When I think of Research...

Before this class, research was very intimidating to me.  I am still intimidated by it now, but I also feel like I have a better grasp on the main concepts involved.  The articles that guided us to the important aspects in a research paper were very helpful to me and something I will use for years to come.  

I realized that research is not as scary as I once thought, although the terms used in the studies and in our text book were difficult for me and something I still struggle with.  I knew there was a lot that went into planning a research study, and while it’s an area I still struggle with, I do feel more comfortable with the research planning process. 

One area I struggled with was narrowing down my research topic.  I started with a topic that was much too broad.  With the questions and help for Professor Davis, I was able to narrow down my topic to something that hopefully would turn into a successful research project.  There are still more specifics I need to work out, but overall, I am very pleased with my topic.  

Thank you to everyone for their insightful conversations on our discussion boards.  I have learned from all of you and wish you the best in your future classes. 

Research Around The World

I explored http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ .  It is a wonderful site that is easy to maneuver through.  Some of the international research topics I found were: learning and teaching through play, dealing with bullying, respecting diversity, engaging and building a strong communication with families, and many more.  

I was surprised to find while exploring the site that half of the world’s refugees are children.  I guess I never thought about how many children would be impacted.  Children would be impacted even more and at greater risk for adverse effects from being uprooted from everything familiar.  

I enjoyed the links to articles from Every Child magazine. It is a publication focusing on the early years in a child’s life and includes various topics that address the issues that arise in the early years.  It is a link I will be revisiting. 

Research That Benefits Children and Families

I used naeyc.org for my resource this week.  I found an article from Dr. Alison Gopnik, who has been doing research on young children for 20 years.  I remember Dr. Gopnik from video resources from my first few classes here at Walden.  The article focuses on ways Dr. Gopnik has seen children benefit from play. She has confirmed through her research that children learn through exploring and playing.  This study extremely important for young children and the people who care for them.  With the state of education and the increasing academic demands on our young children, it is studies like this that will help educators fight to keep play in their classroom.  

"Children are eventually going to learn to recognize letters. But learning how people work and what’s in others’ minds is a much deeper and more profound learning. Ironically, parents who think they are helping their children by exposing them to flash cards with letters on them are doing less to help their children than parents who expose their children to pretend play, read to them, and talk with them" (Gopnik, 2009).  This is my favorite quote from the article and one that I feel I will referencing in my research.


http://www.naeyc.org/files/tyc/file/TYC_V3N2_Gopnik.pdf

My Personal Research Journey

The topic related to the early childhood field that I would like to know more about is the benefit of play in the early childhood classroom.  I have broken this topic down into three related subtopics:  1. play and brain development, 2. play and social development, 3. the teacher’s role in classroom play.  The reason I chose this topic is because of what I see happening in my school and my classroom every day. 

This is my eleventh year of teaching and I am sad to say that I have seen play slowly worked out of the school day.  I taught first grade for 8 years and this is my third year teaching kindergarten.  Many of the things I am teaching in kindergarten currently were part of my first grade curriculum years ago.  I also have many students who have never been in a school setting before coming to my classroom and do not have the opportunity to play with other children their age in their neighborhoods.  The only time they have any interaction with their peers is the two and a half hours they are in my room.  I also have students who are learning English as a second language.  The only time they get to practice English in a risk free setting is when they are talking to their peers during play time.  Unfortunately the increasing difficulty of the standards does not leave much time for free play, or so my administrators and district leaders think.

If anyone has resources or personal experiences that would help me in my research journey, I would greatly appreciate it.  If I find any helpful information, I will be sure to pass it on.  I am looking forward to learning with all of you!

Final Blog Assignment

I have enjoyed contacting someone who teaches in another country and hope to keep in contact with her in the future.  Three consequences for me from learning about the international early childhood field is:
1. Make contact with a fellow educator who teaches outside of The United States.
2. Become aware of early childhood education in other countries.  Learn about issues related to young children and education in that country. 
3. Discover new early childhood resources used and available in other parts of the world that may be used in The United States as well.

One goal I have is to try and create new international contacts in other countries and build my professional education community. 

Getting to Know International Contact - Part 3

My friend Tami who teaches in China has not gotten back to me about the questions this week, but she did send  me some information about about the schools in China vary from the U.S.  She teaches first grade, this is what she told me:

I can only speak from my experience at the int'l school. It is much more rigorous. Students are expected to work a lot more at home. They are pushed to be reading on level 14(DRA) by the end of Kindergarten. Know their addition and subtraction facts and be able to write. Some of this comes from being an IB school. We do teach Everyday Math for our math curriculum. Although it is supplemented with higher level expectations. The Korean students in my class have school on the weekend and in the summers to learn Korean. It is quite rigorous. They are expected to sit and do exactly what the teacher says. They don't think much "outside" the box. That is one of my biggest challenges is to get the Asian students to think for themselves. They are often told what to think and how to think.


Her response was interesting to me.  Currently teaching kindergarten, I cannot imagine my students reading at a level 14 by the time they leave me!  It also makes me sad because it seems like they are not allowed to be children.  They are expected to sit and do exactly what an adult tells them all day. 

Sharing Web Resources

I continue to enjoy the National Association for the Education of Young Children (naeyc.org) site.   On the front page of the site was a link to an excerpt of the book Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards.  The article addressed the topic of Halloween and how to celebrate in a way that does not offend the beliefs of any family.  The article gave an example of a director at a child care center in a university who had the children make funny hats and have a funny hat parade around the campus in place of Halloween costumes and candy.   There is also a link to a position paper about Quality, Compensation, and Affordability in early childhood education and another link to a position paper aimed at policymakers on behalf of children and families addressing quality and affordable child care for all children.  Every time I am on this site I find something new and interesting I can use.   

Getting to Know International Contact - Part 2

I unfortunately have not been able to get in touch with my friend Tami again, so I visited the Global Children's Initiative from Harvard University for this week.  One issue that is important that I had not thought of is mental health issues in young children.  The site states, " Mental health concerns constitute a massively underaddressed issue that has significant implications for the broader health and development of children and societies. There is an urgent need to identify the scope of the problem within and across countries and to develop evidence-based approaches in policy and service delivery that are responsive to diverse cultural contexts".  I have seen more and more children coming into school with some sort of mental health issue. The site also touched on educating high level decision makers about how young children learn to ensure they are making decisions that will have a positive impact on children.  It was interesting to read what is happening with young children all over the world and that there are caring adults who help to ensure they get the early care and education they need. 

Sharing Web Resources

The website I chose is naeyc.org.  It is an amazing site with a vast amount of resources!  Along the top there are links to publications, conference information, resources, and a link specifically for early childhood professionals.  If you roll over the resources link you will see links to other resources.  My two favorites are the links to play and back to school resources.  Under the back to school resources is a link to a great resource to share with families; Message in a Backpack.  There is a different message to share each month on a variety of topics, reading books at home, supporting writing at home, letting kids be kids, building social and emotional skills, and much more.  Each message is in English and Spanish.  There is nothing on the site that I found to be controversial.  There is also links to federal developments in the early childhood field, for example, a report on how President Obama's new job bill impacts education.  On insight I did gain from the sight is more background information on The Common Core State Standards.  The state I am teaching in adopted them this year and it was interesting to read NAEYC's' position on them. 

Getting to Know My International Contact

I was able to contact a friend I used to teach with here in Las Vegas.  Her name is Tami Lence and she is now teaching in Xiamen Fujian, China.  She is teaching first grade, which she says is a big change for her from third grade she used to teach.  I am hoping to hear back from her in a few days regarding more information about teaching in Xiamen Fujian.  Until I do , I have done more research on the city.  Xaimen is a major city on the southeast coast of the People's Republic of China, and was ranked as China's second most suitable city for living.  In looking at http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/, I discovered that most of China's poor communities are located in the western regions of the country.  There is also poverty in the cities, due to unemployment.  This was taken directly from the childhoodpoverty.org website:  In towns and cities, high employment pressure is the critical issue in urban poverty. By 2003, 22.47 million urban residents in China were reported to have incomes below the poverty line.  Among them, 1,793,000 were employed, 5,184,000 had been laid off, 907,000 were retired and 4,091,000 were unemployed.

I cannot wait to continue my talk with Tami and find out more about her experiences teaching in China.  I am excited to broaden my knowledge about education and discover how poverty is impacting children around the world. 

