My Support..........

Support to me does not mean having others do for you; it is the comfort of knowing I am not alone.  My greatest supports are my daughters, son, husband, family, and friends.  My kids and husband were my biggest support while I was going to school and am still now while I am going through my master degree.  My family and friends would always encourage me to go forward and tell me it is never too late to change things.  I remember a time when me and my children where living at a friend’s house because we had no place to go and I did not have a job.  Without the support and love from friends and family I think I would have given up on the world. 

So many of us has faced some type of challenges during their life but I think the biggest challenge is poverty or financial.  My biggest challenge that I faced in the world was losing my business and having to live with friends for four years.  I had to close my child care center, I was getting divorce, and during that divorce I lost my car and my house.  I became a single mom with three children and no place live, no job, or transportation.  Me and my children lived with some family for about two years and then lived with my closest friend.  During this time I finished my degree in early childhood education and got a job as a teacher assistant.  My boyfriend at the time while I was going through this major financial issues, he encouraged me to continue on, then we got a place together and after eight years we got married. 

Other support that I received was during my financial issues was a state medical card for me and my children.  I also received food stamps to help bring food into my house for me and my children. After I started working my medical card was discontinued but my children continued to keep their medical cards until they were eighteen.  The area I live single mothers can get support from the state with medical cards, food stamps, and can even get child care assistants to help pay for their children to attend child care center so they can work.   

My Connection to Play

These quotes reminded me of play when I was little:

“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning” –Fred Rogers

“Play is the beginning of knowledge” –George Dorsey

 

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation” –Plato

“Play is training for the enexpected” –Marc Bekoff

My dad was always gone due to his job but my mom and grandma always encouraged me and my sister to go outside and play.  We would stay outside for hours exploring but we never left the yard unless mom was with us. We would ride our bikes, go for walks, roller skate, jump rope and even go to the park or the beach.  I remembered when I was in the second grade, we had to do experiments for school and my mom and I created a color wheel and that is how I learned how to mix colors together to make another color.  We did not watch TV much, when I was little but in today’s world TV is the biggest baby sitter for some children. 

As I got older, I did not go outside as much because my mother became a single mom and had to work.  She would not let us go out unless she was home, but I still was learning while I was staying inside. I learned how to wash clothes, clean dishes, and even taught myself how to cook.  When I became a mom I continued to learn by taking care of my children, playing with them and watch them learn.  

 

 

Reflecting on Building Relationships

Building a successful relationship is a big part of life with family and with friends which in my eyes all starts with trust.  If can’t trust others than you will have a hard time believe what they have to say and cause some doubts. Another part of having a successful relationship is being able to understand one another regardless if you agree or disagree.  We all have difference of opinions and at times even misunderstand what someone else is trying to say.  I have not had the best supportive or positive relationships in my life.  The top supportive and positive relationships I have had have been my mother, children, and my husband.

 

My mother has been there when I needed a shoulder to cry on or just to have someone that will listen to me.  My mom has always listened to me and will give me her advice but she would always say, “I may give you advice but you are the one that can either take it or leave because you are the person in charge of how you run your life.”   

 

I am 39 years old and my son will be 21 next week, my daughter is 19, and my youngest daughter is 14.  Being a teenage mother and having to grow up fast, my children have taught me how to be patience, strong, and confident in everything I do in life.  I have become the person I am because of my children and with their support I have completed a BA in early childhood education.  Going back to school took some time away from my children but they encourage me to continue because this was something I have always wanted to do is teach young children.  This also showed my children that it is never too late to go to college and get the degree you have always wanted.

 My husband and I lived together for 8 years before I agree to get married again and now we have been married for 1 year.  In my previous marriages, they were not successful relationships because I could not trust which cause me to doubt them.  My husband was also previously married and has two children of his own.  With all the challenges we both have experience with our previous relationships; we decided to work on trust and learn to understand each other before we decided to make it final.  Bringing two families together brought some challenges in our relationship and as the years went on we both have become stronger, understanding, and even closer in our relationship. 

I believe that the best practice is the experience we all go through in life.  Our experiences or past relationships will only help us to build a better relationship with others.  As an early childhood professional I firmly believe building a strong effective relationship is the key to unlock opportunities for parents to become more involved with their child development and education. 

~During the earliest stages the child perceives things like a solipsist who is unaware of himself as subject and is familiar only with his own actions.~ Jean Piaget 



 




A special thanks to all classmates that have posted comments of encouraging words on my blogs. A special thanks to Dr. Cara Wicks-Ortega for providing feedback to improve my thinking on child development.


