Reflecting on Learning

• An explanation of your most passionate hope for your future as an early childhood professional and for the children and families with whom you work or will work.

My most passionate hope for my future as early childhood professional and for the children and families that I work with is this. My passionate for my future work as an early childhood professional is that I will continue to make a genuine effort to educate myself on the issues that burden down our children and families. This also means being a voice for the small and teaching them how to stand up for against wrongs as well. As I continue to work with children and families and on the behalf of children and families, I will continue to address my own biases and discomforts so that I can make sound choices and without being biased, discriminatory, or prejudice towards others based on those things that make them different such as skin color, economic status, religion, and or sex, or gender. I will provide an early learning environment that promotes and welcomes children and families and my work for diversity and equity will be evident in the learning environment. Not only will I be committed to teaching children and families about diversity and equity, I will also work to share my anti-bias knowledge with my colleagues and peers that aren’t so aware of the benefits of providing an anti-bias education to our children. My commitment to be an anti-bias teacher means advocating and being allies against the institutional entities that can cause individuals to be neglected and abused. So I will be committed to the education of myself, children, and families, because the more I know the more I can help others.

• A brief note of thanks to your colleagues.

As we bring this class to a close, I would like to say thank you to each of my colleagues for helping me to expand in knowledge and wisdom. Engaging in class discussions and blogs has really helped to broaden my perspective on issues that affect our children and families. As each of you, continue on your journey to become an anti-bias educator, I wish you all the success and best of luck. As I prepare to enter into my final course of this program next semester, I wish you all much success and hopefully, I will get to meet some of you at the 2013 summer graduation. Good luck and God Bless.

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

For this blog I will be discussing my finding from the UNICEF website. The UNICEF stands for the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund it is one of the leading organizations that advocates for the good of the nation's children. In this blog I will also address questions regarding what I was able to learn as I browsed this website.

• Share with your colleagues the area of the world you chose and why.

The region that I chose to explore and learn about is Latin America and the Caribbean. I chose this website, because I am always hearing about issues in Africa, China, and Russia to name a few, however, I hardly ever hear much about the children of Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of the time when I hear about Latin America and the Caribbean it is regarding the tourism and cruises as well as the beautiful island lands. 

• Describe in detail some of the challenges that children in this region of the world are confronting.

One of the prime issues that are affecting the youth of these country is the issue of HIV/ AIDS. According to the website unicef.org  in Latin America alone there are more than 68,000 adolescents aged 10 to 19 years with HIV, of which 34.000 are women. In the region are born approximately 2,000 children with HIV annually, and each day 95 women acquire HIV adolescents. This to me is so disturbing because we all know that HIV/AIDS is a serious epidemic that is causing many young people to succumb to death at alarming rates. I also read that children in these countries are suffering from malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies.  It also mentions that pregnant women and children two and under are the ones who suffer the most. The right to equal education for all children is another issue that affects the children of Latin America and the Caribbean. It states that indigenous, Afro descendants, individuals with disabiltiies, and low income families have low completion rates, lack access to educational institutions. 

• Explain how these experiences might have an effect on children’s emotional wellbeing and development.

The lack of medical care, food, and education can greatly affect children's emotional well-being and development in that it all of these factors are needed to help the child to grow in develop in a positive manner. The food is needed to provide crucial nutrients that helps to promote brain, muscle, and tissue development which all help to promote a health start.  The lack of medical attention causes children to miss out on necessary vaccinations that can help combat childhood diseases. The lack of education will prevent the children from further developing their cognitive skills, because the children will not be exposed to the learning experiences that can further develop the brain as well as those experiences that helps to develop their social-emotional skills. 

• Include a personal and professional reflection. Explain the insights you gained and the influences they may have on you as a person and as an early childhood professional.

From a personal point of view, browsing this website has really enlightened me more to the plight of the children of these countries. It has made me really consider the positives and negatives that affect our own children. As I read about their country and I compared it to ours, sadly, some of these same issues are affecting the children in our very own country. Even though, we are a country rich in hospitals, schools, and homes there are still thousands of children struggling to attend quality school, access quality medical care, and consume foods that are rich in nutrients. 

From a professional viewpoint, when I read information such as what was contained in this website, it lets me know that more work is to be done to improve the situations of children all across the world. However, it does causes me to think that even though I would like to help the children in Latin America and the Caribbean, I must be mindful that charity starts at home so I must begin in my own neighborhood, community, state, and country. I can do this by taking the knowledge that I possess and using it to connect with other caring early childhood professionals to create a caring environment for young children to grow and thrive. This also means networking with community resources to help the families gain access to available help. 

