Reflecting on Learning

My biggest hope for my future as an early childhood educator is to actually put everything into practice. My passion has been to teach in a school setting and right now that has not been possible. When that day comes and I am able to teach, I hope that I will remember all of this. I hope that I will be able to support my students and their families while learning about the anti-bias approach. While waiting for a teaching job, I plan to start advocating for children and to live by the anti-bias approach.

I want to thank each and every one of you for helping me through this process. I have learned so much and you all have pushed me to think further. Thank you Dr. Tammy Shepard for constantly, having me think of new ways to look at topics and issues.

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

The area that I chose to explore was Central and Eastern Europe Commonwelath of Independent States. I chose this area because I have met a few people that have emigrated from Russia and wanted to learn more about the area. Along with Russia there were many other areas that I was interested in. For example, Croatia, Turkey, Albania, and Romania because when I was a teenager, some of my peers were from these areas.

What I learned from the UNICEF website (2011) is that children from Tajikistan were finally able to get the diphtheria vaccination. This taught me that one of the challenges that these children face are disease due to lack of immunizations. Another common challenge that I saw children facing was lack of funds. One child could only attend school one day a week because that is all that the family could afford. Another challenge that I saw was that most of the states did not have inclusive classrooms. This meant that children with varying abilities either did not go to school or went to a special school. One family even opened up a center so that children who could not attend school could still get the education that they deserved.

With children not being immunized and not being able to receive an education, their development could fall behind. Children who are not receiving the proper education due to having varying abilities are just keeping that group down. Luckily for them, one family decided to open up a center for children to go to so they can learn and grow. Money issues can also bring about stress which causes emotional problems and for some developmental delays because they cannot get to school.

On a personal reflection, I learned that there is so much more that I can do for children around the world. On a professional level I have learned that I need to stand up for the rights of more than the children in my country but in the other countries as well. I never realized how powerful inclusion classrooms could be until I realized that in some countries children is not allowed to attend school if they are disabled. I believe that all children have the right to an education and as time goes on, I hope that others countries start to understand this as well.

 

References:

UNICEF (2011). Retrieved from: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html

The Sexualization of Early Childhood

Share your reaction to the topic of the sexualization of early childhood.

Provide three or more examples, from your personal or professional experience, that further illustrate the exposure of young children to a highly sexualized environment.

While reading the article by Levin & Kilbourne (2009) I didn’t have too much of a reaction. This is something that I have talked about in the past and have heard stories of. It seems as time goes on, children younger and younger start knowing about sexualization even if they don’t know how to explain it.

One example that I can give from my professional experience is a story that I was told when I started working in my preschool classroom. The teacher before me had been written up for an event that happened in the classroom because she was not circulating the room but only watching the children’s heads. When the teacher finally got up to walk around the room she found two children playing doctor. The boy had stuck one of the toy instruments in the girl’s private area. The fact that they knew what to do, shows how quickly children are learning about sex.

Another example I have comes from my personal life which involves my best friend and her little sister. My best friend loves to listen to all types of music and would teach her sister parts of songs and dance moves to go with it. The one incident I remember the most is when the sister was five years old and was walking around shaking her hips and butt singing “shake your money maker” by Ludacris (Williams & Bridges, 2006). My best friend found this to be so funny and kept teaching her sister different songs and different moves.

The final example I have comes from my own experience. When I was five years old my mother would let me watch rated “R” movies that involved sex, like Pretty Woman (Milchan, Reuther, & Goldstein, 1990). Watching that movie I remember trying to act out scenes with one of the kids at my babysitters. I remember that clothes were always on but we would pretend to do stuff.

Explain the implications this may have on children’s healthy development. Include ideas you might have, as an early childhood professional, to best respond to these concerns and to reduce the negative impact on children.

These experiences are things that I know made me grow up faster than I should have. I think that with all of these experiences I can see how girls and boys will feel like they have to be sexy or have to be in a relationship to prove something. I feel like we are constantly trying to get our children to grow up but when they do we try to make them kids again. This cannot be healthy on a child’s development. They are being forced to grow up faster and try to understand concepts that they shouldn’t be ready to learn about. I think the best thing that we can do as professionals is to remind parents that their child is young and that they should hold onto those years. We can also teach content and concepts that are age appropriate.

Describe the ways in which your awareness of the sexualization of early childhood has been influenced and/or modified by studying the topic this week.

By learning about this topic this week, I think I will be more aware of what children are exposed to in my care. Due to our reading this week, I am also very curious about the rest of the book. It seems like it will have great ideas and resources to help us feel more confident about talking to parents and our students about what is appropriate and not.

References:

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

Williams, P. & Bridges, C. (2006). Money maker [Recorded by Ludacris featuring Pharrel] On Release therapy [CD]. Atlanta, Georgia: DTP, Def Jam.

Milchan, A., Reuther, S., & Goldstein, G. (Producer), & Marshall, G. (Director). (1990). Pretty Woman [Motion Picture]. United States: Silver Screen Partners IV & Touchstone Pictures.

Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

This week we had to think about the impact our personal life has on our professional life, in regards to if we were being stereotyped or people were being bias towards us. By having these negative impacts on your social life, it is guaranteed to have some effect on your professional life. The consequences that I could see happening is the teacher not having confidence in herself and therefore not helping her students gain the confidence that they need.

 

Another consequence could be that stereotypes and biasness in the classroom goes unseen because the teacher no longer knows how to handle the situation. The teacher could also take personal offense to a comment and treat a child differently. This could also lead to poor interactions with the families because the teacher may think that the families think the same as the people stereotyping him or her.

 

One example that I can think of would be a teacher who is being judge for being lower class. She may then feel like she is not good enough to teach her student. She could also feel that the parents of her students are always judging her by the clothes she wears or her means of transportation.