Reflection on Learning Strategies for Working with Diverse Children and Families

 Hopes and Wishes for Continued Work in the Anti-Bias Field

                                                      

                                                             https://www.shutterstock.com/search/diverse+cartoon+kids

             This course along with all my other lessons and course work at Walden University has taught me a great deal of what it means to be an anti-bias educator and maintain an inclusive work and school environment. We are all different and it is ok to see and discuss our difference. We also all have similarities such as the similarity to want to feel accepted, loved, respected, and find a community to fill you with encouragement and support. This week in our required media presentation we heard wise and hopeful words from Julie Olsen-Edwards in which she concluded on the note that we are not alone and are now part of a global community and family of early childhood educators. This ending speech made me feel warm and happy-hearted because there have been times when I have felt that what I am doing as a profession is looked down upon, not respected, and unvalued. It is hard to keep motivation such as when you see your bi-weekly paycheck or hear how much others are making without years of schooling, and the most hurtful saying to me is that I am just a glorified babysitter. What makes me continue forward with the work I do is the impact and growth I see on a daily basis with my students in both their educational and emotional development. I not only see growth in them but with myself and a newfound appreciation of what I do and how I help others in the world. 

    As I continue forward with my work with anti-bias education in early childhood I would like to continue working on my patience and discussing feelings with students and also being less hard on myself when mistakes are made or days and lessons are not going as planned. I have a tendency to be very hard on myself and blame myself for every little thing that goes amiss even if at times I had no control over the situation at hand. The better I keep my composure, keep my head up and keep pushing forward the easier and less stressful it will be for my students to carry forward and push through tough situations and challenging days. I also like to continue discussing the topic of race and skin complexion with my students. This week alone I have had four conversations about skin color and comparing the skin color of myself and the students in my class. Before taking these courses I would have found these discussions uncomfortable and try to change the topic very quickly. Now I realize and see the importance of discussing the fact that we all do have different skin colors and it is ok to describe our differences in terms of being light, dark, tan, and pale. As long as we are not saying whose skin color is more beautiful or more dominant than the others, it is ok to discuss the spectrum of color we see on our friends' skin.

https://www.amazon.com/Pumpkin-Birthday-Personal-Business-Envelopes/dp/B01JPMEQGM    

    Thank you so much to my professor and colleagues who have worked hard and helped me learn and grow in my journey of anti-bias education. Thank you so much for sharing your personal stories and thank you for listening to mine. We are all so unique and passionate about the work we do. It has been an honor working with all of you and I look forward to continuing learning with you all throughout my master's program and beyond.

Reference

           Laureate Education, Inc. (2011). Strategies for working with diverse children: Your commitment to anti-bias work. Baltimore, MD: Author 

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

 Early Childhood Development in Costa Rica

    

https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/better-future-women-costa-rica/

 

https://www.workaway.info/en/host/493658164577    

    I decided to look at impacts on early emotional development in Costa Rica because this has been a place I have been looking forward to traveling to since I first began studying it in Spanish class during my primary and middle school years of education. I was fascinated with the nature and animal components of the island and yearned to learn more and take place in programs to help preserve the nature and animal life on this island. Although my original interest in this island came from the beauty I saw in the wildlife and plants inhibited here, now that I am diving into the field of diversity in early childhood education and diversity of different cultures I want to deepen my knowledge of the families who live here.

    While looking at statistics and fact sheets in a UNICEF 2020 report of situations revolving around children and families, I discovered that just like many places around the world right now, children and families are negatively impacted on economic, physical health, mental health, and emotional well-being bais as results of this global pandemic. Because of a decrease of people being employed the number of families and households living in poverty has increased from 2019 to 2020. This results in families having to cut back in their food consumption and cause children to have smaller meals and this can lead to them being unable to focus in school environments and being more susceptible to behavioral challenges and other health issues.

    "Children with insufficient diets are reported to have more problems with health, academic learning, and psychosocial behavior. Malnutrition can result in long-term neural tissues in the brain, which can impact a child’s emotional responses, reactions to stress, learning disabilities, and other medical complications. In a specific study, researchers Margaret Lahey and Shari Rosen discovered that “Malnourished children […] were found to have delays in vision, fine motors skills, language skills, and personal-social skills'"(Chen 2020).

