Quote and video

"All of us have to recognize that we owe our children more than we have been giving them."
                                                                                                         Hillary Clinton

The material items we are giving our children are not making them well-adjusted human beings. We need to give them our time, our unconditional love, and our support so they can develop to their fullest potential.



Below is a video from the Center on the Developing Child. I think it speaks to the importance of what some think of as child's play. This play can lead to productive living and working in society.

Assessments

Assessments/Accountability

I am not against assessments but I am against the way our education system is using them as a basis of accountability. I think results of assessments should be used by the teacher as a means of planning instruction. Early childhood children should never be assessed just on the cognitive domain. There are many assessments and screening tools that measure the social, emotional, and physical domains. There are also tools that measure any family stressors. All of these factors have an affect on the development of early childhood children. In fact, a problem in one domain could cause a delay in another. In our assignments, we are always asked to define or explain an interplay between domains. This task was rather easy because all the domains are so reliant on the development of the others. Assessments in the early childhood years should be comprehensive enough to include all domains. The results should be used to determine any delays or potential problems a child may have or to plan instruction. The results should NOT be used to put labels on children or to hold a teacher or program accountable.

Finland

When I began my search for assessments used in other countries, I came across something very interesting about Finland's education system. I read an article that spoke about Finland's successful school system. Based on the Programme for International Student Assessment(PISA), Finland has one of the highest performing school systems in the world. The schools are bright and cheerful and are designed with the academic, social, emotional, and physical need of the students needs in mind.
Children are not held back to ensure that they don't lose motivation or feel like failures. So you probably wonder as I did as I read this article, how is their school system such a high performing system? Finland's strategy for education reform does not involve results from standardized testing or holding teachers accountable. Their reform begins with the teacher preparation program. There are only 8 universities that prepare teachers and only 1 of every 10 people that apply are admitted into these elite teacher education programs. Therefore the teaching profession in Finland is a very well respected and prestigious profession. Teachers are given the independence to teach what they want and how they want to teach it based on their own student's ability. There is absolutely no standardized testing in Finland. The article stated that teachers would walk off the job if scores were ever used to judge their abilities. "Finnish education is based on the development of a child as a thinking, active, creative person, not the attainment of higher test scores, and the primary strategy of Finnish education is cooperation, not competition."
Ravitch, D. (2012). Schools we can envy. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved from
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/08/schools-we-can-envy/?pagination=false


Education reform

As I am typing this, there is work being done as a result of our Governor's education reform. ACT 3 is legislation that pertains to the reform of early childhood education programs including private child care, head start, and the public pre-K programs in the schools. Our governor wants assessments done in all of these programs to determine school readiness. A letter grade will be placed on each program based on the results of the assessment. At this time, I do not know what the assessment is going to be. I work for the state's Quality Rating System and I am unsure how our program is going to fit into this new reform. On Nov. 1, we are supposed to attend a meeting where we will be presented the draft version of ACT 3 and I guess I will find out then who, what, how, when or where these reforms will be phased in to our programs. For those of us in the early childhood field, we know the importance of social emotional development. However, our state's public school system looks only at literacy and mathematics to determine school readiness. Hopefully, the stakeholders in child care have been able to collaborate and educate the dept. of education on the importance of social emotional development in school readiness. Whatever is decided, will go through the next legislative session in the Spring and all programs including private child care will have to abide if they want to continue receiving any public funding.

Stressors

Chaos

          I know that I am fortunate enough to not know anyone with any of the serious stressors in their lives. People in other countries have many more challenges than many of us will ever face in our lives. Although it may not be the worse thing people live through, I felt like the household my husband grew up in and the lasting results affected not only him in adulthood but all of us. His father was an alcoholic but was a very gentle kind man who never raised his voice and always appeared defeated looking to me. His mother would have been diagnosed as bi-polar by today's standards. After many years of my husband having the same traits, he finally got help as I continued to read books about narcissistic personality disorder and living with the self absorbed. I always knew that my husband had his mother's genes so I took full responsibility for my children and left him out of things like discipline. I did everything with my children. We sort of lived our own life while he was their Dad that just lived in our house. They didn't know any different.  After he came to his realization about how he was raised and what he was doing to his wife and children, he began to open up to me. He told me stories about his mother throwing knives across the room at his dad when he came home drunk. My husband lived in 11 houses before we got married. He recalled coming home from school and boxes were packed to move or coming home and various pieces of furniture or appliances were gone because she sold them to buy something she wanted. There was constant fighting that could have been avoided if she didn't feel the need to control every person's life. When my husband and I were dating, I got so tired of having her curse me and fuss at me that I just stopped talking. Then I was labeled as snobby. There was no winning. Sometimes the mind uses defense mechanisms to help you cope. That is what my husband must have done growing up but then when he wanted to replay the same scenarios in my home, I said we need help. I know many people live through worse but when I think of the definition of chaos, I think of my husband's household

 Haiti
    
         I know this is sort of a repeat of a previous blog but I am very passionate about children going hungry. The everyday things we take for granted would be luxuries for them. Many live in tent cities, no clean water, or no food. As a result of these conditions, there are various diseases that plagued the country. I've stated before that I cannot imagine being a mother that has to watch her children go hungry or watch them die before her eyes and there is nothing you can do. There are many organizations such as UNICEF and Food for the Poor that help to make the living conditions better by building homes, providing food, giving immunizations, and purifying the water. There is so many people that are not being helped. This country seems to be a magnet for natural disasters. As soon as organizations make some progress, it is set back by a disaster. Giving just a little money goes a long way for the people of Haiti.

