Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

For this week's Blog assignment  I interviewed my oldest daughter (16), my co-worker and a close friend. Each was asked to define diversity and culture. It surprised me to get such rapid responses from them. It was also amazing to see the resemblance on their answers to the resources I had the opportunity to read. Each of interviewees all defined culture as one's belief, practices, food, etc in one group. They defined diversity as one collective group of various ethnicities.  In the text, "Anti- Bias Education", a cultural group is related strongly to his or her ethnicity, which reflects the place of origin and cultural background of the person's ancestors(p.56). 

My daughter's response stuck out the most because she included economics as a part of defining someone's culture. Just as discussed in the video with the panel of early childhood professionals, Julie defined culture as one's race, ethnicity, economic and even language abilities. The one thing omitted from my interviewees' responses were the various levels in culture. You can be a part of a culture but be on a different cultural status amongst your own group. This could be due to language or economic as well. Upon completion of these interviews/ discussions, it allowed me to see how diverse each one's meaning of the two terms can be. That many are only familiar with the surface culture. Prior to this course,  I would have never thought that ethnic groups or culture as a whole can be so diverse.

Reference:

Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

My Family Culture

In the event that I was force to move to another country due to circumstances out of my control, I would take with me, my mom's memorial blanket, my dad's ashes and our family photos. I choose these items because they share the beginning memories of my parents. I look at my parents as the foundation that has started the culture of my family. Without their union there would be no me. They are the reason many traditions are continued throughout my immediate family.

With hopes of taking these items along on my journey to my new destination, I would feel heartbroken if I couldn't bring all of my items with me. Being denied the opportunity to bring all of my items that connect me to my culture, will prolong my ability to adjust to my new environment. One insight that I gained from learning about family cultures, is how important it is not just to me but to all families. We may ignore the settings in which they spend their time away from us, believing they are not very important. In fact the home environment greatly influences what goes on in school( Christian,2006,p.12).  As an early childhood professional I have  made every effort to support the child individually but i have learned that including the family in the process is just as important. 

References

Linda, G. C. (2006). Understanding families: Applying family systems theory to early childhood practice. YC Young Children, 61(1), 12-20. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/docview/197591231?accountid=14872

When I think of Research...

These past few weeks have allowed me to gain a detailed overlook of what research in early childhood entails. During this course, I learned that research can be used as a tool. From this standpoint, early childhood professionals address topics and or questions that they may have experienced professionally o personally. Regardless of how you come to your topic, it is by learning to use research as a tool that you can answer the question or questions you set out to address and inform others of what you have found (MacNaughton, Rolfe, Siraj-Blatchford, 2010, p.8).

Prior to this course, my understanding of what research was consist of finding at least three resources related to your topic. with that information, you would carefully expand on your topic. In this course, I learned that there is so much more to research than one would expect it to be. With the different approaches, types of research and designs of research, my nature of research have changed. I perceive research to be a more strategic approach, one must clearly decide if the study will be non- experimental or experimental. One must also choose the design that will be used to conduct the study. Much valuable research involves observing or documenting things that occur in everyday life with the aim of understanding, rather than explaining (MacNaughton, Rolfe, Siraj-Blatchford,2010,p.108)

One challenge that I faced in the course was deciding on my topic for my simulation. It was hard because I never thought I would conduct a study in early childhood field. As the course progressed, I became intrigued with how effective each of the designs, approaches and methods are to ensuring that truthful results or solutions are achieved. with this new information, I now perceive early childhood professionals as the pioneers for providing educators the support they need to provide young children a learning experience that will spark in their latter educational journey.

References
Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S.A., & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood research: International perspectives on theory and practice (2^nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

 Research Around the World

For this assignment, I decided to investigate Early Childhood Australia website.  I immediately notice how familiar the site is to the NAEYC website. On the top of the page are tabs that are related to various topics, such as resources for parents and information on how to become a member of the association. I really enjoyed reading about their Learning Hub program. This program offers educators the opportunity to obtain training at their convenience and with a group of people. 

To look further into what this website offers, I researched the website to see if I could find information on my research simulation topic and was successful. There were a variety of resources available to assist this topic.  In my search resource books, articles, and even newsletters were recommended. Knowing that there are resources available worldwide for research is a rewarding experience.

References

http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/

My Experience with Research

Almost a year ago this month. I had the opportunity to participate in a research study conducted by Johns Hopkins University.  During this study I was to introduce my students varying from ages 3-5 yrs old to vocabulary words they may have never heard or explore before.  Prior to starting the research project,  I sat down with the lead researcher and she explained to me why this project was being conducted in local Head Start programs. Research has shown how children from low income families had hard time reading when they entered into kindergarten.  As a precaution to the ever growing achievement gap between preschool and kindergarten JHU decided to team up with Temple university and develop a curriculum that will improve the language development of young children through story telling.

 The  JHU provided each participating classroom with the lesson plan and the story books to go with.  They also provided visuals to go with the vocabulary words as well follow up question being iterated the focus words. This was a year long study (school year)  and three times out of the year the children we're assessed by the researcher or teacher on the words they have been learning. Once a week the researcher would come in and video the teacher in the act of implementing the lesson.

The same research project began to introduce the same concept athome as well.  They had the same curriculum except they did not video.  This was a really neat but intense project to guide educators and their families on the importance of language building in young children

My Research Journey

For this course, I have chosen to conduct my research simulation on the topic of effective leadership in early child care. This topic has inspired me to pursue my education with hopes of becoming an administrator of  a child care program. In my years of experience, I have worked under some supervisors who lacked the ability to inspire their staff. They were able to manage the program but lack those people skills needed to inspire and motivate their staff to excel in all they do for the program, children and families.

Through my research thus far, I have found articles that I redeemed useful for the topic. These articles were located on the NAEYC website. Here I was able to locate three articles that can define the purpose of effective leadership and the benefits. I am also open to learning of any other resources that will assist me in gaining more knowledge on my topic.

Final Blog

Over the past seven weeks, I have enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with my fellow early childhood professional. During this time I was given insight to issues and trends from another country that are very similar to the United States. Three of the consequences of learning internationally is, shared passion, limited resources and support. During these past seven weeks, I have gained insight to how similar our passion for early childhood amongst the two of us. She has also shared with me the limited resources that she is able to receive because of community she lives in and the opinion of her government officials. Due to this shortcoming, it does not provide much support for her and her program.

One goal that set forth to accomplish is to advocate more for early childhood programs in my local community. By doing this I will still make a substantial contribution to the lives of young children and their families which is my ultimate goal.