    Something that I found upsetting while looking at the fact sheet was the high number of families and caregivers who believe in and use corporal punishment to teach children how to behave. 

    “Before COVID-19, corporal punishment and humiliating treatment towards children posed a serious social challenge. Nationally, 46% of children from 1 to 14 years of age have experienced a least one form of physical or psychological abuse by their parents or caregivers; this practice is more prevalent among heads of families without education (53%) than among those with an education (47%). A quarter of the people surveyed (24%) consider that physical punishment is necessary and of these, more men (24%) than women (15%) approve this practice (EMNA/MICS, 2017)” (UNICEF 2020).

    In all of the early childhood development places where I have been employed, it was prohibited to punish children with physical or emotional pain. Growing up I was not met with physical pain when I made undesirable choices and many of my peers and classmate did not receive this form as punishment as well. Although I am aware of this happening in some households even in some of my own family households I never saw this as a positive way to teach children how to make appropriate choices. I am very glad that there are programs beginning to emerge to promote social change in the methods used to parent and take care of children in this region of the world. 

   "As in 2020 there was an increase in the levels of violence experienced by children in their homes, UNICEF supported campaigns to promote caring and positive parenting for mothers, fathers, and caregivers, increasing the REDCUDI ́s community reach by 40% and social media interactivity by more than 105%" (UNICEF 2020). 

    "According to Rollins (2012), CP can cause physical injuries such as abrasions, bruising, and other medical complications. However, CP has long lasting negative impact on a child’s personality by affecting their cognitive, emotional, psychological, social, and language development. American Academy of Pediatrics points out that CP may adversely affect the students’ self-image and school achievements (Rollins, 2012)." (Source quoted in JPMS blog 2016).

Reference

    Chen G. 2020.  How Diet and Nutrition Impact a Child's Learning Ability. Public School Review. https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/how-diet-and-nutrition-impact-a-childs-learning-ability

    JPMS Blogs Admin. 2016. In Focus: Impact of Corporal Punishment of a Child's Personality Development. https://blogs.jpmsonline.com/2016/01/12/in-focus-impact-of-corporal-punishments-on-a-childs-personality-development/

    UNICEF. 2020. County Office Annual Report 2020 Costa Rica. https://www.unicef.org/reports/country-regional-divisional-annual-reports-2020/Costa-Rica

Living in an Overtly Sexualized World and Being Very Young and Vulnerable

                                Adult Content in a Child's World.              

 

Bratz Dolls

                      https://www.huffpost.com/entry/countering-the-sexualizat_b_362343 

     

    This topic is one I find very uncomfortable and difficult to discuss. This topic is hard for me because it is not something I care to think about because of my own personal experiences struggling with growing up too fast and knowing too much at a young age and from troubling stories I have heard about from other people with their experience with adult content in their life at a young age. The inserted images are photos from my youth that impacted the way I saw and sought out the adult world in terms of defining beauty standards, physical physique, and the importance of keeping up with the latest trends. My first introduction to pornography was when I was eight years old at a friend's house with a search for a show that we both enjoyed watching. The site we accidentally found. We found the website because of the use of names in a popular cartoon that we would watch on a daily basis on a children's network. I remember playing with Bratz and MyScene dolls and having every desire to look just like them when I grew up particularly the black or light skinned dolls because they had the same complexion as me. I also remember preferring to have female toys and dolls growing up rather than male gendered toys and dolls. Having all-female dolls and only two males, I would rotate the females with the two males and have them constantly switching up their partners and creating new families amongst the two males and plethora of female dolls I acquired. Thinking back to the way I thought nothing of having fake divorces and marriages with my dolls makes me question the way I perceived relationships, families, and sexual and romantic partners at a tender young age and how this affects me today with my curent romantic relationship.

