Reflecting on Learning

It is hard to believe that the eight weeks of this course is winding down and coming to an end already. It feels like we have just started yet it is drawing to a close. Overall in this program, it has been a very busy but quick journey! Time is flying by so fast. 

In our final blog post for this course, we were asked to share our most passionate hopes for the future as an early childhood professional and for the children and families we will work with. When I think of the future of the field of ECE overall, I feel inspired. The practices of anti-bias education are becoming more wide spread and recognized in the field, which leads to positive social change for the children, families, educators, and society overall. Additionally, I passionately believe in the goals of anti-bias education being utilized properly with children and families. As Derman-Sparks & Edwards (2010) explain in regards to the four goals: "Together, they provide a safe, supportive learning community for all children. Effective anti-bias education happens when all four goals are a part of your program" (p. 3). When I think of my future in ECE as an educator, I passionately believe and hope to make a positive change in the lives of the children and families I work with, as well as society at large. I hope to utilize anti-bias practices effectively to instill an understanding and appreciation for differences in which the concepts of acceptance, tolerance, and respect are prominent. Most importantly, I hope to never stop learning, fulfilling my goal of maintaining lifelong learning to improve my practices and approaches to working with children and families in order to have the most appropriate, effective, and positive impact possible. As Julie Olsen Edwards shared, and I completely agree, "No matter how much you know, there's always more to learn" (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011).

In addition to our passions for the ECE field and the future, I would like to take the time to reach out and thank each and every one of my colleagues. Each of you have helped motivate and inspire me to become a more consistent and passionate anti-bias educator on this journey. I have shared many classes and experiences with each of you throughout this program and I am coming to consider many of you friends, more than just fellow colleagues. I feel as though each of you is so passionate and has so much to offer in regards to the field of ECE and I am extremely thankful for you. It is hard to believe we have been through so many challenges and eye opening awakenings and experiences throughout each of these courses together and the journey is coming to a close. However, we all know our anti-bias journeys will continue long after the Walden journey ends. I hope we can remain in touch as we continue through our journeys in anti-bias education in the future, remaining within a support circle that we have learned is so crucial to surviving the journey of anti-bias education. All my best to each of you moving forward into our final course! XO

References:

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).

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Your commitment to anti-bias work. [DVD]. Strategies for working with diverse children. Baltimore, MD: Laureate Education, Inc.

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

This week we discussed working with children of varying abilities and their families, as well as the way to utilize anti-bias education practices with children of this diverse background. There are a wide variety of physical, mental, and social-emotional disorders and disabilities prevalent in the world today. Learning about and truly understanding each disability or disorder is important as an educator in order to provide the appropriate educational opportunities and environment for each child.

Additionally, we had to examine the UNICEF website and choose a country/region to focus on. Once we have chosen a region and country, we needed to share why we had chosen this region, the challenges children in this region are facing and confronting, how these experiences effect children's wellbeing and development, and a personal reflection.

I decided to choose the region Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States. More specifically, I focused on the country of Turkey. I chose to focus on this region and this country, more specifically, because in my experiences teaching in Bellmawr, many of our children come from this region from Turkey, Pakistan, and others within this and the bordering region. With everything taking place in the Middle East and Europe today I thought this would be an interesting area to focus on, as well. I felt compelled to learn more about this region since so many of my students over the past three years have come from this region or have family from this region.

When researching the Unicef website in regards to Turkey, I found that many Syrian refugees had fled to Turkey due to all of the war and destruction taking place in their homes. Schools, homes, hospitals have all been destroyed. Families have fled and children are now taking refuge attending schools in Turkey. I cannot imagine the terror, fear, and stress the children and families are experiencing from the war and destruction, as well as the sudden change of uprooting their lives to start over in a new land. These sudden and serious changes could potentially have a serious detrimental impact on a child's well being, development, and perception of others. Children may begin to experience stress and anxiety, even to the extreme of having post traumatic stress disorder. Families could be facing issues of poverty due to the drastic losses, as well. All of these issues could potentially lead to long term impacts on a child's self-identity, ability to thrive and grow in a learning environment, health concerns, and more.
As it may be evident, children are suffering detrimental impacts to their developmental stages of life in tremendous ways due to the tragic loss and change they are being forced to confront on a daily basis. Being in a new place also allows for trouble in terms of bias and prejudice, too.