References:

http://www.unicef.org/lac

The Sexualization of Early Childhood

This week I read an article that dealt with the sexualization and early childhood and after reading this article, I feel that the authors of this particular article really nailed the subject of sex and our children. The authors called for parents and educators to pay more attention to the many ways our children are exposed to sex by the media. It went on to say that the media uses sex to sell their products and as the children see these advertisements they are exposed to the sexual messages that leave them feeling the need to imitate. Children who see these ads and listen to the messages in our society feel the need to experiment with sexuality. This experimentation can cause young girls and boys to dabble in the sexual acts and experiences that surpasses their current knowledge and understanding. However, it is just so sad that our children are buying into the images and messages of these ads and society is affirming the messages as well.

As an early childhood professional that works with preschool age children, I must say that I have had several experiences where the children in the classroom and even in the neighborhood act, talk, dance, and behave far beyond their ages. I will share a few of my real life experiences that I have had throughout my work young children. I must say that I am very surprised at how aware they are about sex.

• In the dramatic play area, four year olds Serena and Janny play dress up. Janny puts on a dress and then opts for the high heel shoes and says to Serena, " Girl, I look too sexy with these heels on. " Serena, nods her head yes and then says," You going out with your boo (boyfriend) tonight girl?" Janny says," Yes, we going to the club." 

• In the block area Travis and John pretend to make a movie and they use blocks as their video camera. They call to the girls in the near by dramatic play and says," Y'all come be our dancers in our video." The girls put on the high heel shoes and begin dancing, I walk over them and ask them to if they can should me others ways that we can move our bodies. My purpose in asking this was so they would stop shaking their bottoms.
• In the dramatic play area, Kenya says," Tony lets play mommy and daddy." Tony says," Ok." Kenya, then says," If we are going to play mommy and daddy, you have to sleep with me so we can have a baby." Tony says," No, way Hosea!" Kenya then places her hands on her hips and stomps off mad.

I feel the more are children are exposed to these negative ads reflecting sex our children will continue to experience a decline in their overall positive development, because they will begin to lose touch with reality and become more sucked into and absorbed with the fraudulent images they see. They will begin to draw their own understanding of what they think it means to be a female or male in this society. Often times this could mean girls belittle themselves just to receive attention from the opposite sex. The boys will not value women, but instead will treat them as objects of pleasure to be used and discarded. If we allow our children to engage in hazardous behaviors, we will have a generation of children who will turn in to adults that lack self respect and self confidence. Another indication for girls is that they will never feel as if they fit in and are accepted unless they allow themselves to be misused by males in sexual acts or displays. If we are to help them we need to begin now modeling for them ways to have positive self-esteem, self-concepts, and self- awareness. We must address the issues of the over sexualized advertisements seen on television and in magazines. Teaching each boy and girl that they are special and they are unique just they way they are. This can also be done by writing to our local lawmakers to enlist their help as we strive to reach out to the producers of these advertisements. By involving our local leaders may they can help to pass laws or regulations that limits or applies PG ratings to certain advertisements so that parents can be more aware of and in tune to what their children watch.

Read this article really caused me to reflect back on my experiences with the children and I reflected on the numerous incidents where I redirected the behavior or play of the children. It was redirected due to what was being said or done by the children. Thinking back even more it saddens me to have to say that majority of the time these incidents occurred they were initiated by a girl. Levin & Kilbourne (2009) writes both girls and boys, but especially girls, are pushed into precocious sexuality in appearance and behavior long before they understand the deeper meaning of relationships or of the sexual behavior they’re imitating. As I look around me and pass the early childhood setting, I can not help, but to see how the music videos, clothing ads, and even the children's toys and movies are exposing the children more and more to sex. If the children receive these messages from influential people they will definitely be quick to imitate what they see. That is why we must be more proactive in being the positive role models we want them to see, redirect inappropriate behaviors, and talk to children about those things they see and hear in society. 

reference:

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

Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

For this blog, I will try to describe the consequences that children and families might experience as I deal with as try to address the "isms" that I might be experiencing in my own life.

On of the biggest "isms" that I have had to deal with is racism and dealing with racism is not an easy feat. When a person is the victim of racism it stirs up all kinds of emotions and these emotions can leave one feeling hurt, sad, degraded, belittled, worthless, and angry. So as an early childhood professional trying to promote anti-bias education in my classroom as I try to cope with the "isms" that cause me strife in my own life, I believe that as I worked through this issue, my tolerance level would more than likely be very low.

Even though I would really try my hardest to be fair and just and to promote unity among the children and families that I serve, for those families that do not make an effort to help promote this unity and anti-bias learning and their child consistently comes to school acting all ugly to the other children, I would probably called that parent in for conferences and after that I don't know and can't really say what I would actually do, because no matter what I experience in my personal life, I try really hard not to allow it to spill over into my professional life. I just would like to make a point that hateful racist children majority of the time grow up to be racist adults and the cycle of racism never ends because children mirror the adults in their home, community, and school environment, as well as the other institutional influences that may leave an impression on them.