Reflecting on Learning

I sit her blogging my final post and wonder how I can best take all this information from this current course and use it in my future as an early childhood professional.  It has always been my passion to make a difference in some child’s life in hopes of changing a possible poor path to a positive one.  Throughout this degree program I have accumulated supports through my colleague connections, formulated strategies to help educate families and children on positive interactions with all their peers, and intervention techniques that can ultimately change a possibly negative path into a positive path.  My hope is that all my work in my endeavors of creating an anti-bias classroom will be successful and begin a change reaction within the school of fostering an environment where all children and their families feel equally important, free to interact without hesitation and grow as kind, considerate people.  I also hope that all my endeavors also create a chain reaction within the students and the families that they carry on and our society continues to grow and accept. 

I want to take this time as I did in my final post for this week and thank all my colleagues for their time and energy they have spent during these past 8 weeks.  I truly appreciate your efforts for I have learned much from you all.  I also want to wish you all well in your endeavors and offer my support in creating the healthiest learning environment possible.  

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

UNICEF-East Asia and the Pacific

                I chose the East Asia and the Pacific region to research involving challenges that children are confronted with because my husband and his family are from the Philippines and many relatives of theirs are still in the Philippines. 

                Challenges that UNICEF are trying to help with involve trying to prevent preventable childhood diseases and mortality.  An example of specific challenges that children in this region are encountering involve child labor.  Children are being forced to work at very young ages in environments that are hazardous to their health and well-being.  They are missing school and even being subjected to exploitation in these jobs.  The emotional wellbeing and development of these children are being hindered by pushing them into roles that adults don’t even want to be in, being forced to be in dangerous situations with no regards to their well-being.   The exploitation that the children in the region are being subjected to is obviously endangering their physical well-being and emotionally destroying their innocence, morality, and confidence. 

                 

                UNICEF is trying to help these children have a healthier childhood with opportunities to actually be “children”.  As an early childhood professional and a mother of four I cannot imagine putting my child through anything like this.  But I also understand that in some areas that children are working to help their families eat and survive.  My hope is that UNICEF and other organizations such as theirs can aid these families in various regions in ways so that the children do not have to be placed in harms’ way.  Children should be cherished for who they are-miracles of life.  These children are also our future and how we raise them and how they experience the world will determine how they will treat the world and the future generations.

                Reading about the children from another region has made me realize that things can be much worse than I  have been exposed to as a child.  I also realized that with all these awful experiences that these children are being exposed to can be changed for the better through organizations such as UNICEF.  They aren’t the “cure all” but they are making remarkable positive steps through all their proactive approaches in helping these children.  Lessons such as these teach me that the students in my classroom, all the students in my classroom, can be successful through positive strategies and perseverance. 

Resources:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html

Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

Families do not have it easy these days with children in school with all the required elements that today's standards demand. I cannot imagine dealing with "isms" and trying to ensure that my child was meeting the academic demands of the current curriculum.   As a parent of four children, I first realized the demands of school requirements, keeping the children current in their studies along with the extra required nightly homework, sports, music and clubs, etc.  I was so exhausted by the end of the week running around trying to get everyone where they needed to be, while reciting spelling words, flashcards, music programs, club requirement, etc.  The idea of being faced with any sort of "ism" along with these demands realize how important my role as an educator truly is.  

The isms that today's children are faced with such as single parent home is tough.  These types of challenges are forcing educators to work more quickly to form strategies outside their current situation in preparation for the family's particular challenges.  This has impacted the professional early childhood education field by more requirements for the educators, but in turn it seems to help these students and families to go even further than previously.