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.