Week 4 - Microaggressions

The topic of microaggressions was a new one to me.  I have experienced them but I never knew they had a name.  The best way to describe a microaggression is by saying that they are those small comments or acts that are insulting but not on purpose.  For example, imagine a woman discussing her diet with an acquaintance and during the conversation, she tells the acquaintance she is a vegan.  The other woman responds by saying, "Wow, I never would have guessed you were a vegetarian because you seem so well put together."  Now, "well put together" is not an insult but the hidden message in there is that most vegetarians are not well put together.

Please pardon the example, I hold nothing against vegetarians, I am simply trying to give an example of a microaggression.  Many times these statements are made with regards to people's race or sexual preference but personally, I have experienced them in normal everyday situations that I experience as a wife and mother.  Back when I was a stay at home mom, people used to ask me what I did for a living and after telling them I stayed home with my kids, I was often greeted with smiles and "Oh, that must be nice".  Now I remember at the time feeling not important because I couldn't share work stories or anything with my working friends and in this kind of situation, I always felt like the person asking would not be able to understand me at all so why try to explain.  BUT the reality of the situation was that staying home was nice, but it also required a lot of sacrifice.  There was a person kind of being condescending about me not having a job, while my husband and I were going without many things so I could stay with my kids and sow seeds into them as people.

My experiential reality was definitely invalidated during this time and now looking back, I realize why I felt caught and never knew what to say.  I did not want to be insulting back, but I also did not want the person I was talking with to completely misunderstand me.  This week was a very eye-opening week.  It changed my perspective and made me want to try to be very careful about what I say.

Week Three Diversity and Equity

We have been discussing culture and diversity in our third week of class and I asked some of my friends and family member to discuss the definition of both culture and diversity.  The answers surprised me and I felt everyone enjoyed the topic and we had some great conversations about culture as a result.  The three main people I asked were my brother in law who grew up outside the U.S., my friend who grew up in an Italian-American family and my husband who grew up in a French Canadian family mixed with an English family.  I chose these three because I knew their childhood were very different from my own and I respect their thinking and I wanted to see what they said.

Some of the answers I heard while defining culture were words like: race, ethnicity, traditions, food, mind sets, beliefs, geography, religion, social class, spending habits, language, occupation, gender, appearances and values.

Some of the answers given to define the word diversity were: "All of the above."  meaning everyone is included, someone said universality and also someone said, acceptance of the differing types of cultures we just spoke of. we learned, we

As far as what we have learned, I was fascinated to hear what my friends had to say given that they do not have any of the background or resources that I do as a grad student.  I was actually pretty impressed with their answers.  The biggest difference I found was how none of them really discussed the family culture.  No one talked about how your parents or the number of siblings you have can influence your culture.  Besides that, I was thoroughly impressed with their insight and their candor.

Wk 2 Diversity and Equality - Family Culture

     Hmmmm.  Three items to bring with me to my new home in who knows what country...  Only three?  Well, my bible is number one.  I have notes and memories and I do not want to get to a new country and be without a bible especially given the circumstances under which we would be leaving our home, possibly forever.  It also would be important for me to be able to teach my children from it and to ensure they have an understanding of it regardless of where we live.
     Item number two would be a photo album I put together with pictures of our entire family.  It includes four generations of family members and has writing in it describing who everyone is.  This would help my children to know what life was like before the catastrophic event that landed us in this new country and it would help us remember our life before as well.
     Lastly, I would bring a large tarp.  I know it sounds strange but wherever we are going, we could use a tarp if needed for help keeping cool or staying dry or staying warm.  It doesn't necessarily preserve our culture but it would help my family and the practical side of me can't help it.  (My husband wanted to bring three different kinds of weapons.)  Haha!  (My son says that's not funny Mom, that's smart!)
     If we arrived and we were told we could only keep one, I would probably take the tarp.  I have the word of the Lord in my heart and we could pass our family history down with stories and descriptions.  The tarp is the thing that would help my children and I would choose that.  As long as we were able to talk, I think we could convey the truth about our family and our history verbally with the best result.
     This assignment was interesting.  I shared it with my family and we all had very different ideas of what we would bring.  The boys were very concerned with survival tools and not as concerned with sentimental items and even I was concerned with keeping my family safe over bringing items for cultural preservation.  I am looking forward to reading my classmates to see if they are similar or different than mine.

