Research That Benefits Children and Families: Uplifting Story

There are many topics that came to mind when thinking about what I would research.  When thinking about children in my class I came to the conclusion that would like to research children who are adopted and if it has any affects on their academics or behavior.  This comes to mind because I have one student who is adopted.  I don't know if he knows but in the beginning he was BIG trouble in the classroom.  As the year went on his father tried many different medicines because he was diagnosed with ADHD.  Well one finally worked but after a while he started hallucinating and acting weird.  He now sees a child psychologist every other week but he still has other issues.  He has anger issues and can't seem to let things go.  So I wonder if being adopted has anything to do with his issues.

My Personal Research Journey

The general topic play.  I am a firm believer in play in early childhood classrooms.  The subtopic I chose to use in the simulation for this course is how play can encourage the different developmental areas, social, cognitive, and language.  Play is a vital part of a young child's development.  Children learn many things, good and bad, from interacting with their peers.  Play is being pushed out of early childhood programs and I can see first hand the effect it is having on children.  I believe that many behavior problems would not exist if the proper amount of play was still incorporated into early childhood programs.  For example, the reading program my district has adopted has my kindergarteners sitting on the carpet for at least an hour everyday.  I was always taught to keep carpet time less than twenty minutes.  I do a lot of correcting behavior because they get very restless and I can't blame them.

So far the simulation process has been interesting to me.  I came into the course not sure what to expect.  I saw the word research and thought lots of boring reading.  But so far I have to say it has been quite interesting.  Filling in the charts have taught me how to go about reading research and how to better understand research.

Does anyone have any advice and/or insight that might help with the process?

Final Blog Assignment

Throughout this course I made contact with three different international contacts.  Two were in Bolivia and one in Mexico.  My Bolivia contacts stayed in contact with me through the first half of the course then I don't know what happened and my Mexican contact was a cousin of the Spanish teacher at my school.  Gabriella Garcia, my Mexican contact, was a great help and pleasure to talk with.  She gave me great information and is very passionate about the early childhood field.  One consequence of learning about the international early childhood field is learning how many things are similar around the world.  Another consequence is learning how fortunate we are.  There is a lot to be done in the United States when it comes to early childhood but compared to some other countries we are doing just fine.  I am thankful for that.  One last consequence would be that no matter where you are in the world, someone will have a passion for the early childhood field.  Even though I lost contact with my Bolivia contacts, I could still feel the amount of passion they had from the few emails I received.  A slow response from the international contacts is also a challenge that I had to deal with.  Luckily I was able to make some connections but it was not a quick and easy path.  I just happened to be talking about my blog assignment at work and the Spanish teacher gave me the contact information for his cousin in Mexico.  She turned out to be the best contact of all three.

One goal for the early childhood field in relation to international awareness of issues and trends is to keep in touch with my contacts and to continue to learn more about what is happening in other parts of the world.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts Part 3

Unfortunately I was unable to get information from my contacts in Bolivia but I was able to continue conversations with my contact in Mexico, Gabriella Garcia.  The biggest trend in Mexico for basic education has been incrementing coverage over the population.  Before 1993, universal education was only six years (primary school), some secondary (middle school), but they did not pretend to cover the population.  Since then secondary school is compulsory for all children in Mexico.  Since 2008, three years of preschool is obligatory for all children in Mexico.  Preschool coverage has increased to 90% in recent years.  Garcia says their is a great lack of training for on the job training in Mexico.  Programs have changed but not "waterfall" training.  This type of training means so many people are trained in the middle that by the time it reaches the schools, the information is diluted.  She also says that a few years ago it became a requirement for the main teacher in a preschool classroom must have four years of college.

Ms. Garcia expressed that she would like to return to school and receive some sort of graduate degree.  She didn't say for what.  She also mentioned eventually coming out of the classroom but she is not sure of the path she wants to take.  She said she would like to stay as hands on with the children as possible for as long as she can handle it.  She says her biggest challenge as an educator in Mexico is having 45 children in a class at one time.  Since communicating with me and finding out the number of students I have she says she wish she could have so few.  Keep in mind I complain about my 25!

Sharing Web Resources

I explored the Initiatives links on the National Black Child Development Institutes website.  In this link there are different subjects that you can choose.  The subjects are Child Welfare, Early Childhood Education, Education, Health and Nutrition, Literacy and Archives.  I looked through each of these links but I was somewhat unsuccessful.  Most of the articles and information were from last year and one section is under construction.  This site needs to be updated.  It still has March news up.  I signed up for a newsletter twice and I still have not received anything.  I enjoyed some of the information on the site but I am disappointed that it doesn't have more and that it is not kept up to date.  In the welcome section of the website it tells about the mission of this institute and it mentions equity and access.  It says how the community must play a pivotal role in equity and access in order for it to become a reality for our children. I also explored the section titled About then clicked news.  I read an article from January in The Wall Street Journal titled "The Lowly Child-Care Worker," which talked about how little a child care worker makes.  The mean hourly wage is $9.73 an hour, falling short of a coatroom attendants and short-order cooks, and barely outpacing dishwashers and burger flippers.  The article went onto say that higher pay is needed to keep good teachers.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 2

In my first blog about international contacts I introduced two contacts from Bolivia.  For this assignment I was unable to contact one of them and the other one referred me to someone else who didn't respond back. But in talking with the Spanish teacher at my school about the assignment he got me in contact with his cousin in Mexico, Gabriella Garcia.  She was able to tell me a little about what goes on in Mexican classrooms.  She teaches first grade and has 45 children in each class.  She teaches  half day program.  A morning session from 8-12 and an evening from 3-7.  She is allowed to send a child for a branch off of a tree and spank the children.  The Mexican education system is divided into four levels: preschool (K1-K3), compulsory basic education (1-9), upper secondary education (10-12), and higher education.  The government is officially responsible for providing compulsory basic education, although it is also involved in the other three levels.  Public schools serve 87% of all students in the country.  A key issue in The Mexican education has to do with insufficient enrollment and high dropout rates beyond the primary levels, insufficient supply of upper secondary schools, and low student achievement levels.  This was the only information should provided  but I look forward to keeping in contact with her.  Hopefully this contact will stay a contact by it being the cousin of one of my coworkers.

Sharing Web Resources

Unfortunately my web resource of choice has not sent me a newsletter yet but I did continue to explore the website.  The National Black Child Development Institute had something relevant to my current professional development.  In the early childhood section of the website it talked about the president of the organization, Carol Brunson Day, attending the speech President Obama gave at a middle school in Arlington, VA.  He was speaking about education funds not being cut at the federal level.  He wanted everyone to know that education is being supported at the federal level.  Obama wants to fix no child left behind.  President Obama says, "It's not enough to leave no child behind.  We need to help every child get ahead."

On the National Black Child Development website they have different initiatives listed.  One of the initiatives is literacy.  The NBCDI partners with Reading is Fundamental to offer an early literacy training program to early childhood educators to build their capacity and resources to develop and enhance early literacy skills of African Americans.  This made me think of early literacy in a new way because literacy is very important and it is important for the educators to be well trained in this area.

The only thing this website about the way a politician feels about is what I mentioned above about President Obama wanting to fix no child left behind and supporting education on the federal level.

I'm sorry to say that I haven't had any other new insights because parts of the website are under construction and I haven't received any newsletters yet.