8085 MOD 4 DISCUSSI 1

3

RESPONSE

ANGELA NALLS 

RE: Discussion 1 - Module 4

COLLAPSE

Top of Form

Main Question Post

Children need to feel safe and loved. I hope that my students can come into the classroom and know it is a safe space and that I care about them. I want them to have positive memories and build relationships. Of course, I also want them to learn, have fun, gain confidence, and grow as well! Rimm-Kaufmann & Sandilos (2022) explain that “Teachers who foster positive relationships with their students create classroom environments more conducive to learning and meet students' developmental, emotional and academic needs.” It is not always easy as there are a multitude of varying personalities, but I do strive for this in my classroom. After they leave my class, I want them to have the skills they will need to continue to work hard and be successful in their own way. I hope they believe in themselves and know that I will be cheering them on as they continue through school.

The thing that makes me mad when thinking about my students are those that have families that do not see the significance of a good education. There is a difference between not understanding how to help and just not caring. I have had so many kids over the years that could be growing so much more academically if they just had that extra support and stability at home. It breaks my heart when I hear about the circumstances that some students are living in. However, it also helps me to understand them better. It gives me more patience and reminds me to give them grace when they are having a bad day. When a child does not have that safety or love at home, at least they can get it at school. However, I am also going to push them to try their best. It may look different for each student, but not having expectations for all my students is unacceptable. Expectations can give students stability and structure they may not have at home. It also keeps them engaged and builds confidence as they come to understand what is expected of them each day at school (Hathaway, 2015).

I get so excited to teach my students through books and activities that can open many doors into their imagination. Helping them to learn to read so they can immerse themselves into worlds of characters independently is important to me. Planning activities to give them both the educational pieces as well as the fun extension pieces is one of my favorite parts of being a teacher, even after many years in the classroom. Seeing the lightbulb turn on when they “get it” and become voracious readers (or even baby-step readers) makes me so happy! Seeing their excitement in achieving something they worked hard on is a great accomplishment as a teacher. I am hopeful that my students will take what they are learning with me and apply it to other learning, lessons, or even in future grade levels. This can be in either academics, character education, or both. I hope that what they achieve in my early childhood classroom gives them a springboard for doing bigger and better things!

References

Hathaway, E. (2015, December 2). How to set classroom expectations to improve student behavior. Kickboard Blog.  https://www.kickboardforschools.com/classroom-behavior-management/the-value-of-consistent-expectations/#:~:text=With%20consistent%20expectations%2C%20students%20know,to%20keep%20small%20problems%20small .

Rimm-Kaufmann, S. & Sandilos, L. (2022). Improving students’ relationships with teachers to provide essential supports for learning. American Psychological Association.  https://www.apa.org/education-career/k12/relationships#:~:text=Teachers%20who%20foster%20positive%20relationships,developmental%2C%20emotional%20and%20academic%20needs .

Bottom of Form

RESPONSE 2

Whitney Farley 

WFarley Discussion 1 - Module 4 Initial Post

COLLAPSE

Top of Form

Main Question Post 

            Personally, I want children that I associate myself with to feel secure. I always consider ways that I can make my environment a safe and emotionally healthy space for children. When children feel safe and secure, this feeling allows them to actively engage in meaningful play experiences that facilitate development and learning (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2022b). It is my hope that the safe environment that I create supports children in gaining a sense of confidence that allows them to engage in active exploration, healthy relationships with others, and an overall positive affect for life and community. Long after they have left my classroom, I have always wanted children to take their foundation of confidence and apply it to their day-to-day decision-making processes. I want them to have confidence in who they are as a person in order to make decisions that are beneficial to their own well-being while also understanding the impact on their community that they are a part of. With greater investments toward a unified system of high-quality childcare education, all children will be afforded high-quality learning environments that are safe and secure for them to build the confidence needed to thrive later in life.

            I get upset when I think about how some families, and sometimes society, treat children as if they are not human beings. Many times, families do not believe that their children are capable of learning or doing anything productive at all. This disregard for children from birth until the age of 5 years old is evident in the lack of systems in place for the advancement of the early childhood education field. I remember feeling this way during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Communities were struggling with the idea of whether childcare is essential or not. As companies shifted their employees to home-base, childcare centers remained closed, and families went into a panic. Families needed their child’s center to be opened so that they could have someone to watch their children each day. As a center, we could not safely open with the proper COVID procedures in place along with the standing struggles that childcare centers go through such as staffing shortages. It was then that I realized that childcare centers are explicitly seen as babysitting services. I was especially hurt by the number of families that did not even try to consider the health and safety risks of grouping small children together with a deadly virus that seemingly spread faster than any contagious illness that we have seen. In this way, the true disconnect of the field of early childhood to society showed up big time. At its core, respect for the lives of young children is not present within the nation. When supports finally arise in kindergarten, it may be too late for some children, and they are then labeled in a system that has not been supportive of their development up until this point. This truly keeps me up at night and I only hope that my advocacy efforts towards a unified system of high-quality childcare education eventually lead to positive social change within the field.

            I am hopeful for the future of early childhood education. I am excited to live during a time where it seems that the field is finally getting the attention that it needs. I see many childcare organizations and state agencies actively creating models for policymakers, community leaders, and childcare leadership to follow with much emphasis on high-quality care and greater supports for the workforce. It is also encouraging to know that the messages shared are consistent and clear. Brain development that occurs in children from birth through age 8 is at its prime (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2022a; Shonkoff, 2022). We must take advantage of this critical learning period to create safe, secure, and nurturing environments that are conducive to positive child learning outcomes. The base of the learning environment is a workforce that is well equipped with the resources needed to implement high-quality childcare practices. These messages are consistent across leading childcare organizations and agencies and cater to my advocacy topic of greater investments toward a unified system of high-quality childcare education. I am hopeful that with a unified message and greater support for the field, changes in policy are soon to come.

References

National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2022a). Core considerations to inform decision making. NAEYC. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/position-statements/dap/core-considerations.

National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2022b). Principles of Child Development and learning and implications that inform practice. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/position-statements/dap/principles.

Shonkoff, J. P. (2022). Re-envisioning early childhood policy and practice in a world of striking inequality and uncertainty. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/re-envisioning-ecd/.

Bottom of Form