Malnutrition

Most people think they know the meaning of malnutrition, at least I thought I did. However many times malnutrition is generalize as people going hungry. Malnutrition is a result of not enough calories especially from proteins. Many problems occur from malnutrition besides the obvious. Children's brains may not develop normally if deprived of good nutrition. Their immune system is compromised which makes them more susceptible to diseases while many diseases are a result of malnutrition.

I chose to discuss this topic because I have always been a fanatic about my children getting adequate food and rest. I still check on my grown son who is working on his PhD and ask him if he is eating well and not skipping meals. He is in another state from me so I don't have to see him rolling his eyes at me but I can hear it in his voice, "Mom, really, I'm fine." I cannot imagine the feelings of mothers who's children are wasting away due to malnutrition and they know no way of stopping it. I can't imagine watching my child crying in pain because they are so hungry or because they are in pain due to a disease.

Haiti
I did some research on the country of Haiti that has been plagued by malnutrition as well as devastating storms and earthquakes. UNICEF has done amazing work in helping the people of Haiti especially mothers, infants, and young children. After the earthquake in 2010, They provided education programs for mothers on the benefits of breastfeeding. They provide supplements of micronutrients such as iron, folic acid and vitamin A. UNICEF reports that in 2005 1 of 10 children under 5 in Haiti were malnourished and one fourth of babies were born LBW. Now in 2012 severe malnutrition has decreased from 4% to 1% and underweight children decreased from 18% to 10.6%.
Food for the Poor - this organization has many projects that work to help the plight of the Haitian people. Some of the programs include work on home, schools, orphanages and feeding programs. Food is also distributed to other organizations to help with their local feeding programs. I have contributed to this program for years through my church and feel confident in the work they do. Everyone should consider giving something to one of these organizations to help alleviate the plight of these children in Haiti. It doesn't take much money to save a child from malnutrition.

www.unicef.org
www.foodforthepoor.org

Birth

It was a busy time at the hospital when my daughter was born. After she was born, they moved me from a birthing room to a regular room across the hall. It was a full moon and the nurses said there would be many babies born during that night. From early afternoon well into the middle of the night my daughter stayed in the room with me laying on my chest the whole time. Nurses came by to bring me bottles and check and me and my daughter but for the most part my husband and I spent much quiet time with our daughter. My in-laws were caring for my other 2 children. It was the middle of the week and many people were working so that cut down on visitors. When my daughter woke, we spoke to her and made eye contact with her but mostly she slept on my chest. She is now 17 yrs. old and is calm and a very happy easy going young lady who is very social and has respect and appreciation for all people.  Our families often joke about the incident and say that she is still "connected" to my chest because she and I have such a close, warm relationship. It is no joke to me. I firmly believe that the environment following her birth, created that bond of attachment. The situation was very different for my other 2 children. It was very much a formal, clinical atmosphere. I didn't see my babies much until we left the hospital. I think maybe they were brought in for me to feed once.

My experience with my daughter came to mind when reading about kangaroo care in our text. In our text it shows women in Manila providing kangaroo care. I went onto the Internet and found more information about it. It is used most effectively for premature babies but of course is beneficial for full term babies also. There are different kinds of kangaroo care. There is the Skin to Skin care where the baby lays on the mother's body with nothing in between. From my research, it appears that this practice is used extensively in South Africa.

After reading more on kangaroo care, I learned that I did not provide true kangaroo care for my daughter, it was a form of it. I firmly believe that the time spent with your baby following birth is crucial to the attachment in later years. People should respect that parents need those first few hours as a time of quiet bonding and save the visiting for later. My experience is far from being a study but it was convincing enough for me to believe that the parent/child attachment after birth is a good indicator of attachment in later years.

Code of Ethics

NAEYC Ideals - Responsibilities to co-workers
I-3A.2 To share resources with co-workers, collaborating to ensure that the best possible early childhood care and education program is provided.

I-4.4 To work through education, research, and advocacy toward a society in which all young children have access to high-quality early care and education programs.

Division of Early Childhood - Code of Ethics
Personal and Interpersonal Behavior
2. We shall demonstrate the highest standards of personal integrity, truthfulness, and honesty in all our professional activities in order to inspire the trust and confidence of the children and families and of those with whom we work.

The NAEYC ideals I chose are meaningful to me because I don't work directly with children and families but do work directly with others in the early childhood field. We must continually keep current with research in order to educate early childhood professionals so they can provide the best care and education to the children and families they serve. There are many diverse programs all related to children and families. These programs must collaborate to bring about the best results in a community.

I felt like the ideal from the DEC could apply to any profession. If you are going to be considered a professional in your field, you must conduct yourself in a manner that others want to respect. I am not impressed by how much someone knows, but who they are as a person and how they treat others.

Success

"The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being.  Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease.  It helps to remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have.  It also gives us strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life."                  

Dalai Lama