Week 8 BRC - Final week

This class has taught me many things about research.  One of the most important things it has taught me is that I do not need to be intimidated by research.  When you look at research, piece by piece, for what it is, you CAN make sense of it.  The biggest change that has happened for me that I was not expecting was my attitude towards conducting research myself.  At the beginning of this class I really wanted nothing to do with research. I really was not at all looking forward to this class either.  But what I have discovered is that the data that is provided by research is so powerful and valuable and I really may want to be more involved in research in the EC field in the future.  I actually wish I could conduct my research simulation because I really want to know the results.

As I was putting my research simulation together, I realized how much attention to detail is needed in order to carry out a study that is valid for the field of early childhood or for any field.  It is amazing how many variables are present in every study that researchers need to pay attention to.  The biggest challenge for me during this course was having a lot of new terminology that I was not familiar with to learn and use.  The way I dealt with that was, I took the terms one at a time (just like research, piece by piece) and kept investigating each concept until they made sense.  Piece by piece, for what they are.

It is hard to believe it has already been eight weeks!  I hope the people who read this post will have a great week off!  Thank you for your encouraging words and support and good luck in your future classes!

Week 5 BRC

For this week's assignment, I chose to look into the website for Early Childhood Australia at www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au to look into what kinds of issues are current for the early childhood professionals in Australia.  There were many issues discussed on the website but as I was looking at the "Voice" which is the site's newsletter, I noticed that at the end of the publication for this past January, they showed a discussion that was posted on Facebook about how to celebrate Australia Day in the early childhood setting.  Apparently, the holiday they celebrate in Australia called Australia Day, is a source of pride for some residents of Australia but for the Aboriginal people it is a source of pain.  The discussion shown was about how to balance the celebration of the holiday while still being sensitive to the indigenous population at the same time.

This is a great example of a dilemma that we face regularly as early childhood professionals.  We often face the challenge of balancing priorities for our very culturally diverse classes.  This just happens to be a good example of how international issues can be different but the similar.

This website also contains articles published in the AJEC or the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood.  This journal contains articles that have subjects that seem very similar to articles here in the US.  I suppose the similarities in issues shows how even though our cultures are different and our upbringing may be different, young children are very similar, even the same for the most part.  Kids are kids, whether they are here in our country or in another.

BRC Week 3

After considering both assignments for this week, I chose the second one.  If I were able to conduct research about anything, I would choose the effects of a behavior modification program on young children diagnosed with Autism spectrum disorders.  Maybe ages 2-5.  I would want to test whether having a behavior program for these children, would improve the behaviors that result with them being diagnosed with Autism.  I have a nephew who has been diagnosed with an Autistic spectrum disorder but when he is with me and my family, he does not exhibit the kind of behaviors he does at home.  Now, being a preschool teacher of nine kids at a time, I tend to run a tight ship at home and do not tolerate much unnecessary crying or fussing and he does great at my house.

I feel like this is not a coincidence.  I am not saying I am the best and that is why he doesn't act up at my house, but I am wondering if as a preschool teacher, I have developed skills that encourage better choices for him and result in better behavior.  I am a behaviorist at heart and I would love to test this out on a large scale somehow.  Wouldn't it be great to be able to give parents of children with an autistic spectrum disorder a set of skills that may help that child regulate his own behavior?  I would love to see the results of research like that!!

Building Research Competencies wk2

This class is going to stretch me to learn about research.  I will learn about the steps that are taken to conduct quality research and the way to tell the difference between types of sources and different kinds of methodology when it comes to research.  I am excited to learn more because I know I will be a better resource for the families I work with if I knowledgeable about current, accurate research results.

As I continue with my journey to get this degree, I realize that I have a lot to learn.  Part of this course is to create my own research simulation about a topic of my choice.  In week one I expressed an interest in learning more about a parents interaction with infants and how that effects language development in those children.  I realize that this topic is too broad and in order to focus the topic more, I am choosing to focus specifically on the impact of prompting on a child's language development. I am not sure if this topic is suitable for research but it seems like it may be.

The reason I chose this topic was because it has always interested me how some two-year-olds talk a mile a minute, and others look at you like they have no idea what you are saying.  Is it natural for all children to begin to talk at different times?  Is it simply a result of their environment?  I have three children and they all spoke at about the same time.  By 9 months they were using one word at a time and by two they were little chatterboxes!  I always wonder if they would have talked at a different time if they did not grow up in my home.  I did prompt them a lot to speak and after a little while, I no longer accepted pointing or grunting :)

Please let me know what you all think.  I am really interested to hear from you as other professionals who work with children every day.  Thank you!