                                                                            Twilight Franchise                        

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                     https://shapingyouth.org/boys-body-image-and-sexualization-an-equal-opportunity-destroyer/

                    

            https://psychologybenefits.org/tag/sexualization/                      

               Toddlers & Tiaras                     

                                                                        Justin Bieber                

                                                                                                      https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/01/24/the-double-standard-in-sexualizing-teen-celebrities/                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                  

    

    My family growing up contained biological female and male parental guardians who had me after marriage and were both a part of the same race and religion. However, I saw very different depictions of families and adult relationships with parents and relationships depicted both in school and on various media platforms, such as TV shows, movies, and magazines targeted to the teen and tween demographic. My parents were rather strict with what they would allow me to watch in terms of shows and movies however what I saw in school and at friends' houses was very different than what I was viewing in my home environment. Because this content was so drastically different than what I saw at home it held and left very prominent attractions and memories in my mind. I explored my curiosity to these adult questions by the play that I endured with my toys in the comfort of my own room environment.

    I remember growing up, playing house with my friends and I always chose to be the baby and they would pretend to feed me with their breast because that is what they said their baby sister did with their mom. If I was to see this happening now in one of my classroom's I would not know what to do or how to address the topic besides saying that, this is not a school appropriate activity and you are right babies do drink milk from their mom's breast but you two are not babies and are too young to be mommies. I would want to acknowledge that the child is right and don't want them connecting breastfeeding to something taboo or negative, but it is not something I want to see repeated amongst children in the classroom environment and it is a very uncomfortable conversation to have with parents and family members under my care.

                                                                                Resources

       Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. 2009. Introduction. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids. https://www.google.com/books/edition/So_Sexy_So_Soon/rwVf9kiWQtgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA3&printsec=frontcover

 

Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

 

                Although many of us try not to take out home baggage and struggles to work with us in some instances this feat is very hard to pursue. Carrying unwanted feelings of isolation, misunderstandings, judgment, and loneliness can affect the way we present ourselves around others regardless of if they are the cause of the problem. In terms of how various isms and injustice may affect the way educators present themselves to children, it is possible to see their parent's views influenced upon them and give us a bad taste of the beliefs and thoughts of not just caregivers but children as well.

    

    An example I can think of when this situation occurred was one of my students asked me if I was white. At first, I thought I heard him say if I was alright so I put my thumb up, nodded, my head and said "yes honey I'm alright." The child then proceeded to shake his head and asked, if I was white then pulled out his arm to reveal his skin color. He then said if you're white you are alright but if you're not white then you are bad. This took me by shock. My initial thoughts were ones of hurt and frustration. This incident took place during the unjust protests of George Floyd occurring all over Philadelphia and other parts of the world. Our school is located in the heart of center city PA, and we even had to close and have early dismissal some days due to all the riots and protests occurring.

    Before responding to the child I took a deep breath and asked why did they think only white people were good and others are bad. He said that that's what his daddy said and "it is what I see on TV." I then started to ask him how he felt about me being his teacher. I stated that I'm black, I'm kind and I am your friend, do you like me? The child smiled and nodded his head. I then asked about another Black student in the class and asked if she was his friend. I asked about this particular girl because she has been absent for a while because of COVID and he has been asking where she is a lot. He then said yes, "I like to play LEGOS with her." Perfect I exclaimed so if both me and she are your friends and we do not have White skin are all black people bad? He shook his head and said, "well not you guys but some are." I replied saying, this is true but sometimes everyone regardless of their skin color makes red choices and does something not so nice." He shrug and continued playing with his toy lion. Referring back to the readings from the text and Eric Hoffman from the media files in this course, Strategies for Working with Diverse Children, I have come to the knowledge that I should've had follow up activities and discussions with all the students in the class, not just a one time talk when the situation had occurred (Derman-Sparks & Edwards 2010).

    After this incident, I discussed what I witnessed to leadership who then had a follow-up conversation with the child's parents discussing helpful books and resources to discuss diversity to young children. 

    In this instance I was able to slow my thought process down and offer effective dialogue however, there have been times with other colleagues or co-workers who are my age where I am not able to slow down my thinking and either walk away from the situation as a whole or engage in noneffective dialogue with the individual with whom I was upset with. 

    I am biased with my discussion with young children because I believe that they are still young and questioning and challenging social norms however with older individuals particularly ones that are older than my generation of adults I feel more heated and aggravated by them because I feel as if they are reluctant to change their thought process and biases and prejudice towards others. While participating in the courses at Walden University I am beginning to defunct my theory on this older generation refusing to change their prejudice and stereotypes of different cultures.

Reference

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Microaggressions in everyday life [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu