EDUC 6358 week 8 blog assignment

As an early childhood educator, I would like to promote equal rights and fairness for children. I want every child to have the right to be educated and be treated equally. To have an anti-bias curriculum can help children understand and learn justice and fairness. I want parents to be able to listen to their children, to figure out what their children's needs are, instead of making all the decisions for them. Children should have the right to decide on their own what they want to do and what they want to be in the future. Moreover, parents should treat their children as children, to give them time to play and explore new things and challenges. Some parents give too much pressure to their children too early, and these children don't have childhood, and they dont know how to play. It hurts me when I see children not knowing how to play. 

Finally, I would like to thank all the colleagues I have been walked through during the past 8 weeks, or even more. I have learned new ideas and been inspired by your brilliant thoughts. I wish you all the best in your future career!

Regards,

Lufei

EDUC 6358 week 7 blog assignment

I chose to explore China since this is the place I was born and grew up. I stayed in China until I was 15 years old and moved to Canada with my family. I have had lots of experience which might have influence on my emotional development. 

When I was young, I experienced the Tiananmen Protests of 1989. I didn’t have a lot of memories about it but I do remember there were lots of people on the street, as well as policemen. Sirens were everywhere and I felt scared and was kept at home all day long. It was the time that I felt so unsecured because I couldn’t see any of my friends from school, and my parents were stressed about the situation too. I could feel the stress and anxiety from them. My parents knew I was scared so whenever they were at home, one of them was always with me for sure, reading books, watching TV and/or playing games with me. It wasn’t very long before the chaos finished and because of the comfort my parents gave me, it didn't leave a horrible scar in my memory, but it did affect my thoughts and emotions as I am quite scared whenever I hear chaos happening around the area.

In China, there are still lots of families living in poverty. Due to increased income inequality, lots of families still live on less than $2/day. Children from these families drop out from school because their parents can’t afford the tuition. In most cases, these families have more than one child, thus making their living conditions even harder. This lack of education impacts children’s development in all areas. Parents without education don’t seem to understand the importance of children's emotional development and early childhood education. They let their children wandering on the street and put them into elementary school when they are 7 years old (According to the Compulsory Education Law of China, children receive free education until they complete middle school). They also don't have the knowledge to support their children's emotions. All they care is whether their children have good academic performance.Nowadays people start to realize the importance of early education and try their best to put their children in childcare centers. Parents understand that this early education could have impacts on shaping their children’s personalities as well as their future.

6358 week 6 blog assignment

Nowadays, children are surrounded and exposed to the environment full of sex and sexuality. Children start to encounter these ideas at younger ages, and they haven’t had the ability to understand or deal with them (Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. ,2009). According to the book “So sexy so soon” by Levin and Kilbourne, children are too young to understand the meaning, but they have always been curious about sex and sexuality, and if parents and schools can provide them with honest and age-appropriate information, it would be good for their understanding of the topic and their development (2009). However, what children are being exposed in the environment teaches them they should be beautiful, thin, hot, and sexy, and these are not the ways children should understand sexualization.

When walking in the shopping mall and in the stores, there are full of posters and advertisements with beautiful, hot and sexy ladies. The music in the mall is completely not suitable for young children to listen to, but it is so loud that everyone will have to listen to it. When seeing girls or ladies being tall, thin, and wearing sexy clothes, I have heard people complimenting them “so beautiful”, “look at that girl, you will never be as tall and thin as she is”, and so on. This information sends out messages that will have wrong definition to children about sex and sexualization. Children should not be given the ideas about “being thin and sexy is beautiful”, and they will get the wrong messages about sex and learn the inappropriate knowledge. As early childhood professional, we should always remind ourselves and the parents, to have developmentally and age appropriate books and music for young children. When they have concerns about their body parts and are curious about the topic, we need to deliver the right and proper messages, so that they do not learn negative information about the topic. We cannot control what the environment shows the children and what children learn from people other than their parents and schools, but we can at least minimize the negative impact on children when we choose to address the concerns in the appropriate way.

