Sharing Web Resources

One of my favorite websites it the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) website. I frequent this website a lot, because as an early childhood professional this particular website there is tons of information that is relevant to the field and what I am studying in my courses. When I visit this website, I do most of my search under the Early Childhood Professiona tab, public policy tab, the resources tab, and the DAP tab. All of these tabs link you with valuable information that covers a range of topics from professional development, current policies, resouces to be used by teachers and families, and practices that work best with young children. In my opinion all the things that were listed are relevant and vital to me becoming the best early childhood professional that I can be.

 The information that I find on this website pretty much goes along with my current views about early childhood. I say this because NAEYC has disposition statements on a variety of issues and one in particular talks about play being necessary for young children. I view it as a great way for children to learn key skills to help them learn about the world around them and to teach them new concepts. So the information that is found on this website also enlightens me about current policies as it pertains to improving the early childhood of field for children, families, and professionals.

This website helps me to understand how politicians support the early childhood field by providing links under the public policy tab. The information that I found under this tab, helps me to become aware of policies, initiatives, and bills that are being passed to help the early childhood field. Policies and initiatives such as the Race for the Top Early learning Challenge, the progress that of proposed bills, and ways individuals can advocate by calling local congressmen, or state legislators. By exploring this website, I am always amazed at how NAEYC really advocates for the early childhood field. They strive everyday to help make others aware of the importance of high quality early childhood programs and the beneficial effects that it can have on the lives of young children and families everywhere.

Early Childhood Resources

This blog is about an online early childhood resource that I like to reference for information. The name of this of this online website is the National Association for the Education of Young Children, better known to many as NAEYC. NAEYC is one of the leading forces for the betterment of young children everywhere. They help to put in place standards and developmentally appropriate practices that work best for young children. This particualar organization also recognizes early childhood programs that provide children and families with high quality services. The website is packed with information for early childhood professionals that helps them to better support children's development in all domains of learning. As I browsed this website, I found information pertaining to issues/trends affecting young children and families. As I browsed through the links, I found position statements that deal with cultural and linguistic development, inclusion, how to assess young English language learners, and early learning standards just to name a few. The link to this website is ww.w.naeyc.org. Also on this website early childhood professionals can find information about upcoming conferences, books to use with children, membership information, and how to take early childhood webinar courses.

My Supports

Within my daily environment there are certain things or people that I can draw support from. The first thing that I draw support from is a spirtual support. I draw spiritual support from knowing that God has His hands on my family and I and without Him I am nothing and I have nothing. I draw support from my children, their very existence pushes me to be the best me that I can be. The benefits of having God as a support is that He is the best thing going on in this troubled world. Plus, if you know like I know God offers the best benefits package ever seen! With Him I just know that their is nothing I can not do. I can make it through any situation. As a single parent of three, having God in my support system gives me that peace of mind to know that I am not alone as I take care of my three children by myself. He makes sure that all of our needs are met and that we are safe and secure. The benefits of having my children as supports is that they challenge me to be my best each and everyday. Just by them being in this world, I strive to continue to educate myself so that I can provide for my children and I. Plus, I want to them to know that hard work and determination pays off and that you are never too old to achieve goals. Because I have to lead by example, I am always trying to do my best. If I did not have these two major supports, my life would be a dark place. I just can't even imagine life without these two supports. If they were gone, the impact would be tremendous. I would probably be lost and trapped in this dark and cold world without a sense of direction, living a meanless, purposeless life.

My Connections to Play

Here are two quotes regarding play.

"Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn." by O. Fred Donaldson

"Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us an enthusiam for life that is irreplaceable. Without it, life just doesn't tast good." Lucia Capocchione

As a child, my play was encouraged by the adult individuals in my life. Unlike today, I was given ample time to run play, laugh, and explore with my siblings, cousins, friends, and classmates. Digging mud holes whether it be at home or at school, turned into a real life science lesson as we uncovered worms that were nestled deep in the soft dark soil. Discoveries such as this one were furthered as adults asked and answered any questions we may have had. My parents encouraged us to play outside and create games to be played with my siblings and cousins. Boy, them were the days.

 Play was such a delight, but that has since gon away and the children of today are deprived of such experiences. The children of today are missing out on what it means to play. With the growing technology industry, our children grow more and more fascinated with playing with the latest techno gadget or video game. Even in our schools, play is coming invisible, as children and teachers conform to the growing pressures of meeting standards and academic requirments.

When it comes to my life play has been an intricate part of it. I learned many skills as I engaged in play with my older cousins and classmates, making up games and rules helped me to problem solve and control myself enough to play with others. Even as an adult, I work hard and I play hard. After a busy week of work, I like to relax and enjoy some playtime with my children, family, and friends. This helps to clear my mind and alleviate some of the pressures of being a mommy, sister, friends, and colleague.  Play is essential and we all need it.


The pictures included would be essential play items for me, because they would allow me to transform to whoever I wanted to be as I played.       

Running on the playground was so much fun!

Friends were an essential part of my play

I learned a lot of skills by playing in the house area.

A Shout-out to my Colleagues

As we close out the final week in our class, I just would like to thank each of you for helping to contribute to the knowledge that was gained during this course. It was just a pleasure to interact with you all through the method of the internet. I also thank you for sharing with me and others about your passion for early childhood and your experiences. You all are a very valuable and knowledgeable group of individuals and I definitely look forward to interacting and learning from you in future courses. I wish you all much success in your future professional and educational endeavors.


Here are some quotes regarding children that really caught my eye:

"An aware parent loves all children he or she interacts with- for you are a caretaker for those moments in time."
- English Proverb

"The soul is healed by being with children."
-Mohandes Ghandi, political and spiritual leader in India

"No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education shoud be to unlock that treasure."
- Lady Bird Johnson, former first lady

"Hugs can do great amounts of good, especially for children."
-Dr. Seuss, author

Assessing Children

Assessing children can be positive or negative. It can be positive because the abilities of the child can be assessed. It can be negative because the whole child is not assessed. When a child is assessed, the assessor and all involved only see a snapshot of the child's abilities. I really think that Gardner and Brofenbrenner were on to something with their theories. Gardner's Multiple Intelligences believes that children have different intelligences, such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, etc. Brofenbrenner believes that they best what to assess children is in their natural environment. I, agree with both of these theories, because assessing children only through testing, does not offer a fair and justifiable understanding about what the child can actually do. When assessing children, I think that the child should be observed within a child friendly learning environment that invites the child to be themselves. Assessing their social skills, cognitive skills, physical skills based on their age and developmental stage can help to give an accurate view of the child's abilities.

When preparing for this blog post, I looked for information regarding assessment methods from around the region and world. What I found was that PISA also known as Programme for International Student Assessment is being used to assess children. The general age starts at 15. It's main goal is to offer school systems and other stakeholders the progress that is being made in schools and whether or not students are mastering key learning concepts.

Racism

When I was a child, I had my first experience with racism in Springfield, Missouri. My family and I had moved from Memphis, Tennessee to Springfield, Missouri. It was in this awful city that I was introduced to the hate and dislike that is racism. The people who lived behind us were extremely racist and they would make all kinds of racial remarks whenever they would see my siblings and I out playing in the backyard. We would tell our parents and they would tell us to ignore the ignorance of others. Well, it was an awful feeling to be singled out and ridiculed due to my skin color. I even had to ride the bus with these kids. At school, the racism was even worst. at lunch these three boys would stick their hands in my lunch and says, are you going to eat that ******. I would try to follow the instructions of my mother and report it to the teacher, but she would never do anything about it. I read about the racism that my grandparents had to endure, so in my day it was an eye opener to even think that racism was still going on. As an adult, I am even more aware of the racism that still goes on, but is a little less obvious than what it use to be. Though, change has been made we still have a long, long way to go.

I decided to learn about racism in Japan, I was really surprised to see how Japan shows racism to foreigners, blacks, and hispanics. I was so out done by reading how they exclude blacks and foreigners from using their restrooms, eating in their restaurants, and shunning away from them in public places. I even read that they discriminated in the areas of healthcare, employment, and housing. This type of racisme would be detrimental to the well being of young children whose parents had to move to this country due to job relocations. They would have to endure smirks and jeers of racist young Japanese children and they would more than like suffer from maltreatment if they are denied health care due to their race. I would have never thought of that Japan was a racist country. I must say I learn something new everyday.