Relationship Reflection

The relationships that are most meaningful in my life consist of : my daughter, my husband, my family, and my friend. These relationships require active communication, listening, empathy, and devotion. All of them are equally important and play a drastic role in my day to day life.

My daughter (Kenzi) has the greatest meaningful relationship to me. She is my mini me! Everything that I do she mimics and takes pride in what I teach her on a daily basis. I actively communicate with and I am sure to be a great listener! She is full of questions and exploring the "newness" of the world. It is not difficult to maintain our relationship and I have not come across any challenges yet BUT I know when she hits that pre-teen/teenager stage I have my work cut out for me.

My second most meaningful relationships is with my husband and my family. My husband and my family are the most essential voices of reason in my life. They always have a listening ear and keep me grounded. These relationships require my active participation and for me to be a great listener and confidant. They always give me positive feedback and assist me with my day to day necessities. I also provide the same support to them.

 

Last but not least my relationship with my friends. These are the relationships that require the most maintenance to me. Me and my friends are so alike and so different that it makes our relationship very interesting, lol. I love my best friends and they have been of great support to me through the time that I have known them. I also believe that I provide the same support and positive reinforcement.

 

My relationships with the people in my lives will have a positive impact on my relationship in my career. I think that my relationships have taught me how to be a great listener and that is essential in Early Childhood Education. My relationships have also taught me how to communicate effectively and provide a positive atmosphere.

When I Think of Child Development

Holistic View of Children

I think that when looking and assessing a child in a holistic view, various topics should be looked at thoroughly.  Their reading skills should be looked at along with, vocabulary, mathematics, spelling, writing, and even their social traits. I think that looking at children as a whole tell the entire story of them and their learning scheme instead of just looking at one particular trait or feature. Children are complex and show off their talents in various forms and should be treated as though they are more than just one sided and objective. I think that children have capabilities that are often overlooked and assessments may often be confusing for children. Some have test taking anxiety and others may just be confused by the questioning. It is important that assessments are children friendly so that they are able to complete the task to the best of their abilities. I think that assessments should also incorporate questions pertaining to the child's personality. Personality plays a major role in the learning style of children and should be used to assist the teacher while in the classroom.

In Singapore, they are using a more holistic view with education and are focusing less on "content knowledge" and more on information processing. The teachers are given the opportunity to encourage creativity in their classrooms. They are also able to use the syllabus to in their own way to cover all of the material for the school term. They have structured their classes to incorporate learning in a nature environment and also to let the children prompt the learning focuses throughout the semester. They are still highly ranked in their testing as a result and the children are embracing the learning style.

Lim, R. (2012). Singapore wants creativity not cramming. BBC News. Retrieved from
                    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-17891211

Week 4 : Stress on Child Development

The one thing that I experienced as a child that had a major impact on my development as a child was a natural disaster. When I was in 5th grade our house burned down. We had electrical wiring issues in our home and that caused a fire to start and travel through the walls. If it had not been for our dog, we probably would not have survived the fire. Since the fire was in the walls, and the fire was at 2 AM, we were sleeping and did not detect or smell the fire burning. Our dog was barking uncontrollably and woke my mother up. She was just going to lock her in the laundry room and figured that she was just barking at her normal nothing. This time that was not the case. She had the urge to just walk around the house and make sure that everything was okay and when she turned the corner to enter into our living room, a huge blaze greeted her eyes. It was full above our fireplace and she became very alarmed. I was still upstairs in my room sleeping. She was screaming upstairs for me to get up while she tried to dash water on the fire. Finally, after many attempts of trying to awake me she finally woke me up and I came down the steps. I saw the huge blaze and immediately grabbed the house phone and called 9-1-1. I gave them our address and in the process I ran around the house and opened all of the doors so that some of the smoke could leave the house. I was so afraid and scared and had never experienced anything to that multitude. Our house was ruined. When the firemen finished, the smoke and water damage had completely destroyed our home. We had to stay in an extended stay for a month. All of my clothes smelled of smoke. As a 5th grader, I was still young and this had a tremendous effect on my day to day life. We no longer had a home and lived in a hotel , not to mention everyday I went to school smelling like smoke, and the even bigger hurt was what if we did not wake up? That would have been the end of our lives. I am so thankful to God for sparing me, my mother, and our dog and for giving us the senses that were needed to escape that horrible disaster.

Sri Lanka was the part of the world that I wanted to research when looking at natural disaster's and the stress on children. The people of this country have been victims of tsunamis. A high prevalence of PTSD can be expected within the Sri Lankan children who have been affected by additional traumatic events; Indeed, the prevalence of PTSD in Sri Lankan children affected by both the civil war and a natural disaster was as high as 40% after the Tsunami (2008). The impact of the natural disasters not only effect the children mentally but also imposes stressors for survival. There is a lack of resources, a lack of food, a lack of communication, lost family member, and a host of other long term effects.

