Impacts on Early Emotional Development

The area of the world I chose to focus on for this assignment was South Asia because it is an area I know very little about and would like to know more.  

I was shocked to discover that in South Asia there are more child marriages than in any other region with many children married before age eighteen.  “Children in India, Nepal and Pakistan may be betrothed or even married well before they are ten years old”.  (unicef.org).  Much of this is stemming from customs and religious practices.  This region also has the greatest number of unregistered births (unicef.org).  Children who are born and not registered are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, which is also a problem in the area.  

Children marrying before the age of eighteen and as young as ten could have a negative impact on their emotional well being and development. The children are not allowed to grow into adolescence and figure out who they are before arriving at adulthood.  They are thrust into marriage and the responsibilities that come with it before they are ready.  Sexual exploitation and human trafficking are detrimental to children and robs them of their identity and innocence.  

Learning more about children in South Asia made me sad, sick to my stomach, and angry all at once.  Children should never have to deal with those conditions and should have access to environments that will value them and keep them safe.  It also made me grateful to be born into an area and a family that allows children to be protected and stay innocent children as long as possible.  I am thankful to have this new information in case I ever have a child in my classroom from that region.  I am also thankful that I know how to navigate through the Unicef website.  That site will be helpful in the future if I receive new students from another part of the world.

References:

http://www.unicef.org/rosa/protection_5668.htm

The Sexualization of Early Childhood

As I was reading the article So Sexy So Soon, I found myself shaking my head in disgust, nodding my head in agreement, and feeling sick to my stomach all at the same time.  Many of the scenarios from the article I have seen countless times in the thirteen years I have been teaching.  The entire topic makes me nervous to raise my children in such a sexualized society.  I know I can control what my children see and hear in my house, but once they are with their friends, I have no control.  

Teaching in Las Vegas, I feel that the young children in my classroom are getting a double dose of sexual messages; from the media and from the environment around them. You cannot drive anywhere near Las Vegas Blvd. (the strip) without seeing half naked men and women on billboards and taxi cabs.  The area in which I live and teach is a good half hour or more away from the strip, and is your typical suburb, but I know many of my students are down on the strip quite frequently.  I also know of many parents who work in the adult entertainment industry.  Some of the women come dressed very inappropriately when they come to pick up their children.  They have a difficult time separating what they do for a living and being a mommy. 

 Years ago, there was a third grader in my school who brought and adult movie to school and was showing his friends.  The principal confiscated the movie and took the boy to her office.  The little boy did not seem to understand that he had done anything wrong.  The principal began questioning the boy and found out that he found the movie on his dining room table and there were movies like this all over his house and playing on the television frequently.  Then, this year in my kindergarten classroom, I had a little girl wear a shirt to school that continues to baffle me.  It had an arrow pointing up and said, “My eyes are up here”.  Once I saw what it said, I looked closer at the shirt thinking maybe it was made for an adult.  The shirt fit her perfectly and did not appear to be an adult shirt.  

Being exposed to sexual content and messages too early will have a negative impact on a child’s healthy development.  “Today’s cultural environment bombards children with inappropriate and harmful messages. As children struggle to understand what they see and hear, they learn lessons that can frighten and confuse them” (Levin, Kilbourne, 2009).  Not only can these messages frighten and confuse them, but it will desensitize them to the feelings and needs of other human beings.  They may only see their peers as sexual objects, and not people with feelings and thoughts. 

My awareness of the sexualization of early childhood has been increased by studying the topic this week.  Reading the introduction of the book has also made me interested in reading the entire book on the topic.  It is one I will add to my summer reading list. 

References:

Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books. Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf

Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

I have felt a new type of ableism that is emerging within my school and probably the district.  It is one that is demeaning and hurtful to myself and my colleagues and is taking the joy out of what is supposed to be the best job in the world.  The Clark County School District is the fifth largest district in the country and has grown rapidly in the thirteen years I have been working here.  It has been a frustrating few years in the district and this year has by far been the worst.  Because the district is so large and has so many schools to monitor, they have assigned us to “service areas” based on academic need.  Each service area has its own area superintendent and academic manager and each school has its own set of instructional coaches and tutors.  This is on top of the district superintendent and the administrators at each school building.  I work in a Title 1 school due to the amount of children we service who qualify for free and reduced lunch.  The families in our area struggle daily with providing for their children and we have a high transiency rate due to evictions and family instability.  The children who start kindergarten in my room have never been to any type of preschool program and are only in my room for half a day.  They also are only in our school for two or three years before moving.  We also have a high English language learner population and have many children starting school who do not speak any English.

The district has increased class sizes, cut funding, changed the text book and assessment programs they want us to use multiple times and we have been transitioning to the Common Core State Standards.  Through it all, the teachers in my area have been working hard to ensure students learn all they can when they are with us.  We have been attending trainings, staying after to tutor students, and holding parent nights to help increase parent involvement.  However, with the standards for the tests increasing and our student population growing more and more at risk every year, our school has not shown the growth they would like.  Because of this the district has brought in instructional coaches to, as the district said, “help us fine tune our skills”.  I am always looking for ways to improve my teaching so I was excited about the opportunity to have someone observe my teaching and give me points on how to improve. 

The situation did not unfold as I had hoped.  The coaches have been holding trainings without getting to know any of the teachers in the building.  The things they are teaching us are things most of us already know.  They have brought in another new round of assessments that are all computerized and we are being trained on it like we have never given an assessment before.  They are always in our classroom observing, which I do not mind, but when it is pointed out what we are not doing well, it is with a very condescending tone.  Our experience and knowledge is not being valued.  Just because we are teaching in a low performing school, it does not mean us, as teachers, are low performing.  We are always looking for ways to improve, but also need to feel valued.  “An ism is much more than a matter of people being nice or not nice to each other.  Isms are expressed in laws, in organizational policies, and in regulations, as well as in the thinking and actions of people who carry out the policies” (Laureate, 2010, p. 24).  We are trying hard to feel valued and know that we are making a difference, but it is difficult when we are being treated like we do not know what we are doing.  

The moral in the building is very low and I have noticed it impacting the relationships with the students and their families.  The staff is not volunteering for family nights in the same numbers as before, they are piling on more homework, which is difficult on the students and their families.  The school climate has changed; there is no cohesive relationship between the staff and families anymore.  I have been trying to keep things the same in my classroom and with my families, but it has been difficult.  I also know it has been hard on the students.  New testing protocol is stressful for them.  I am trying to help them relax through the process but am being told it does not match testing protocol so I have to stop.  The children are the ones suffering the most in all of this and I feel horrible.  We also deal with a lot of parents, who themselves, did not have a good school experience.  We are not helping them to be comfortable in a school setting as I had hoped, and in turn, the parents are not partnering with the classroom teachers as I had hoped.  

I hope I was not rambling or sound like I was complaining.  It has been a rough year and this assignment came at a good time to help me get some feelings out on the matter.   

 

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and             

ourselves. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children

(NAEYC).