Both personally and professionally this knowledge has helped me to understand the life circumstances and challenges being faced by these and many children throughout the world under similar circumstances. This insight has made me realize that it is truly imperative for educators to understand where a child is coming from in more than just the physical manner, more so in regards to the experiences they have been through, the things they have seen, the obstacles they have faced, the ways in which they have acted. Each of these things makes the child face more obstacles and challenges when they enter the classroom as they are struggling to overcome challenges in this new setting, as well. On a personal level, this has also touched my heart in such a way which makes me want to help those children and families in need. A few courses back, I began to follow an organization called Save the Children which is heavily involved in helping children around the world, such as the refugee children and families from Syria residing in Turkey for peace. Since researching the organization in this course, I have continued to follow it and partake in spreading the word of their great cause, as well as donating from time to time to help the children and families in need. This information this week has reignited this fire within me to help others and I have once again revisited the organization's website to find some way to help. If you have not heard of this organization, I highly recommend checking it out. :)

The Sexualization of Early Childhood

Week 6 of this course, Strategies for Working with Diverse Children, was another informative and enlightening week of learning. This week's topics included race and ethnicity and sexualization of children in the field of Early Childhood Education. We spent our discussion and application paper dissecting and discussing the issues and implications of race and ethnicity in ECE, especially the negative impacts when anti-bias education is not utilized. In our blogs, we are to address the issues of sexualization of Early Childhood. In all honesty, this is not a concept I had considered in such depth and concern prior to this week. While I had previously heard of this possible issue, I had not considered it and learned about it in such detail to truly understand the ramifications of this issue. 

First of all, it is important to consider the words of Levin & Kilbourne (2009) when they explain, "The sexualization of childhood is having a profoundly disturbing impact on children's understanding of gender, sexuality, and relationships" (p. 3). When the authors refer to sexualization of childhood, they are stating that children in today's society are exposed to and bombarded by images and messages about sexual behavior through media, toys, clothing, and more. "Children growing up today are bombarded from a very early age with graphic messages about sex and sexiness in the media and popular culture" (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009, p. 2). Disgustingly enough, there are a wide variety of organizations and industries in this society today that knowingly markets items to children with sexualized and violent notions! This issue of sexualization can have long lasting, damaging effects on a child's development from a very young age, negatively impacting their development of a sexual and self-identity, as well as creating problematic sexual behaviors resulting in part from the focus of sexualization they are presented with constantly. As disturbing and troubling as this is to learn, the evidence to support the truth in such concerns is readily available from a simple web search! Songs from many popular singers, dialogue in popular children's television shows and movies, toys and video games, and clothing and costumes advertised are just a few concrete example of the sexualization of childhood. Therefore, I am completely floored at just how deep this issue runs within our society. It is not something that can easily change or dissipate due to the corporations and industries who will ignore the negativity to continue to make money for their companies. It is completely unsettling and it makes me extremely nervous to have children of my own someday in a society such as this one we live in today, with so much angst,  sexualization, negativity, and bias. 

After pondering this issue in depth, I have come to realize that I have noticed examples of children acting out due to sexualization so young. I have been working as a fourth grade teacher for four years now and have been continually surprised and shocked by stories shared between the fourth grades and things I have experienced with my own students. Four years ago, my first year in fourth grade, I was told by another teacher that some of the fourth grade students were caught behaving "inappropriately" in and out of the building on school grounds and school time. In the classrooms at the other elementary school, there is a dividing wall and doors to separate the storage area/coat closet for the teacher and students to hang their things. Students were meeting in this area to "fool around" with their "boyfriends and girlfriends" as other children later explained. Additionally, they would leave school to go to their safety post and instead hide on the side of the building to once again "make out and fool around" with their "boyfriends and girlfriends". I could not be more terrified or shocked! To make matters worse, some of the parents were not startled, surprised, or concerned, and had been organizing "dates" for the children outside of school! These children are 9 and 10 years old and, in my opinion, entirely too young for anything of this nature. 

