Week 6 assignment

When thinking about adjourning stage of the team building, I remember the time that we had to say goodbye to the classmates as we took the early childhood diploma together. It was a very intensive program and all of us needed to study from 8am to 5pm on a daily basis. Through the year, we built strong relationship and we went through difficult situations, such as wanting to give up and making mistakes during practicum, but with the help and encouragement from each other, we kept working hard and passed all the hurdles. When it was the time to say goodbye, everyone was with tears and couldn't let go of each other's hands. The adjourning stage was hard because of the strong relationship we built. 

The adjourning stage is very important because we need to form new relationship with other people to learn new things, techniques, and tasks. We need the new relationship to make us stronger and more effective in different things. Through different teams, we learn new skills, so the adjourning stage is essential for us.

Week 5 blog post

When thinking about conflicts I have recently, I need to mention that I have disagreement with my boyfriend about education for our "future children". I was born in China and moved to Canada. I have experienced both education system and prefer the western education, but my boyfriend didn't think so, so we had a conflict. I remember what I learned from the course, so I remained a very positive attitude when discussing this issue with him. I first acknowledged him and agreed with him that he was right about wanting to have the whole family together. Then I went on expressing my thoughts about the differences in both education systems and explaining him any goods and bads about them. Then I offered a solution that he agreed upon it. The whole conversation was under a supportive communication climate and both of us kept calm and positive attitude to find out a win-win solution. That was a successful conflict resolution.

Week 4 blog assignment

For your blog this week, think about the similarities and differences between how you evaluated yourself as a communicator and how others evaluated you. What is the one thing that surprised you the most? Why? What other insights about communication did you gain this week? Choose at least two to share with others through your blog and consider how each might inform your professional work and personal life.


As thinking of this assignment, I have different thoughts about being an effective communicator. I evaluated myself as a "okay" communicator, being able to listen and comment on the conversation. When I asked my colleagues about my communication styles and abilities, they all thought I had good communication skills when talking to parents. They liked the way I restated their points and then added my new thoughts to it. When I asked my boyfriend about my communication skills, he mentioned that I didn't know how to start and stop a conversation, so my conversation with others were always longer than it should be. After listening to this comment, I reflected on myself and did find out this issue, probably because I'm a listener and seldom stop people's talking. I will keep in mind of this point and try to improve on it.

Week 3 blog post

When I think of communicating with people from different groups and cultures, I do find myself communicating differently, for example, when talking to western parents and Asian parents at my workplace. I have some stereotypical thoughts about these two groups, like most western parents want their children to be happy in the classroom while most Asian parents would want their children to learn something in the classroom. After learning communication skills, I think I should always to listen carefully before making any assumptions, because everyone has the right to express themselves and they want to be respected, like we want to be respected by others, so the Platinum Rule would help significantly during communication. Moreover, showing appropriate body language such as gestures and eye contact would be helpful during communication.

week 2 blog assignment

When I watched the TV show with the sound turned off, it seemed that the characters discussed hilarious and relaxing topics. They seemed to have good relationships because their body languages seemed relax and natural, and it seemed that they discussed an interesting topic that everyone was eager to participate in.

When I turned on the sound, I was correct that they were discussing a relaxing topic and everyone was comfortable about the topic. The topic itself was not hilarious. It made me feel hilarious because of the ways the characters laughed after sharing some of their thoughts. I believe my assumptions would have been more correct if I had been watching a show I know well because I would be more familiar with the characters, the ways they talk and the topics they concentrate on.

week 1 blog assignment

I have a colleague who demonstrates competent communication skills in the work place. She is an early childhood teacher and works with 4 years old class. When she speaks to parents, she always demonstrates good listening skills and make sure she listens to all the comments that person wants to make before speaking. She waits patiently and listens carefully for all the points people make and never jumps to conclusion without support or evidences. She also makes frequent eye contacts with people to make sure other people know that she listens. She communicates with parents in a positive way, even if she needs to comment on negative behavioural issues, she tries to make positive comments before delivering negative message. I think all of these are very effective communication skills and I would want to keep in mind some of these communication skills when I talk to my parents.

week 8 blog assignment

I have several hopes that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds. One hope is that I want every child and their family to be treated equally and respected no matter what their background is. To make sure everyone is treated equally, we need to first get to know the family and their background. By knowing more about the background and the culture, we can slowly establish a positive and trust relationship with our families. My goal for the early childhood field that is related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is to involve more parents and families into the program so that children have more opportunities to learn each other’s background and cultures in the classroom.

I would like to thank all my classmates for giving me supports and sharing valuable thoughts and ideas through discussion boards and comments. By reading through the responses I have got, I have gained important and new knowledge in the field, and I have also learned different ways to support families in the classroom. I wish you all the best in the future course and look forward to working with everyone once again.

week 7 blog assignment

A family from Laos will come to the program later and I know very limited knowledge about this country. First I will check on the internet to find out useful information about this country, for example, geographical region, language, food, politics and living standards. Then I will chat with colleagues to see if they can provide me with any useful information. I will try to learn educational system of the country so that I know the different standards/expectations the family may have. I can learn simple greeting from their language to make them feel welcoming and respectful. I also need to be aware of any particular customs about this country to avoid being offensive to them. 

By preparing myself with enough information about this country and the differences we may have, I may be able to create a welcoming environment for this family. I hope this preparations will benefit me in knowing more about the country, the family, the value of education and possible expectations for their child. I hope it will also be beneficial to the family because they can feel that I am respectful to their culture and their country, and they will feel relaxing and open when sharing their thoughts with me. I hope by preparing myself, both the family and I can be open to each other, so that when the child joins the program, I can better assist him/her in adjusting to the class.

Personal experience regarding bias and prejudice

There are many other incidents about bias and prejudice happening in China. I experience and witness bias and prejudice quite often. In China, early childhood educators are still considered to be babysitters. When Chinese people find out that I’m an early childhood educator, they are puzzled and question why I want to be a “babysitter”. When they hear that there is a male early childhood educator at my school, they become even more unbelievable because they think “babysitting” is for ladies. These are two different examples regarding to work bias and gender bias. Everyone should have the same right and equal chance of working at different jobs. Chinese people have bias on early childhood education and I feel disrespectful and angry when this happen to me. 

I believe that people in China don’t have enough knowledge and information about what early childhood professionals do at school and they believe that young children don’t know anything until they reach certain age. To change this and turn the bias down for greater equity, we need to show the public what we do in the classroom so that they have more concrete understanding about our job. At the same time, to encourage more male teachers in the field will help reduce the gender bias a bit more. 

microaggression

I experiences microaggression myself as an immigrant to a western country. Even though I have lived in Canada for about half of my life, I still experience microaggression quite often. I remember when I was in the university during lab tutorial, we needed to find people to group together and do projects. The “white” students often show unwillingness to be paired with Asian students, and they would suggest that we could pair up with students with our own language and background. It was uncomfortable hearing something like this even though they didn’t show any impolite words but I still felt discriminating here.

After learning more about microaggression this week, I become more aware of these issues and learn to avoid any discrimination to people, especially about classism. Classifying people with their economic status is discrimination, prejudice, and stereotype. Being able to view people equally regardless of their gender, background, socioeconomic status, education and religions is very important as an early childhood educator because we need to be good models for children to eliminate these discriminations.

Culture and Diversity

Their definition of culture

One friend said culture is about how people live and do things in their specific ways. Another friend said culture is the language, food, history about the family, and what kinds of lives they live. The last friend said culture is about children’s education, how they are raised by their parents, and their own traditions and customs and the holidays they celebrate.

Their definition of diversity

The first friend said diversity is about differences between people coming from different places. They might speak different languages and eat different food. The second friend mentioned diversity as people’s different races, their languages, and their different ways to doing things. The last friend thought diversity is also about different language, food, and values.

The aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course are included as they all mention languages, food, and ways of doing things. These are mainly the surface culture. Only one friend mentioned about people’s values could be different with diversity, and it belonged to deep culture that I have studied in this course. By asking people’s definition about culture and diversity, I found out that the way people perceive with these topics are still basic and on the surface. As an early childhood educator, I need to dig deeper into my families’ culture and find out their deep culture so that I can better support their children in learning their own cultures and diversity. 