Catani, C., Jacob, N., Schauer, E., Kohila, M., & Neuner, F. (2008). Family violence, war,and             natural disasters: A study of the effect of extreme stress on children's mental health in Sri Lanka. BMC Psychiatry, 8, 33-33.

Week 2: Public Health Issues

The ability to access healthy water is a topic that struck a high interest to me. Healthy hydration is essential especially in youth. They are usually more physically active and their bodies are constantly growing and evolving, so it is important for their bodies to have adequate supplies of water. It is also important that the water be free of contaminants and is not filled with parasites or diseases. Our country is so evolved that we have bottled water, purification systems in homes, and even purification systems attached to our water fountains. We are privileged and may not even realize it in comparison to other countries. Not only is it necessary to have clean water for drinking purposes but also for day to day functions as well. Cooking, brushing our teeth, taking a bath, etc. all require access to a clean water supply.

There is a program called Africa Heartwood Project that works to provide sustainable amounts of access to clean water. There is a lack of clean water in many rural villages in Africa, water-borne and water-based diseases are a primary cause of preventable illness and premature deaths, with children being particularly vulnerable (AfricaHeartwoodProject2015). Before projects like this children were drinking from streams that they also had to use the restroom in and take baths in. With all of those contaminants mixed together it was not safe for children nor adults to have to drink from those streams.


AfricanHerartwoodProject.Copyright2015.Web.http://www.africaheartwoodproject.org/water/?gclid=CI-w28jQgckCFdc9gQodIHYKDg

Week 1:Chidbirth

On January 23, 2012, my entire life changed. At approximately 3:00AM I began having sharp cramps in my sleep. Oh no. I thought that maybe I just had to use the bathroom and that my precious baby girl was just resting on my uterus. So I got up and went to the restroom. I laid back down. The pains did not stop. I knew that my water had not broke and that my mucus plug had not come down so I was not understanding what was going on. I laid in the bed and looked at my phone to time how far apart these pains were. They were five minutes apart! Too close for comfort. I woke my grandfather up and told him that I was hurting, he instructed me to call my god mother. So I called her told her what was going on and she said she was going to put on some clothes that I needed to go to the hospital. I got off the phone with her, got in the shower, put on some clothes, and began to pack my hospital bag. My baby's hospital bag had been packed for weeks now. I paced the floor waiting on her to pull up outside and never ceased hurting. When she arrived I grabbed my things and headed out the door. When I got in the car she asked how I was feeling I told her I was hungry and scared. I told her that the day before I had called in to work because of the pains I was experiencing but I thought I just needed some rest. I begged her to stop at Burger King to get me some breakfast, she refused.

When we finally made it to the hospital, twenty minutes away, they rushed me into a delivery room. I was only one centimeter dilated but as I had calculated, my contractions were constant and five minutes apart. They gave me Pitocin to induce my labor and another medication to make me sleep through my pains. I was still hungry, so they brought ice :(. By this time it was about 10AM. I slept until 11:30 and when I woke up I had now dilated to 5cm almost 6. They said I was still in a safe zone to administer the Epidural. I received the injection and after that the pain stopped instantly. Best drug ever! The rest was history, I kept dilating and before I knew it I was delivering a beautiful baby girl 6 lbs. 9 oz. 191/2 inches long at 1:56 PM. 

Childbirth around the World
An interesting fact learned while completing this assignment was the increasing rate of the C-Section in very cultures. The dramatic increases are in China where the rate in 1991 was 5%,by 2001 20%, and 2008 40% (Berger 2015). Those are alarming numbers being that C-Sections are more risky during child birth than natural labor.

Berger, K. (2015). The developing person through childhood (Seventh ed.). New York, NY: Worth.

Examining Codes of Ethics

NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) Core Beliefs that are important to me:

• Recognize that children are best understood and supported in the context of family, culture, community, and society.
• Recognize that children and adults achieve their full potential in the context of relationships that are based on trust and respect.

DEC (Division for Early Childhood) Core Belief that is important to me: 

• We shall serve as advocates for children with disabilities and their families and for the professionals who serve them by supporting both policy and programmatic decisions that enhance the quality of their lives

These three beliefs are very important to me because they uphold integrity and compassion in our career field.  Compassion for our students and their families is an important key to being a successful educator. We are a team and working together for the best interest of the child. We are the advocates to ensure that they are getting the best treatment and services possible. That is my life long aspiration to be an advocate for children in low economic areas with special needs. These three statements help me to remain encouraged on what my dream as an truly educator is.