Assessments and Learning

Assessing all children’s educational progress is great if we are assessing what the students have learned and how we can help them to go above and beyond their learning ability.  The only problem with the standardize test that are given to our children is that our teachers will only teach what is on that standardize test just to make sure the students get a higher score.  Our education system uses these tests as a basis of accountability for teachers and students.  Early childhood students are assessed by using the creative curriculum program which assessing each student in social, emotional, cognitive, and physical domains.  The creative curriculum program is an assessment that shows where a child is lacking in developments and is used as a key to early intervention for each student. Not only does this help teacher provide early intervention it allows the teacher to also help a child go above and beyond their learning ability.  As an early childhood professional we all have learned that all developmental domains overlap each other which focuses on the whole child.  But as children get older the assessments that are done on younger children are not the same for the older children.  Some test out their will show what a student had learned but does it really show how a child is learning.  Test like SAT/ACT shows academic intelligence for student who want to go to college but the problem with this test is the stress level of the students.  Without a 21 or higher most students will not make it into a college of their choice, which put stress on a student.

After reading this news broadcast I was shocked to find out that, “the U.S. scored 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math, slightly higher than the last time the tests were given. The really stunning news comes from China, and the province of Shanghai, where students scored better than anyone else in the world after taking the test for the first time.”  I continued to read this news broadcast and found out that the students and teachers all have a high standard in education.  These teachers went above and beyond of what the students needed to learn and what else can they learn by having the students go outside of their box.  I was shocked that China and the province of Shanghai had never taken standardize test that our children take every year in school and scored the highest.  That should show our education system that they need to stop looking at just reading, science, and math in order to see basic progress of our children.  We as teachers need to stop teaching what the students needs to know for the end of the year testing and challenge these students to go outside of their box. 

Resource:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40544897/ns/us_news-life/t/wake-up-call-us-students-trail-global-leaders/

All over the world has some type of stressors rather it is violence, disease, hungry, or war. We all learn how to deal with these types of issues in our lives. As a young child I would wish that someone would take me away due to the violence I experienced growing up. The violence I experienced was the physical abuse from my father. My father was an alcoholic and if I did not follow rules or do the chores they asked I was beaten with whatever my father found.  I remembered a time when my parents were called into school for a parent teacher conference and they explained to my parents that I need extra help in my comprehension.  My father stated that “my children are not going to be dumb children and he will fix it” and this started to be the worse childhood experience I would ever face.  I would have to sit on the edge of my parent’s bed and read to my dad a book that was above my age level.  Once I started reading this book if I ever said a word wrong, my father would take the belt buckle across my back until I pronounce the word correctly.  When I would go to bed every night I would wish that someone who take me away.  Once I became an adult and starting having children I thought I would never treat my children how I was treated as a child; but what I found myself in was a relationship of an abusive husband that never remembered anything.  After five years I decided I had enough of this and I was finally going to get help and did.  Just like many other places around us all suffer from sometime of abuse.  In the US one woman is abused every 15 seconds.  India has 40% of woman report physical assaults. One of every six murder committed in Sweden was done by a man murdering his wife.  So many place experiences this same time of abuse and we still today can find ways to help prevent this from happening.  We all try to change how we are from a child but some seem to find the same pathway just as if they were still living in violence.  Some can change their path but so many of them feel that can’t break free but I did break free.  It may have taken two marriages and three kids later but I no longer live in fear and wonder if I’m going to wake up with a black eye.  I hope that someday we all will be able to notice abuse before it gets out of hand and be able to help those in need. 

WK 2 "Breastfeeding"

For many years we all have read or have been told that breastfeeding is the best way to provide the best nutrition for your baby. So why it is that breastfeeding is not encouraged more for mothers. As a teenage mom, I had a nurse try to work with me in breastfeeding my son but I was so unsuccessfully due to that my son was tongue tied, which made it hard for him to latch on.  Nineteen months later my daughter was born and I knew I could not go through breastfeeding again because I felt as if it was going to be like the last time. During this time the nurses did not even trying to encourage me to try again therefore she was bottle feed. Five years later I gave birth to a baby girl and the nurses encouraged me to try breastfeeding which was a success. I was more willing to try it again because during this pregnancy my doctor gave me all the education needed to know all the benefits there was to breastfeeding. Therefore I continued to breastfeed up until I was told by my work that I could not take breaks in order to breastfeed my child. Just like in the United Kingdom most mothers don't choose to breastfeed because they can't take those breaks to either pump or breastfeed their babies. We all know that breastfeeding is beneficial to a child's development, so why don't we have more ways to encourage our employers to allow mother's to take breaks in order to pump or breastfeed their babies. Breastfeeding out in public is frowned upon  in North America and Western Europe, so why can’t places provide a spot so that a mother who choose to breastfeed their babies can do so without others judging.