Week 2 blog post

If my family and I were to move to another country permanently, I would choose first a dictionary from my own language to the second language because to preserve my home language in both reading, writing and speaking is one way to preserve our own culture. The second item I would choose is a book about my own country’s history as we need to keep in mind of our own history so that we know who we are. The last thing I would choose is also a book about dishes in my culture, because food is an important of culture.

I would explain to others that the dictionary is to make sure that I won’t forget my own language because my home language is my culture. My country’s history and food are very important in preserving my culture so that’s why I chose these two books.

If I could only keep one personal items upon arrival to the new country, I would be very sad and anxious because giving away any of these items would feel like giving up my own culture. I would be panic and didn’t know which one to keep because all three items meant so much to me as my culture.

Culture is very important to everyone. To be asked to give up your own culture is painful. As a result, early childhood educators should support families in preserving their own cultures because culture is valuable and priceless.

Reflection and thank you!

Through this course, I have gained valuable knowledge about research. I have learned that deciding research topics would need to be carefully considered over and over again. From week one to week seven, we have carefully reviewed what we have learned and refined/modified the research topic. Every time I modified my research topic, it became more specific and related to what I want to do. Moreover, research should do no harm to children in any way. Researchers sometimes want to receive the intended results and might ask wrong questions or present inappropriate activities to children. One more thing that I learned about the research was to have children consent to the research, not just the parents. Children have the right to decide whether they want to be participate in the research or not. 

I want to thank the instructor, all the colleagues and classmates for helping me throughout the course. Through discussion board, I have learned colleagues’ thoughts and supports/ideas and these have enriched my mind about early childhood education. I have learned a lot about research during the course and hope to use the knowledge to support my children and families.

Week 5 blog assignment

While exploring the website of early childhood Australia, I have found the research topics be very similar to the topics listed in the NAEYC website. For example, I am interested in different cultures and diversity, so I clicked on the link "A World of Difference". This book is about helping children build respect and understanding of themselves, and it includes issues and topics such as cultures, languages, regions, and so on. By exploring the website, I have found many popular topics that are related to current early childhood field, such as partnership with parents, play-based curriculum, and respecting diversity. It also includes articles about education system in other countries such as Singapore, New Zealand, and Korea.

I especially checked the book called "Learning and teaching through play" because "play" is my simulation topic in this course. I also looked at an article concerning about play, language, and social skills of children. There are many early childhood related topics that can be good professional development tools. The website clearly states the education scope of Australia. People can almost find everything they want to know about Australian early childhood education on the website. It includes good-organized information for parents and useful resources for early childhood professionals as well.

Week 3 blog assignment

When I was a practicum student and was assigned to one of the early childhood centers that included special needs children in the classroom, I observed a research in process. I wasn't completely aware of the research hypothesis, but the topic was about whether children growing up with special needs children would express more empathy and show more help to others. The research was conducted by a group of university students regarding children behaviors. At the time I was doing my practicum, the research was in the step of gathering data. The students stayed in the observation room, observing and recording some specific helping behaviors shown by the group of children (participants) they chose. These children did not know they were being observed, but of course their parents had been informed and signed the parent consent forms. The students chose to not inform the children because they wanted to observe the natural responses of these participants. Some other members of this research went to centers that did not include special needs children. After they gathered enough data, they would put these different sets of data together and compare them.


I didn't know what the research conclusion was, but I am very interested in this topic. However, when I thought of this research, I had a question that I wanted to clarify. Let say their research conclusion was positive, that children going to inclusive centers might express more empathy and show more help to others. How did the research minimize the affects of environment? These children show more help because they have seen special needs children and they know how to help. If we put other group of children (the ones that went to exclusive child cares) in the same environment, they might show the same degrees of help to the special needs children. The environmental factor could be the one that influenced the research results. But anyways, I think this topic is very interesting and I would like to learn more about this in the future.

My personal research journey

The research topic I chose was the importance of play and the influence it had to children's learning and development. I chose this topic because I want to let more people know about play.

My personal experience has had a great influence on me. When I was young I lived and studied in China. I was not allowed to play and everyone was focus only on academic results. When I moved to Canada, I was fascinated by the teaching styles here and it had given me new understanding about teaching, therefore I decided to make teaching my future career. Now I work in an international school in China and I want to show more Asian families about the western styles of teaching so that's why I want to do this research to let parents know the importance of play, so hopefully I will get more supports from the parents.

The researching chart is very helpful in conducting my research. I also had opportunities to check out some qualified electronic resources in the discussion board and some of them were useful in my topic.

Learning about the international early childhood field

After learning the issues and trends in the early childhood fields and discussing with international early childhood educators, I have learned that every countries has their own issues, and some are very common in most countries. I have also become more familiar about the cultural difference and the impact it has to young children and their learning and development. I have become more aware of different cultures and tried to involve different cultures into my program as much as possible. I am glad that I can get into contact with international early childhood educators and learned from them about the issues and trends in the early childhood field in their own countries.

One goal related to international awareness is that I need to be more aware of the impact of diversity and how diversity has influenced children's learning and development. Every culture has its own style so by discussing with early childhood educators from different cultures and combining the useful information together, we can better support our children in their growth internationally.

Getting to know my international contacts part III

As I talked with my Israeli colleague Naama, she believed that quality program is very crucial for children’s development and learning. Children learn through play, and they also learn through imitating their closed adults. Besides spending time with their family members, children spend most of their daytime with their teachers at school. As a result, high-quality teachers are very important to high-quality programs (Personal conversation, 2012). The indicators for quality teachers are experience and education. Experience can help teachers shape their teaching styles and it helps teachers learn things that schools don’t cover. It’s all about practical knowledge so with lots of experience, teachers gain valuable information to support children’s learning (Personal conversation, 2012). Of course education is also very important in turns of theoretical knowledge. A high-quality teacher should have both the practical and the theoretical knowledge so that children can benefit the most from them. For professional development opportunities, Naama attends workshops about early childhood education at least once a year to keep her knowledge up to date. She enjoys learning with children as well.

Week 6 blog entry

When I clicked on some links, they led to different areas of early childhood education. One led me to the past issues in early childhood field and I checked out what technology was like back in 2003. At that time, computer was not yet a common tool for teachers and often teachers have many concerns about using technology with young children. Some concerns included if the computer was effective in children’s learning, how it was effective, and the influences on children in the future. Some of these concerns have always been concerns over the past ten years but lots of myths about using technology have been solved.  I searched the “Teaching Young Children” section and found 10 tips that encouraged family-friendly teaching skills. Some of these practices are very practical, for example, “form parent advisory groups to allow parents to share new ideas and common concerns” and encourage parents to use their strength to support the program. One thing that I find reachable is to have extra staff at the end of the day to ensure all parents get the opportunities to talk to the teachers. However, as teachers we need to make sure that every staff communicates with parents in a professional way. I have seen teachers saying improper things to parents, for example, telling parents who the child was that bit their child. This is really unprofessional in dealing with parents. As a result, not only that we should have more staff at the end of the day to communicate with parents, and we also need to make sure the quality of communicating.

Getting to know my International Contacts Part II

When we discussed this topic, my Israeli colleague mentioned that there were different kinds of early childhood education in Israel. Some focus more on academic area while others focus on religious study (Personal conversation, 2012). In Israel, school readiness is also a big topic for debate as teachers use standards/assessments to measure children’s abilities when they enter kindergarten. As an early childhood professional as well as a mom, she doesn’t like the education system there. She believes children should enjoy their childhood and they can learn everything while playing, if teachers provide the provocation and opportunities for them to explore (Personal conversation, 2012). For those schools who offer religious/Jewish studies, they let go all the other important pieces in children’s life and only teach children religious piece. The government doesn’t pay lots of attention in early childhood education and the voice for changing early childhood education is so low that no one can hear that. Moreover, the quality of the teachers is not satisfied thus good early childhood programs are rarely seen in Israel. She is very disappointed about the education there.

After discussing with her, I learned that early childhood education varies in different countries. Depending on the countries’ cultures, early childhood education changes accordingly. One thing in common is that the quality of the early childhood professionals is very important because it is the base of a good program. Moreover, the support from the government is always crucial, no matter what countries there are. 

Technology and Young Children

The section seemed particularly interesting to me is the Technology and Young children. Our school has been trying to find a better way to support our students to learn through technology and now we are all switching from PC to apple devices like ipads and macbooks. 

From the section, there are two great article and webcast focusing on this topic - " Technology and Interactive Media as Tools in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth through Age 8" and "Pre-recorded Webcast: Technology and Interactive Media as Tools in Early Childhood Programs". Both publications state pros and cons about using technology with young children. Since I teach 2-3 years old children, I always have uncertainties about using technology with my students as lots of researches have shown negative effects on children's development if too much technology have been used. For example, if children look at the computer screen for too long and watch too many moving pictures/cartoons, it will have damage on their eyes as well as may have negative outcomes such as irregular sleep pattern and/or behavioral issues (NAEYC). 

However, technology also has its amazing aspects in turns of teaching. Teachers use it as a tool to maximize children's learning abilities and provide children with individualized learning experiences to support developmental appropriate practice. I think it depends on educators how to use technology as a tool to support learning. More importantly, as early childhood educators, we need to be equipped with all these educational knowledge and skills about technology before we can best support children's learning using the technology. 


Through school's presentations about using ipad as the teaching tool, I have been amazed by the technology we can use with young children and the ways to motivate and maximize children's learning. Everything has two sides, and we need to be very careful in minimizing negative outcomes about technology for children yet maximizing their learning abilities. 

NAEYC technology section, retrived from http://www.naeyc.org/content/technology-and-young-children

Issues of poverty

I contacted two of my colleagues working in the same school as I do. Both of them work in the same division in Early Childhood Learning Center. One teacher is from Israel and the other teacher comes from France. They travel a lot around the world, and they have been teaching in early childhood field for couple years already, though in different countries. The Israeli teacher has been teaching in the school for eight years and the French teacher has just started her journey in China last year. 

When we discussed issues of poverty, they provided me with lots of information and insights. They believe that poverty would affect children's overall development. they also shared some of their personal experiences about poverty. one teacher remembered that when she was in grade two, there were three children coming from very poor families. Their clothes seemed never washed and they lived in a house where there was no proper bathroom/shower. Children seemed to keep distance from them no matter how hard teachers supported them, trying to break the ice between them and other children. She believed this experience could have very bad influence on these three children's emotional development, and being a teacher, she has always been keeping in mind her own experience about this and trying her best to support children in poverty.

By talking and discussing with the early childhood professionals, I have gained new information and learned new knowledge about poverty. If children from poverty live in areas with low economic status, they may not have the same opportunities to be exposed to the same amount of knowledge as other children. The parents from poverty may need to work longer hours to support the whole families, which leave them no time to spend with their children. This in tuns affects children's emotional and social development as children may feel unsecured inside them, thus having difficulties coping with separation anxiety. Moreover, children from poverty may have slower language/cognitive development as they may not have accessed to libraries and/or computers as other children have, therefore they may have lower vocabulary abilities. Poverty could also cause malnutrition as children may not get enough nutrition they need for their healthy growth. 

Week 2 blog assignment

The first policy I studied is about anti-discrimination while hiring individuals into the early childhood field. The statement indicates that people should be hired and employed based on their qualification and performance of their job. The hiring standards should exclude information such as gender, age, race, color, religious belief, and so on. I think this is a very important issue as everyone should have equal chance in working in the field, as long as they can perform well on their duties. 

I also refreshed my knowledge about developmentally appropriate practice, requiring teachers to prepare activities that are both challenging and achievable for individual children. This is very crucial for children's development because children learn and develop in different paces. Teachers need to first get to know each individual children and learn about their different learning styles, so that we can set up different activities based on children's levels and needs.

Professional Contacts

I work in an international school and there are lots of early childhood professionals coming around the world. I quickly got in touch with them and they were happy to be my contacts and also eager and willing to share what they know about the early childhood field. I will keep in touch with them and post any new insights I learn from them.

I have spent some time to explore different websites of organizations and I decided to study the National Associations For the Education of Young Children because it always provides useful and valuable information about early childhood education and it also contains useful resources that help early childhood professionals learn and grow.

http://www.naeyc.org/

My Supports

Everyday I receive supports from different people. My parents give me emotional supports by providing me a safe, secure, and warm environment to live within. They take care of my health and give me warmth when I feel upset. They also demonstrate how important I am and that they are always supportive to me whenever I need them. During work, my colleagues support me by helping me get through difficulties and problems. When I need someone to listen to, they are always there to support and help me. My lovely friends also give me emotional supports when I need them. When I feel upset, they are the ones who listen to me and give me advice. When I’m happy, I also share my happiness with them. They have always been besides me whenever I need them. The support and help from my families, colleagues and friends make me a strong and confident person. I learn from them that I can provide support when they need me and they really make me become a better person. I cannot imagine my life without them because each one of these people help to shape my personality and support me through different ways. 

Imagine that I had conflicts with parents and they couldn’t understand the philosophy and the ways their children learned at school and they started to argue with me. At this time, I would like to have my colleagues providing me with ideas and information that supports my view. I would want my parents to support me emotionally by understanding my stressful situation. With their help and support I believed I could smoothly and easily solve this problem. If they weren’t there to support me I might struggle alone with this issue and felt stressful and lonely because no one was here to help and support.

My connections to play

"Play is the highest form of research." - Albert Einstein

"Children learn best in an environment which allows them to explore, discover, and play." - Jill Englebright Fox 

When I was young, I liked to play with barbie dolls and dress them up with different outfits. I come from a traditional Chinese family and my parents believed the only way to learn and get good academic scores was to sit down and learn by doing a lot of practice. Therefore I didn't have much time to play and my parents thought playing was a waste of time.

Everything has two sides. I feel the idea of play is much different today than before because what I learn from school about the importance of play and I have seen more parents believing in the role of play in their children's life. However on the other hand, I can still see Asian parents stopping children to play and making them sit down to learn, which makes me feel sad and disappointed. Moreover, because of the safety concerns, the streets and the neighborhoods are no longer safe enough for children to play and roam.

A few pictures about the play items when I was young...

1. The cartoon stickers/cards from popular Japanese cartoon. We collected cards about different cartoon characters and showed them to our friends. Sometimes we also exchanged with each other to get what we wanted. I remembered I had thousands of these cards.

 2. I liked to play with the barbies and dress them up with different dresses. I could spend the whole day putting on and taking off dresses for them.

Relationship Reflection

My dad - He is a straight person who has taught me life lessons and skills for me to be a better person. He doesn't say love very often, but he shows his love through times he has spent with me, things he has done for me, and words he has told me. To me, he is the most secure base that I have. He gives me suggestions, always makes time for me to listen to me and discuss things with me. He points out problems that I do wrong and helps me solve problems. Although he doesn't express his feelings that much, I understand that he loves me and is always besides me. 

My mom - My mom is a very caring and thoughtful lady. She used to work in a travel company and we had a lot of opportunities to travel around the world when I was young. She is also a very happy and easy-going person who makes us happy and is always ready to listen. She gives me support and shows me directions when I get confused on my future. I feel so grateful that I have a supporting and loving family.

My childhood friend Neko - We have known each other since 6 years old. We were in the same class from elementary school all the way to high school. We shared everything and we had no secrets. Even though I have moved to Canada, we still keep in touch with each other. She shows me support by always willing to listen to me, staying with me when I feel depressed, and making me feel special. We were, and still are each others' best friends and I remember the words she said to me, "you are like another me on the opposite side of the world."

My other childhood friend Claire - We have also known each other since 6 years old and were in the same class from elementary school to high school. We used to go to school and go home together, and spent all of our leisure times together exploring the unknown world. She was and has been a good listener throughout the years and has always provided the best suggestions/solutions to my problems. She made me feel special when I was young because she always helped me with my problems and school works. She made me laugh when I was upset and stood besides me when I needed help.

As the only child in my family, I spent most of my time with my friends and I have been thankful to have these very special friends in my life, and I believe we will continue to be supportive to each other for the rest of our life. 

Our dog Peter was one of the most important family members. We grew up together and he had stayed with us for 17 years. He passed away this year, but left us with invaluable memories.

My best childhood friends. From left to right: me, Neko, and Claire.

Thank you

It has been interesting and fascinating to be working with all of you. The past 8 weeks of learning have been a great experience for me and I enjoy reading your discussions and blog entries. Thanks to some of you for sharing your personal stories with us so that we have a deeper and more practical understanding on the topics. Thank you all for sharing your valuable experiences, ideas and insights to enrich our learning. I wish you all the best in the future career. 

 “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” ---by James Baldwin

Week 6 blog assignment

It is very important to view children holistically, especially for young children. Cognitive, social/emotional, physical and language developments, as well as representation/symbolic thinking are essential areas for teachers to view a child. Children change rapidly during early years, for example, their body parts, the brains, and so on (Berger, 2009). By viewing the children holistically, early childhood educators will not miss any part of a child' development. Since every child is different and unique, it is crucial to provide developmentally appropriate practices for individual children to maximize their ZPD. 

In China, children are measured mostly by their academic performance, even for young children. They need to do "exams" for entering preschools and kindergarten. Teachers will test their speaking, writing, math abilities, and other things. Children will have to answer a set of questions. (http://ysx.eol.cn/zexiaogonglue_11097/20110223/t20110223_580226.shtml, in Chinese) It is just unbelievable to see how Chinese parents push their children for the best. I grew up in a traditional Chinese family and I experienced the same thing myself. I was not happy as a young kid and luckily this stopped after we moved to Canada. Social/emotional development is one of the most important areas in children's life. However, not a lot of people in China realize the importance and this area has been ignored for many years until now. Nowadays more people in China care about their children's social development and also more workshops and advertisements concerning children's social/emotional development are presented to parents. 

Reference

Berger, K.S. (2009). The Developing Person through Childhood. New York, NY: Worth Publishers

http://ysx.eol.cn/zexiaogonglue_11097/20110223/t20110223_580226.shtml

Nutrition

The topic Nutrition interests me because I work in an international school and have seen a lot of children having unhealthy snacks and food during the day. As working in an international school, I have met lots of busy families with parents constantly travelling along different countries and having to leave their children with nannies. When children come to school in the morning, they bring sweet treats such as chocolates, candies and all the other junk food including fast food and soda drinks. What I do is to take away all these unhealthy food, talk to the parents and/or nannies to make sure these kinds of food will not be brought to class anymore, and also send home copies of the school nutrition policy, information about food groups, as well as some examples of healthy food. I understand that not only parents and nannies should learn about healthy food choices, the children should also be responsible for what they eat. So I usually plan a food project once in a while to show and remind children the importance of healthy food.

NAEYC has an article called "The Food Friends - Encouraging Preschoolers to Try New Foods" providing a lot of useful information about children's nutrition and some strategies to encourage children eating healthy food. According to Birch (1998), "Children establish food preferences and dietary habits during the first six years of life" so it is very important to provide children with many opportunities to try different food at an early age. The article gives some useful strategies to encourage children to try new foods:

• Make food fun

• Keep offering new foods

• Be a good role model by eating new foods with children

• Let children choose new foods

• Help children learn about new foods

• Try offering one new food at a time

• Avoid forcing children to try new foods

Currently I'm offering an after school activity class about healthy food and these strategies work perfect for me. I especially agree that teachers need to be good role models when cooking with children because children are good observers and quick learners. I will implement these ideas into my activities to support children with eating healthy food.

Reference

Bellows, L. and Anderson J. (2006). The Food Friends: Encouraging Preschools to Try New Foods. Retrieved January 14, 2012 from http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200605/BellowsBTJ.pdf

A personal birth experience

I have not given birth myself, and I haven't had opportunities taking part in any child's birth, so let me talk a little bit about my birth. My parents didn't tell me much about my birth. As a lot of people already know, Chinese government have had the one child policy since around 1980s. So at the time when I was born, my parents knew that they would probably have me as their only child for their whole life. I was born in a hospital, surrounded with a lot of my parents' relatives and friends. My parents were very happy and they provided me with the best environment to support my healthy growth. In my earliest memories, I remember not only my mom took care of my everything, but my dad also spent a quality of time playing, reading, and chatting with me. They helped me build a secure and confident childhood, and become a happy and thankful person.

In Hong Kong, most people choose to go to hospital to give birth. They have a complete list of government and private hospitals to choose from. Home-birth is very rare because it is difficult to manage and keep both mothers and babies safe. The hospitals provide pre- and post-natal checks for moms, and some hospitals offer weekly baby groups for mothers and newborn babies to support them with knowledge such as breastfeeding and other useful information such as vaccination. The birth in Hong Kong is similar to my experience, except that the government provides a lot more groups and workshops for mothers and babies born in Hong Kong.