Reference

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

week 5 blog assignment

As an immigrant family living in Canada, I have experienced racism and stereotypes myself. When going to school, I didn’t make friends with local Caucasian students because I couldn’t communicate with them. I didn’t have the language to build relationship with others and I sometimes felt other students didn’t like Asian students because we were labelled as “perfect academic students” or “study machines”. This was clearly bias and I hated it but I couldn’t do anything to stop people’s thinking. Language is such a big barrier for immigrants to merge into the new society and the culture. Enough now, I have been living in Canada for more than half of my life, people still treat me by looking at my skin color and my race. 

It has influenced my own well being as working with young children. When seeing families coming to the program with limited English, I always try my best to help them ease any hurdles they might have, especially for young children. They are sensitive and fragile, needing our assistance so that their transition to the program will be easier and smoother. I know language is a big part in people’s every life while in another country, from my own experience. So I like to arrange interpreters to make communication with families more fluent, to help reduce families’ pressure about not understanding what teachers say, and have more ideas of how to help their own children getting settled in the program. 

6358 week 3 blog post

I took a few minutes off from my classroom and went to visit another teacher’s 3-4 years old classroom. I noticed that the teacher always bent down to children when they spoke, and listened to what the children had to tell her. She seldom interrupted what the child had to say, and she waited very patiently until the child finished talking. Some children were English language learners, but she never cut them off when they tried to express something with their broken sentences or simple words. During circle time, she gave everyone chances to speak out, and she gave the children a long time and never rushed them to finish their sentences.

I really like the way she listens to children and makes sure everyone has the same opportunities to express themselves. I also remember in the this week’s video segment, Lisa talked about children needed to feel respected and secure to speak out, and heard. She also mentioned that she waited and didn't take away children’s words (Laureate Education, 2010). The teacher I observed has used similar ways to communicate with children.

I believe communication is very important for both children and adults. Like Lisa mentioned in the video, teachers need to pay close attention to children’s body language as well, and this is something I have been working on because sometimes I focus on the spoken languages and didn't pay enough attention to children’s body languages, as their body languages can also tell me their stories and thoughts about what they are doing. As I work at an international school, more than half of the children speak languages other than English. As a result, observing their body languages becomes crucial to understand their ways of communication. I like this activity as being able to observe other teachers in their classrooms, because I seldom have this opportunities to sneak out from my own group of children, and I learned a lot from observing other teacher’s communication styles with children.


Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). “Communicating with Young CHildren” (Video webcast). Retrieved at https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_2652530_1%26url%3D

6358 week 2 blog post

If I were to open my own family care home, I would try to create an anti-bias environment and use anti-bias curriculum. I would include books from various cultures and backgrounds. As Derman-Sparks and Olsen stated in the textbook (2010), selected children books should include all the children, families, and staff in the program. The books should reflect diversity in cultures and languages, and help children get to know other people in the society to prevent stereotypes (Derman-Sparks & Olsen). I would carefully select various posters to be hung on the wall reflecting diversity of both majority and minority of people. Open-ended materials are important so that children can use their creativity and imagination to create their own artworks. Different colors of paints should be provided with children’s skin tones as well, so that children it is okay to have different skin colors and they all look beautiful. There should be a parent board and updated information is to be posted regularly for parents to know the program better. It is a good way to maintain positive communication with parents. Puzzles need to reflect different groups of people to avoid prejudice and biases. One important thing I learn from the textbook is to first include the majority group of children and families in the materials, and then expand to other children and families who might not appear in the program. These include people from different races and/or ethnic identity groups, various economic status, people with various abilities, and also diverse family structures. Making sure that the environment and the program provides an equal and diverse learning for children is very important and both children and their families would benefit a lot from the program.

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).

6357 week 8 blog post

When thinking about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds, I should be more aware of their different values and cultures. Getting to know more about the families can help me a lot when setting up goals and expectations for the students. Each family is unique, and I hope I can be more open to the parents so that parents are more willing to share their values and thoughts with me as well.

One goal that I would like to set in the field is to continue to provide an anti-bias program and environment for children. I would also like to start having regular parent sessions to discuss different issues of diversity, equity, and biases so that parents can also be more aware of the influences from these topics.

I would like to thank all of my colleagues for sharing your valuable thoughts and comments on the discussion board and the posts. I have learned new ideas and gained useful knowledge by reading your discussions. Thank you again and wish you all the best for your future.