Sharing Web Resources

The website I chose was www.naeyc.org, The National Association for the Education of Young Children.  This site is full of wonderful articles, links, ideas, and other information for early childhood professionals.  “The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) was founded in 1926; it is the world's largest organization working on behalf of young children with nearly 80,000 members, and a national network of over 300 local, state, and regional affiliates.  NAEYC is dedicated to improving the well-being of all young children, with particular focus on the quality of educational and developmental services for all children from birth through age 8.” (Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org) 

When you first pull up the site, there are two rows of links across the top that cover everything from the vision of the association, to membership information, to resource links.  At the top, there is a “Conferences” link that gives information about the NAEYC Annual Conference and Expo held every year.  There are also 4 columns down the front that highlight important news and events, periodicals, and quick links to other early childhood sites.   My favorite link under the “Resources” tab at the top of the screen is the “play” link.  It has information about the value of play in the early childhood classroom.  What I love about this link is that is has 3 smaller links within it.  Links to play information for parents, teachers, and my personal favorite, play information for policymakers.  There are articles and excerpts from books discussing the importance of play in the classroom and ideas for integrating standards into engaged learning and play.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Part 1:
I currently have 3 friends teaching in other parts of the world (China, Morocco, and Norway) and have sent all of them e-mails.  I am not sure what grade levels they teach, but I am quite sure one of them works in the early childhood field.  I am excited to hear back from them and hopeful that they will be a good resource for me.  

Part 2:
The website I choose to use as a resource is naeyc.org.  I like the format of their site and have already found many resources helpful.  One resource I love and will use this year are messages in a backpack.  They are notes for families on a variety of topics: the importance of play, building social and emotional skills at home, building fine motor skills, etc.  The notes are available in English and Spanish, which will be fantastic for the families I work with.  I plan on sending one message home a month to help my parents understand what they can do at home to help their child succeed in school.  I am excited to explore this website more and learn all I can. :)

 

My Supports

My Husband:  He is without a doubt one of my biggest supports.  He is always there when I need him.  He does all of the laundry and most of the house cleaning (yay!!!), and is a huge help with our son.  My husband is a teacher also, it is very nice to have someone who understands my passion, and frustration at times, for teaching.  He is my best friend and I am blessed to have him in my life.

My family:  I am so very lucky to have such a wonderful, supportive family.  They have been there for everything I have needed, even though I am thousands of miles away from them.  We are all very close and I cannot imagine my life without them. My son is my life and keeps a smile on my face everyday.  I am a very lucky mommy. :)

                                                                  My son and my niece.

My Career:  I absolutely adore being a teacher!  There is nothing else I can see myself doing.  I love going to work everyday (even though it is hard to leave my son).  Teaching supports the sense of purpose in me.


My husband and I would like to move back to Michigan eventually and with that comes the very real possibility that we may not find teaching jobs.  If teaching was taken out of my life I would turn to my husband and family for support.  I would have to find something else to do for work in order to provide for my family while actively looking for teaching jobs.   

All of these supports have made me into the person I am today.  I am lucky to have such a strong support system and do not take anything for granted. 

My Connections to Play

Two Quotes About Play:

Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.

Diane Ackerman

 

Play fosters belonging and encourages cooperation.  

Stuart Brown, MD

 

Essential Play Items for my Younger Self:

I loved My Little Pony when I was younger!  I would spend so much time combing and braiding their hair.  I remember the little carrying case I had for them that had ponies all over it.

 This is a Cabbage Path Kid Pet.  I loved my Cabbage Patch Kids and when I got this pet as a Christmas present, I instantly fell in love.  I carried him with me everywhere. 

My brother and I each had our own tape recorder like this.  We would play with these for hours!  We would record our own radio stations and play them back for our parents.

I was very lucky that my parents realized and valued the importance of play.  They would build forts with us and help us turn boxes into houses.  They watched as we would perform songs and plays that we made up.  I had many cousins around that were my age and when we got together we would climb trees and invent games.  Play was such a wonderful part of my childhood.

Play is very different now from when I was little, especially outdoor play.  My brother and I would be outside in the backyard or in the park across from our house all day.  My mom would come outside with us at times but for the most part we were out by ourselves and did not have to worry about being safe. We also did not have video games.  When we were inside playing, it was with blocks, dolls, cars, or things we found around the house.

Even as an adult, I still love to play and color with my nieces or my students.  I am blessed to have a job where play is an everyday occurrence.