My Supports

One of my largest supports is my husband, having him to help me with my son has been a major stress reliever. Prior to marrying my husband it was just my son and I, I had to pick him up and drop him off at daycare and school which it made times a little difficult for a single mother. After marrying my husband I realized that team work makes the dream work. Having someone to help out with daily task I once had to do alone is very helpful.  If I did not have him I would have to take my son to get haircuts and pick him up from school. I would have to change my work schedule which is not very flexible to begin with.

Another support system I have is friends, my laptop is not working properly and I really need to buy another one. We are currently closing on a new home so I can’t really go out and buy a new one.  One day I was on the phone with my best friend telling her that I didn’t know how I was going to find the time to go to the library to do my homework because I was having issues with my laptop and she told me to come get hers and I could borrow for as long as I needed to. This was such a blessing and if I didn’t have such a thoughtful friend I would have to try and find the time to get to the library to do homework.

One challenge I choose to imagine is not being able to get around free due to mobility issues. This would be difficult because we currently live on the 2^nd floor. We would have to move to a single story home with wide doors large enough for me to get around. I would also have to solely depend on my family and friends to transport my son around. With having these supports it would be near to impossible for me to leave my home and I would not be able to get around to care for my son.

When I think of Child Development

I think this cartoon is saying that all children should be assessed based on an individual bases. If not we set children up for failure.


Catherine

I would like to thank http://catherinewolpert.blogspot.com/ for providing us with post to expand my knowledge of child development. Your post are always very informative and thought provoking. Thank you for sharing your person and professional knowledge with us all.

Lah Lah

Thank you for maintaining such a detailed blog, you seem to be very passionate about your work with children and it shows in the quality of your blog. The information that you shared throughout this course has really broadened my knowledge of child development.

Assessment

The topic of assessment is very touchy subject for me personally because I have always been one of those people who don’t test well. I’m better at showing my skills in hands on try or way. When we think about what we want to children to learn in school I tent to think about teaching children how to problem solve. I think problem solving skills will help them through out life because it will help them figure out how to get “the answers”; process over product. To me testing is supposed to tell you what a person knows so that you can figure out ways to teach them. To me it seems like most of the time teachers are pressured to teach towards the test and not teach for children to gain knowledge and understanding. If we have research that shows children learn in different ways then why are we only testing in one type of way?

While conducting my research on assessment I came across a website that talked about assessing children in Asia on English language acquisition. I found that they assess their children in a number of different ways:

Performance-based assessment tasks
Self assessments
Peer assessments
Teacher observations
Portfolios
Quizzes and tests
Most of these assessments were familiar to me except the peer assessments, I do like how they use a number of different assessment options which gives children a way to display their knowledge and understanding.

I feel like we take away some of children’s creativity when we use the same assessments to test different learning styles and abilities.

Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

As a child there was a little boy I know whose parent had HIV, he also contracted HIV and as a child he grew up having to watch his mother suffer for the illness. His grandmother ended up helping to raise him and his siblings because his mother could not do it on her own. His grandmother did the best she could to make sure he had a normal childhood. When the boy became a teenager his mother ended up passing away and I believe this a huge toll on him. Some years after that he ended up taking his own life; we are unaware if this was because he was tired of having to live with the illness.

In Africa AIDS continues to be an issue, since the discovery of AIDS 14.8 children has lost one or both of their parents because of AIDS. This issues can cause other problems for families when they loss the bread winner in the family they become faced with the issue of poverty.

While doing some research online I found two ways different countries in Africa are trying combat this issue. One way is with the use of condoms, the communities have access to free or a lost cost option to help protect themselves from AIDS. Another way has been through education and awareness. Countries have begun to take a proactive approach to testing people and trying to reduce the risk of mother passing it to their babies during birth.

http://www.avert.org/hiv-and-aids-africa.htm

Breastfeeding in the US vs other countries

When my son was born I struggled with the idea of breastfeeding, I knew that benefits of breastfeeding but in opinion today’s society does not welcome the idea of it. It seems as if it’s almost taboo to breastfeed your baby in public with people looking and or saying something negative about it. Babies want to eat when they get hungry and we can always time it so you’re in the privacy or your own home. Needless to say I ended up breastfeeding for the first month, and then we switched to formula. I will say this; if I ever have another baby I will not allow society’s views dictate my choice to breastfeed my baby.

As I conducted my research about breastfeeding I found so many articles about the benefits of breastfeeding. One country in particular intrigued me; a mother from the UK said they are allowed to stay out of work for 6 months so most women stop after 6 months if they have to return to work. Another mother from Mexico said women with low income or little education breastfeed because they don’t have the money to buy formula. She also said women with more money and education only breastfeed for a few months because they have the means to buy healthy food. This was a little confusing to me because all the articles I’ve read talked about good it is for the baby to have breast milk.

Overall my views are that we created to have the ability to breastfeed so if must be good for our children. This information might help impact my future work by helping me provide parents with information on the health benefits of breastfeeding as well as the a bonding experience for both mother and child.


* I found that the oldest "child" on record to be breastfeed was age 17! I don't think I could go that long*

Childbirth In My Life and Around the World

Thinking back on my personal birthing experience seems easy to now since 6 years has gone by. When it was taking place I thought it was the worse pain I’ve ever felt in my life. It started out with me being induced a few weeks early, my water was broken manual by the doctor and it seemed to go down hill from that point. I went in with the idea that I would go natural but that went out if the window after the 4th contraction. Soon after receiving my epidural I was told that I could start pushing. I pushed maybe a good 10 times and he was out. I thought the worse part was over but I ended up losing a lot of blood in the recovery room and ended up have to get a blood transfusion. Overall it was hard task but the end result was amazing.

I choose to research how births happen in Africa and I ended finding a very interesting story about a lady who gave birth in a birthing pool. She talked about how relaxing it was to be in the warm water in her own home. Her husband was able to be in the pool with her, but the most amazing part was she got to be home so no 3 day hospital stay required!

I think being able to be in a comfortable and familiar environment was helpful for mom the go through the birthing process and less stressful on the baby to born in its own home. It didn’t have to be welcomed into a sterile environment with harsh lighting and loud noises.

Examining Codes of Ethics

I-2.1—To be familiar with the knowledge base related to
working effectively with families and to stay informed
through continuing education and training.

As an early childhood educator this ideal is important to me because it is very important to continue learning. How could we teach children and tell them it is important to learn when if we stop learning. Continuing to take trainings in our field allows us to stay up to date with new research and theories in education.

1-4.1—To provide the community with high-quality
early childhood care and education programs and
services.

This is important to me because all of the children I serve at my program are low income and I believe that all children deserve access to a high quality education. Therefore I strive to make sure I am doing all I can to make sure children are getting that and more.

We shall use individually appropriate assessment strategies including multiple sources of
information such as observations, interviews with significant caregivers, formal and informal
assessments to determine children’s learning styles, strengths, and challenges.

I believe that children should be assessed in a way that appropriate for them, not every kind of assessment is right for every child. By using different forms of assessments this will allow educators to see what is best for their students.


NAEYC. (2005, April). Code of ethical conduct and statement of commitment. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from
http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PSETH05.pdf

•Article: The Division for Early Childhood. (2000, August). Code of ethics. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from
http://www.dec-sped.org/