child welfare system; and to assist U.S. States, Territories, and Tribes to recruit and retain foster and adoptive families and connect them with children” (AdoptUSKids, 2013).  The position available there is as an Administrative Assistant for the Executive Director. The skills it requires are a Bachelors degree, experience in child welfare and knowledge of adoption and oral proficiency in Spanish.

 

WK1: Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

 

The three organizations that appealed to me were Richmond Elementary School in Portland School District, The Doctors Luce Daycare, LLC, and Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO). I chose the first two because I can use my Japanese and knowledge of Japanese culture to help Japanese immigrant children build and keep the Japanese portions of their identities. These schools’ mission statements did not appeal to me because they only mention they are providing opportunities to learn in both English and Japanese. But I believe that learning in Japanese is more than a language issue for Japanese immigrant children.

IRCO’s work is not limited to Japanese immigrants or families, so it appealed to me. However, I think what I can do best in this organization is becoming an interpreter. They also have clear missions such as empowering immigrant families so that they can become self-sufficient and developing partnerships with other communities, government agencies and non-profit organizations.

 

The job opportunity I would like to seek at Richmond Elementary School is a Japanese immersion teacher. They do not have a position right now but there is an opening for a Spanish immersion teacher. The skills and experience the teacher needs is the Oregon TSPC license with Early Childhood Education, elementary or other endorsement and native or near native fluency.

 

 

The job opportunity I would like to seek at The Doctors Luce Daycare is also a teacher. For that, I need experience of working at a daycare for more than a year or a degree in early childhood education. The job I would like to seek at IRCO is for professional Interpreters in IRCO’s International Language Bank section. But they are currently only looking for interpreters for Karen, Somali, Nepali, Tagalog, and Cantonese. The skills I need for this position is at least 6 months of interpreting experience for any of the listed languages, a high school diploma (though higher education is plus) and any relevant training or education (health care or language)

 

EDUC 6990 Capstone: Practical Application in the Early Childhood Field

WK 8: Reflecting on Learning

My most passionate hope for my future as an early childhood professional and for the child and families with whom I work or I will work is that I will be able to use my knowledge and the skills I learned from this course to move children and families to think about who they are, be proud of who they are, respect others with differences and appreciate the diversity in our society. I learned that the biases and misconceptions that exist in people can be broken if people get a chance to know about the targeted groups of people, learn the facts that prove we are all the same in a way and that what negative consequences that biases and misconceptions cause for the targeted groups of people.

 

To my colleagues,

Thank you very much for giving great insights throughout the course. I hope we can make changes for children and family and their futures by our working as anti-bias educators. I am hoping your journey at Walden and your future careers will be successful.

WK7: Impacts on Early Emotional Development

I chose the region of East Asia and the Pacific. I chose it because my home country, Japan, is in the area and this made me interested in what is happening in neighboring countries.

 

Children in this region have a challenge in getting clean water. The situation has been improving by installing systems that lead clean water down from mountains but 670 million people in the region do not have access to sanitation facilities and an additional 236 million people don’t have access to clean water in any form.

 

Even though UNICEF works to provide resources and support for maternal, neonatal and children’s health like immunizations, water, as well as other nutrition , sanitation and hygiene products (WASH) “(UNICEF, 2013) to improve the health of children and mothers, there are still many children who die from diarrhea and pneumonia. So many mothers also do not survive child birth because they are ill.

 

What I thought through reading the website is that we can teach what is happening to children in the different areas from where we live and involve our children in actions that help them. I think even having time to let them think how we can improve bad situations for other children will help them to think and feel empathy for others, develop problem solving skills and it might influence how they want to live in long term.

Children in this region must have worries and concerns about how they get things that are required to survive. Many of them must also experience the deaths of family members and people that are close to them. I think these experiences might have given them tremendous stress and made them desperate which would impede their abilities to be resilient against other difficulties.  

 

Reference

UNICEF. (2013). East Asia and Pacific. Retrieved on February 23, 2013, from http://www.unicef.org/eapro/activities_3584.html

WK6: The Sexualization of Early Childhood

“So sexy so soon” was very shocking to me but it also made me realize that today’s environments make children develop sexuality so early. I agree that early sexualization is a big issue because it is related to how they use their precious time, how they develop self-esteem and how they have relationships with others.            