Another example in my fourth grade experience has been during inside recess days. When the weather is inclement, the students will gather in the gym and we will do movement or brain breaks, in which we play "Just Dance" songs for them to exercise and dance along to. They LOVE this and so do we! Of course, it is crucial to make sure the songs chosen and played are appropriate both lyrically and physically. Last year, when on duty for inside recess with the three fourth grade classes, another teacher had played the song "Timber" by request from a student, without knowing the song at all. The words (you can go to this link to read them if you do not know them already: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pitbull/timber.html - refer to the first verse by Pitbull) were not appropriate and neither were the dance moves. This led to a group of students to begin their own discussion and dance moves, attempting to twerk in the middle of the gym, led by one student who claimed he was the "best twerker" and could teach the girls lessons. Yet another unsettling example of sexualization of childhood through media.  

A third example comes to memory when thinking of the many trick-or-treaters that came to visit on Halloween this year. Living in the same town that I teach in is always an adventure at Halloween as many students from the school recognize me when knocking for treats. This year, a group of girls who attended the elementary school a few years ago and I formerly taught, came to the door. I couldn't help but overhear their conversation as they walked up about their costumes and how they needed to "fix them up" for the Halloween Dance that night so "they looked good" because of certain boys that would be there. In their minds, their costumes weren't "pretty enough" or "sexy enough" compared to other girls that they go to school with and the boys would not like them or notice them because of it. It absolutely broke my heart! Again, they are far too young to be concerned with such things in 6th and 7th grade. This is such a negative mindset that will be detrimental to their continuing development of self-identity and sexual-identity. 

Lastly, when I was working in preschool a few years ago, I always found it interesting to see how children dressed in the dramatic play area during centers. There were some who would dress like a career person (i.e. police officer, fire fighter, nurse, etc.); others would dress as someone they knew from a television show or movie; more would dress like a parent or family member who was important to them. The most interesting is when I observed an interaction between a boy and a girl in the dramatic play area acting as the mom and dad getting ready to go out to a fancy dinner. The boy commented, so sweetly, "Wow, you look SOOOO pretty!" and the girl simply looked in the mirror with a questioning look, hiked up the skirt shorter, did a little booty shake, and said "NOW I look pretty!" I continued to observe to see their reactions before asking why she felt the need to fix her skirt and she said, "Well, that's what ALL the pretty girls do in the movies. They wear skirts like this (adjusted skirt again) and beautifullllll high heels!" I continued discussing things with her but tried to hide the shock from my face. I could not believe a four year old child was already exposed to, noticing, and reacting in this manner!

Each of the aforementioned examples clearly show that the sexualization of childhood is causing children to act in ways that are way beyond their years. They do not even fully understand the reasoning or meaning of what they do but because they see it happening in media they think that is what they have to do. This completely undermines a child's innocence! As an educator, we must continually be aware of the ways in which children speak, act, and respond to varying issues and concerns in our society. Just as we would with issues of gender, race, or culture, we need to respond to issues of sexualization in anti-bias ways. Having a conversation with children about the reasons why they act in such a way when we witness such examples of sexualization will allow them to share what they know, how they feel, and what this means to them. This also allows us, as educators, to take that learned information and counter it in positive ways through examples of appropriate relationships, etc. By doing so, I am hopeful we could return the children to innocence. 

This week's learning has truly been eye-opening. As I mentioned previously, I had not considered the true impact or weight of the issue of sexualization of childhood. Reflecting on my own experiences with working with children has proven this is a major concern for children in today's world. I plan to add this to my growing list of items to learn more about in order to find strategies to overcome or counter such influences in a child's life within the classroom, as well as ways to share with parents and families to help at home, if wanted. On this journey of anti-bias education, I have learned a great deal of information and strategies. I have no doubt those skills and strategies will help me to create and overcome another obstacle or challenge such as this in my future endeavors. 

Reference:

Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books. Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf