My Family Culture

SCENARIO: A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.


        The three items that I would choose would be my iphone, my contact lenses and my cook book.I would explain that my iphone has music on it that I love and that may differ from another culture, it has pictures of me and my family and friends, and it has all of my contact information, important dates and even a GPS that I hope will help me find my family if separated. I bring my contact lenses because of course if my pair tear I will need a new pair to see, and my cook book because i as created by my mother and will allow me to create meal that will fulfill me in the event the food from my host country is not appetizing. I will also be able to share my favorite meals, music and memories with those from my host country.
       
       Id be devastated if I was told I cold only keep one item, but I know Id choose the iphone as it has the most collected memories and information.
       The insight that I feel I've gained from this exercise is that we love music and comfort food. Every family is different just as every culture is different. So it is important to create memories and tradition to carry on from generation to generation and share with others that differ from you. 

When I Think of Research...

                                                       

Before beginning this course, I was a bit apprehensive because I did not feel that I knew much bout the topic and I knew I had never had much of an interest in research methods and competencies. Throughout the course however, I realized the importance of research methods in early childhood education and was able to gain a lot of invaluable information regarding research methods and plans that can help construct the structure of the classrooms, and create effective policy and curriculum based on research and not personal experience alone.

I appreciate the fact that I was able to work and converse with other educators and researchers. It allowed me to see different perspectives and receive different input in how research processes could and should be completed. I also quickly realized the importance of research competencies within the field of ECE. 

As far as lessons learned about planning, designing, and conducting research in ECE, I would say that I learned how that once a researcher has a topic to study,participants must be chosen and a research plan must be designed.  A research questions and hypothesis must be constructed. Methods of collecting data must be chosen by the researcher. Following code of ethics during the research process is a must. Assuring that the study will show validity is a must. 

Some of the challenges I encountered when planing for my own research process is making sure that I will be able to show validity at the end of the study and that I implemented appropriate research methods, guidelines, participants and ethics into the research study. I also had a hard time remembering all the key terms and using them during y research design process. I feel that I met those challenges by properly planning and meticulously planning out every detail of the study, and assuring that my research question will definitely be answered on the methods I've chosen. 

As an ECE professional, I feel that the way that  perceive  other ECE professionals have not changed much as a result of the course. I do know ECE professionals work very hard to make sure our children succeed. This course allowed me to see a different side of what ECE research professionals do and I was able to see what processes and challenges they go through in order to plan for student achievement and success.

Research Around the World

   

     I had the opportunity to review the Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Site. The Site Is engaged in promoting scholarly and institutional  capacity in sub-Saharan Africa (http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php).

The current topic that I came across on this site was student success rate deriving from the ECDVU 's 17th year of  serving the citizens of Sub-Saharan Africa.

From this site I've learned that the Early Childhood Development Virtual University had been educating students from across sub-Saharan Africa and that the school has great success in achieving high completion rates. As stated on the site, "Year one – 90%, year two – 96%, year three – 100%"( http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php).On the site, I was able to view the students major topic and theses titles, along with the name of the student and their location within Sub-Saharan African which I thought was very interesting to review. It was enlightening to see that these students in another country have such interest in certain topics such as "A Community-driven Rural Early Childhood Development Project, with Emphasis on Culturally and developmentally appropriate Exploratory Learning Concepts, Involving Fathers in Early Childhood Care and Development and Strengthening the Capacity of Grandparents in Providing Care to Children Less than 8 Years Old Affected by HIV/AIDs".

I look forward to looking into the site in the future to touch base on additional topics and interests of  the students and compare them to topics and research that i too have interest in during my studies in  Early Childhood Education.

     

References: 

Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), 2016.,http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php

Research that Benefits Children and Families- Week 3

       Socioeconomic status and environment are major factors in the lives of child development. It is fair to say that there are many other factors that shape child development and children lives as well. So how do we know which factors adhere to specific roles? Research, is an effective way of doing such. There is one positive example of the effects of research that I can think of pertaining to this weeks topic. A few years ago, there was a little boy whose mother came to me with concern that her child may have ADHD. She explained that the boy was hyper, very talkative, has hard time following directions, couldn't it still and several other concerns. Now, in the classroom, he a in deed talkative but he was not a concern behavior wise. 
       The mother of this child got to a point where she was considering asking for the boys pediatrician for medication to control the  little boys behavior. The mother, although a sweet woman, had a lot going on in her life and household and I felt that a busy child was too much for her to deal with, so medication seems to be an easy fix to this problem. I, in the most professional way, suggested that she take her child to see  a behavioral specialist to allow them to observe and determine rather or not her child is dealing with ADHD. A few months later, the mother came to me with a big smile and great news. She informed  me that she did take her child to see a behavioral specialist, and after good research and observation it was determined that her son does not have ADHD, but is highly intelligent and gets easily bored, which is why he does not focus on one thing too long and insists on conversing with everyone as much as possible. The behavioral specialist gave her tips on how to keep the little boy busy, and ho to challenge his mind in a way that he would not be so bored. The mother felt bad that she was ready to diagnose her child and request education, but was so excited to know that her child is intelligent.
I was so glad to hear this news. I glad that the proper research had been executed in order to benefit this child and families life.

Week 2-My Personal Research Journey

The topic I chose to research  is "How Home Environment and Demographics effect children's ability to learn". I felt that this is an important topic in Early Childhood Education because as educators we have to recognize that factors within school environment are not the only thing that effect our relationships with student and their families, and are not the only things that effect the way a child may learn or comprehend. I have always been very interested in educational statistics and success rates of students in inner city school districts compared to those in rural districts or private school, so 
I felt that this topic would be best to choose to go into depth with my research.

I have gain many insights from constructing research and using the research chart such as how to pull necessary information from articles and research that apply to my research and how to organize information and data. 

I welcome my colleagues to give input and advice on resources I could use and share other invaluable invaluable information with me on their experiences and knowledge of the topic. 

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

      Before digging deep into the subject of microaggression I had not at all been so alert. Now, I feel like I notice it all the time. When watching television, or when I hear people communicate with myself of with others. This week I observed two forms of microaggression within the classroom. Both of which involved people assuming a child was of a certain ethnic group because of their name.

Situation #1: A little boy has been going home and telling  his parents about his friend Muhammed. When the little boys father came into the classroom, I noticed that he kept pointing to one particular child and saying "LOOK, there's your friend Muhammed". The father then started to speak to the child and say "Good Morning Muhammed", the child looked at him puzzled and would not speak. I politely said to the parent, "that is not Muhammed that's James", and directed him to where Muhammed was sitting.  The little boy (James) that the father thought was Muhammed is half African American, half Caucasian; therefore he has a very tanned skin complexion and very dark hair. I believe that the father assumed that he looked middle eastern being that Muhammed seems to be  a common middle eastern/Muslim name, especially within the city. However, Muhammed is a black boy. His parents are from Senegal(Africa) and are Muslim so they named their son after their profit. I could see the embarrassment in the fathers face, but I did feel it was wrong to assume that the tanned skin boy was Muhammed.



Situation #2:  There is a little boy in one of the classrooms named Wolfgang. When speaking to one of my coworkers about how adorable I thought he was she said "WOLFGANG? Is he Native American?" Wolfgang is Caucasian, his parents are of German descent. When I said No, where do you get native American from? She laughed and said "well you know Native Americans have names and nicknames like wolf, bear, hawk." Now from my experience I have never met someone that was Native American with a name or nickname like that. But throughout the media, movies, books, stores, toys, I have seen/heard names like that being attached to Native American culture. I thought WOW, she came up with that conclusion SO FAST, but maybe had the shoe been on the other foot, I may have thought the same, or similar. I know for sure I would not have thought German.

My Family Culture

During a catastrophic event, where my family would have to evacuate the country and I was presented the opportunity to only bring 3 items that represent my family culture, I would bring, what I feel are the most important things to not only myself but my family. These 3 items would be a family cook book, the bible, and family photo albums.
Of the three, if only given the opportunity to choose one, I would choose the photo album. Although cooking is  a big part of my family culture, and there are recipes written from my great grandparents on up, I am positive that another one can be created. Most of the people in my family have no problem cooking without reading the ingredients or recipes, so I would have no major issue with leaving it behind. Hopefully my family and I would be able to remember them all. The bible is another book that I feel has been so prominent in our lives that many scriptures are stuck in our head and can passed on. Hopefully wherever we would relocate would have access to bibles. The photo albums are something that have photographs, holiday cards, letters, and other memorable items that tell the story of my families lives. This is something that cannot be duplicated, can not be re-written and can never be brought back if left behind.

I am glad to have taken the time to think about what best represents my family values. I have never done this before. Although I can think of so many things, I am positive that these three would be on the top of my family members list as well.