Basketball Resiliency

This course was titled Influences of Family, Culture, and Society in Early Childhood and I believe there was some discussion on family, culture and society that affects early childhood.    However, I preferred the breaking down of articles that discussed specific topics of family dynamics, community support, stress, and resilience that focused on my major assessment topic.  I feel this course was better focused on those topics and my major assessment.   

Resiliency is a hot topic for the students I teach in their socioeconomic class.  Learning how to cope with problems that they deal with on a daily basis is a teaching tool that is left out of most preschool classrooms.  For the following year, I am hoping to incorporate teaching terms revolving around resiliency into everyday lesson planning and curriculum.

One article discussed that most children do not want to go back to their past experiences but to remind them to bounce up like a ball.

Major Assessment Interviews

My major assessment for my current Walden University Doctoral class revolves around using individualized education plans to meet the needs of children with language disorders.  

 

I interviewed professor who has significant experience with children with disabilities, assessment and individualized family service plans (IFSPs).  I had no idea that the state she is from only solely completes IFSPs and not individualized education plans (IEPs).  The other interviewee was a colleague of mine who is the special needs teacher at our local school district along with a parent of a child with an IEP.  Both women were knowledgeable on working with children with disabilities which helped me out tremendously. 

While discussing the types of goals on an IEP for language disorders, Dr. Pretti-Frontzcak said to focus more on functional goals than measurable ones.  Goals that meet the child’s needs wholly and not just language, behavioral, etc. are better suited to create a common link to help the child grow to its fullest capacity.

I am really struggling right now with the fluidity of my major assessment.  I have learned a lot about children with disabilities and the IEP process but not enough specifics on language disorders.  It seems as though the research spans disabilities across the spectrum but does not address my specific need of language disorders.  How are language disorders different from the other special needs that children have in your experiences?   

Preschool Children and Language IEPs

My Major Assessment is focusing on preschool students and their families with language delays.  These delays may be developmental or dual language learners.  Specifically, I want to focus on creating goals on individualized education plans (IEPs) to collaborate between the school, teacher and home environments. 

I have few experiences with IEPs in the preschool classroom but the ones I do have experience with the parents seemed confused and wanting different results for their children.    Parents are receiving information and goals from the itinerants who are testing and working with the children.  Parents are assuming that they just have to sign the paper and let the IEP sit as stated.  After a few parent teacher conferences, parents have expressed their concern of goals not being met and children not showing signs of improvements.  My questions and focus is encompassed by all of these processes while creating and implementing an IEP.

My only question with completing this assessment is observing growth of a child with an IEP in one year time.  I also cannot perform brain scans on children who are nonverbal to figure out why they are delayed and what medical interventions are needed for continued support.

I'm improving the world one child at a time. I TEACH!

Beginning my Global Perspectives on Development and Learning course, I was thinking about the ideas of other countries on early childhood and not thinking about the idea of social change. Thinking out of the box with other countries research is very difficult for me since I have not broadened my horizons to reflect my teaching philosophy.  The idea of social change was also challenging due to being a preschool teacher with little influence on management and program functionality in my current position.  It is now my goal to make changes that improve early childhood for children birth to eight years old and hopefully get a career that will hear my voice, let my hands work towards greatness and be a part of social change for everyone involved.

My ultimate goal is to teach at the collegiate level and be an inspiration for future teachers.  One quote that I love is by Conrad Hall.  He states “You are always a student, never a master.  You have to keep moving forward.”  This rings true for my students and me as a lifelong learner.

Lastly, I sometimes get frustrated with management not listening to my ideas or asking teachers their input on situations that teachers deal with every day.  For example, I work for Head Start and Monday through Friday full day classrooms have children all day.  The time to get paperwork done or to discuss student progress does not exist even at nap time.  I would like management two days a month to build in a half day schedule where the teachers can step out of the classroom at nap, once the kids are sleeping, to allow for a 2 hour meeting to occur.

I would like open minded early childhood educators to really think about the needs of teachers to teach the children.  With that being said, there are two quotes that I live by in regards to open minded thinking.  One is by Malcolm S. Forbes: Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.  The other is “the aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think – rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men” by Bill Beattie.

 

These quotes are sharable on Facebook at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_education2.html#BJq2pJ7XkOWziMTb.99

A few blogs that I live by when planning or getting through a school year are:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/promoting-a-culture-of-learning-terry-heick

http://www.teachpreschool.org/

http://www.lookatmyhappyrainbow.com/

Emergent Curriculum

Emergent Curriculum is a new concept for me in my preschool teaching experiences.  I had heard about it being used in place of a theme based curriculum and planning.  One mantra that I live by as a preschool teacher is “I know this stuff but the kids are here to learn it.”  This helps me remember that my planning, if it is my opinion, does not benefit the kids. 

I like the circular way of using an emergent curriculum that always flows through a circular, never-ending model.  A good starting point is where teachers observe the children through play: what they are saying and doing.  This informs the teachers what the students are interested in and how to plan activities, materials and lesson plans.  The activities during the lessons can go on for months (gardening) or a couple of days (cooking) as two examples.  

I am in the beginning stages of implementing an emergent curriculum in my classroom and the first thing I did the first week of school was ask the kids what they are interested in playing with, learning, and studying.  My anecdotal notes will inform my planning through the students’ interests in the upcoming weeks.  Have you ever implemented the emergent curriculum?  What fears do you have moving away from theme based?  How do you feel this could benefit students of all grades?  (I wish I could have done this when I taught 2^nd grade.)

I have attached some great resources about emergent curriculum.  The author of “Theme to Emergent”, Diane Kashin, has a Pinterest board that I started following all on emergent curriculum.  The abandoning themes section in the article is a great resource to read over about changing opinions from themes to more of an emergent curriculum.

https://www.naeyc.org/files/tyc/file/YCBuell.pdf

https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/downloads/p_10/qklg_pd_mod3_exa1_emerg_curric.pdf

http://kidslinkcares.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Theme_to_Emergent.pdf

http://www.nurturingknowledge.com/curriculum-project.htm

http://childhood101.com/2013/07/more-than-pretty-creative-arts-as-a-language-of-learning/