 

My six-year-old daughter does not show much sexuality yet. However, I recently felt that media is not so healthy and it is so hard to avoid while benefiting from fun parts of it. My daughter loves the song “Die Young”. Since she and I can’t catch exactly what the words say and liked the tune, I liked her to have a favorite song. However, when I thought about showing her the music video of the song, I was shocked how sexual it was. I used to think her trying to sing the song with music was good because she can practice her English but I found out that she was trying to learn what I do not want her to know yet.

 

I think that the messages impact children by indicating a sexual relationship is how a man and woman have relationships, using sexual appeal is a good thing and being sexy is a scale of evaluating people.

 

I think that early childhood professionals can raise awareness for parents of the negative impacts of the media in regards to early sexualization and recommend that they avoid inappropriate ones to reduce the negative effects. Another thing we can do is when we hear inappropriate words from children who are just mimicking what they heard from media, we should teach them appropriate ways. If we heard “Baby, I’m your slave. I’ll let you whip me if I misbehave,” we can explain that when we love somebody, the way to show love is not becoming a slave but understanding, caring and doing nice things for the person. And you deserve the same back too.

Resource

Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books. Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf

WK5: Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

I think my experiencing isms work both positively and negatively to children and families. I try to act fairly or speak up for victims of the isms I have experienced. For example, my mother only asked me to help with the housework; only her daughter, not to her son. Since I thought it was unfair, I try to teach children that we should be willing to help others out with their work so that gender roles associated with certain chores are not encouraged while making sure girls do not feel pressured to be subordinate to others. I feel that being humble and hiding feelings or opinions, traits that are considered virtues in my culture, do not help me to thrive in American culture. Rather, I feel that people see me as unconfident or weak and lead people act unfairly and disrespectfully towards me. So, I encourage children not to hide their abilities or feelings as well as teach them to respect others.

However, my experiences of isms may have given me a negative impression of groups that I associate with people who’ve acted in biased ways towards me. I might see a family from a certain group with the prejudice that they could have prejudice against me without reason. And this could become a barrier which would prevent me from having a truly trusting relationship with them.

WK3: Observing Communication

I observed an interaction between a preschool teacher and a preschooler in the classroom. The teacher heard that the child’s grandmother had passed away. At snack time, she talked with him, saying “I heard your granma has passed away.” He nodded. She asked, “Are you sad?” with empathetic tone. He nodded again and his eyes looked a little wet with tears. She said, “You know, it is OK because she is going to watch you all the time now and you even have a great granpa.” He nodded and smiled a little bit and went back to eating his snack.

 

What I learned is that adults should not avoid conversations about the loss of an intimate person or something sad that happens to a child because I’ve noticed that the child understood a sad event that happened to him and that he looked happy about having caring adults around when he was having a hard time and so he could share his feelings.

 

Lisa Kolbeck talked about how she encourages children to talk and listen to each other and spread their play by her talking about scientific factors (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011). I think the teacher could have included his classmates with permission from his parents. I think he was able to learn that he could be sad and tell it to an adult from the interaction with the teacher. If his peers tried to support him with this, he would notice that his friends are with him when he has a hard time and he could do the same for his friends when they have hard times. Also his peers will be able to learn how they should act when somebody is sad.

 

I think that the teacher’s showing her concern for him helped him to notice that he is supported and cared. I also think he felt that he is seen as an important person instead of a helpless child with the fact that the teacher talked about the event which is hard for a child to understand and deal with.

 

I try to talk about topics that are difficult for children by making them simple. I think this part is similar to the teacher. However, if I was in her place, I might have been nervous about talking about it and that could have made an awkward atmosphere. But the teacher brought this conversation up very naturally. I think this example will improve my communication with children because I think I may sometimes sound unnatural because I think too much or try to be too careful about how I say things. I believe that children will not open their hearts if I sound like I have agenda hidden behind my words.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (2011). Strategies for working with diverse children. Baltimore, MD: Author.

WK: Creating Affirming Environments

I would make my setting reflect diverse cultures visually and with sound because I want all the children to feel the classroom is theirs. I would decorate the walls with posters and pictures of people from different countries and scenery from daily life in different types of places all around the world such as markets, buildings and festivals. I also put up words in different languages and play music from different cultures. 

The thing I would want to put my biggest effort into would be toys. It is because toys appeal visually and are things that children use the most and naturally have interest in the most. I also think that using toys from different cultures is a good way for children to learn about cultures and make children barrierless towards new cultures and people from different cultures. Starting from having dolls that reflect races and cultures, I would like to get toy food that reflect different cultural norms, blocks from buildings from different countries, traditional toys, and stuffed toys based on characters that are popular in other countries.

Above is an example of toys that reflect Japanese culture. I would collect these kinds of toys from different countries.

Adriana shows the decorations of cultural things that families brings. I think this is a good idea. I also would ask children and families to draw what they do outside of the school or what is important to them.  I would have time for them to talk about and teach me and other children things from their cultures such as dances, songs, foods, methods making animals with origami and so on.

Strategies for Working with Diverse Children

WK8: What I Have Learned

One hope I have when working with children and families from diverse backgrounds is that they can feel they are understood and welcomed. It is typically easy to look nice and exchange friendly conversations. However, the roles of early childhood educators are deeper than being nice around the children and their families. I hope to understand what their beliefs are, what differences and discomfort they have experienced when dealing the dominant groups, and what anxiety they have so that I can help the children to develop positive identities and to be fully nurtured.

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field is to increase the number of staff and teachers who are educated on anti-bias education. Anti-bias education is very important because it affects healthy identity development. I believe this is more important in the long run than teaching letters or math. However, I feel that currently more and more time and interest are devoted to more academic topics. That is why I set this goal.  

                    

To my colleagues,

Thank you very much for sharing your insights. I hope we all can become true anti-bias educator and make changes in the early childhood field. Please let me know if I can help you with something even after we finish our course.

 

Aya

Start Seeing Diversity Blog: Creating Art

What I wanted to show in the illustration is that children build their identities from what other people think about them or their groups, which can be biases, something that causes children to feel discomfort or trauma (Spay of the colors indicating that). I also wanted to show that those messages or experiences stay in children as they grow up. I did not add physical features for the children because the differences among children are limitless and these differences are equally important. The colors are both in dark and bright colors because children get positive and negative messages and the mix of the colors can be taken as beautiful or dirty depending on people viewing it because I believe that identities are the same since some people may think one person’s features are cool and others may not agree. I chose to not put faces on the children as they are growing up in the illustration because some children view their identities as positive and others do not. I also wanted to show identities are subjective and dynamic in some ways.

 

Start Seeing Diversity Blog: "We Don't Say Those Words in Class!"

While out shopping at the mall with friends, my six-year-old daughter and her friend saw two adults with restricted growth walking, they started to giggle and said, “Look at those people!” to us moms while pointing at them. I told my daughter not to point at them, while my friend said the same to her son, and explained, in serious tone, that there are people who look differently and it is not something we should think of as funny.  

 

Our children instantly stopped giggling and did not pay attention to them when we came across them again later on as we shopped. So from our reactions, our children learned that we should not regard+ physical differences as funny things.  At that same time though, they might have taken our response as a message that we should not have interests or curiosities in people who look differently than ourselves.

 

An anti-bias educator might have used this as teachable moment. For example, he or she could have used the children’s curiosity to cultivate understanding. An anti-bias educator might have asked the children why they think little people were funny, explain why they are short and try to give a chance for the children to talk to those adults with restricted growth and ask if they are different inside.

 

Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

Some of the ways you noticed that homophobia and heterosexism permeate the world of young children including books, movies, toys, stores, culture of early childhood centers, and schools.

 

I see homophobia in stores. Toys-R-Us’s website clearly identified boys’ toys and girls’ toys. This limits kids’ options on what toys to want and how to play and implies that playing with toys of different genders is bad or weird. I also see homophobia in the older Disney Princess movies. Princesses are usually beautiful girls who don’t voice their opinions if they even have them. They are beautiful and do housework without complaining, until they are saved by a Prince. However, I see changes in more recent kids’ movies. Fiona in Shrek fights against enemies with martial arts and makes a very deliberate choice to remain an ogre, which is considered ugly even though she could have remained a beautiful woman. The main characters in Chicken Little and How to Train a Dragon are not strong or powerful but end up becoming heroes because they care for others, and are smart

 

Your response to those who believe that early childhood centers should avoid the inclusion of books depicting gay or lesbian individuals such as same-sex partnered families.

 

I would explain that our job is to provide children with environments that help them to build high-esteemed identities and to become people who respect various kinds of people. To do so, we need books depicting gay, lesbian and same-sex partnered families because it makes them visible in their world which raises awareness. Hiding that there are gay and lesbian people gives children biases that people who are not heterosexual are abnormal or less important. I would also explain that awareness does not increase the rate of children’s becoming gay or lesbian as adults.

 

 

 

 

 

WK8: Thank you & good luck!

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. I am always motivated and supported by your diligence and common desire to make the early childhood field a better place for children and families. I hope we will see one another again in future courses and I also wish you good luck in all you do.

WK6: Team

I think high-performing groups are hardest to leave. It is not only because it is working well but also it has a history that makes it a part of my identity. I have always had an important team since I was a child. Some of the teams that were hard to leave were my volleyball team, McDonald’s where I worked while I was in college and a school where I taught as an English teacher. I think they were hard to leave because I had memories of working together for goals and had achieved some of them, and the members grew by helping and learning from each other. Except for the volleyball team, I had parties as a kind of ritual. It is nice to have a ritual to be able to thank teammates and say good-bye to them.

I imagine that adjourning from my colleagues will be hard but also somewhat happy too because I will be sad not to be able to have contacts with them often but I will be glad that they will be thrive as early educational professionals as they wish to. I think adjourning is essential because we need to move onto our next goals. It will benefit the organizations we belong to and help us to grow up.  

WK5: Conflicts

This is a small conflict that happened at work. At the school where I work the art teacher visits the classrooms to teach arts. She brings the stuff she needs to teach. The lead teacher for my class has asked me to watch out for that the art teacher does not take things that belong to the class and to not let her to use them as much as possible.

 

At the first art class of the school year, the children used markers. The art teacher had two big boxes of her own markers, but she put our class markers on the table without asking. I thought it was not what the lead teacher wanted her to do but I did not stop her because her markers were black outside and our markers were white outside. So I thought I would be able to distinguish them and put them back to where they should be at the end of the class because I am the one who does the majority of the cleanup.

 

At the second art class, the lead teacher was around. I put classroom markers on the table because I knew the art teacher wanted to use them again. The lead teacher asked me not to let them use our markers. So, I put them back saying “I see.” However, the art teacher stared to put our markers on the table a minute after that because she was not watching us. The lead teacher told the art teacher, “I do not want your markers and my markers mixed. Mine are white and yours are black. So please do not mix them when putting away.” She also explained the same thing to the children.

 

This experience made me notice that I tried to avoid conflicts even small things. I do not like to show disagreement. The lead teacher’s attitude showed that we can and need to speak out about what we want even in politeness. She gave this as advice too. She also said, if we do not show what we want or what we think, we could get in a trouble even if we are right.

WK4: Similarities and differences between my evaluations and other people’s

I asked my coworker who is the lead teacher in the preschool class I am assisting and my husband to evaluate my communication. The scores are below.

 

Person who evaluated--- Communication Anxiety Inventory, Verbal Aggressive Scale, Listening Styles Profile

Me   41, 55, People-oriented

Junko(Japanese)---34, 57, People-oriented

My husband(American)---53, 55, People-oriented

 

The scores are slightly different but the categories I was evaluated into were all the same.

 

I have a mild level of anxiety in communication and communication is not a problem but I have some situation I feel unconfident in (public speaking). I have a moderate level of Verbal Aggressive Scale. I have a good balance of respecting and considering other people’s viewpoints, and arguing fairly without attacking people. As a people-oriented listener, I am empathetic and concerned with others but this may interfere with proper judgment by trusting them too much.

 

The surprising thing is that the evaluations are so similar even though Junko and my husband are form different countries and I have relationships with them in different areas. I had expected to find that people from different cultures perceive my ways of communication differently. It is interesting that I can tell why the scores were a little different. I need to hide and overcome my anxiety towards communication at work and I try to have and show my opinions more clearly at work than at home.

 

One of the insights is that from the similar results from people with different backgrounds, I noticed that I slightly change my ways of communication unconsciously depending on who they are. I believe that we need to pay attention to the changes we make unconsciously.

 

The second insight is that there are many ways of communication that are appropriate. By reading comments that were not applied to me too and found out it is not a right-wrong topic but about styles and preferences. I believe that we can learn from other people and choose to use the styles we do not usually use in certain cases if we think these ways will work better.