Reflecting on Learning

The most passionate hope for my future as an early childhood professional, and for children, and families with whom I work or will work with are to build positive relationships with all young children and their families. These relationships include respect, honesty, trust and understanding culture differences. All children are created whole, endowed with innate, with dignity and wonder, and worthy of respect (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010). In order to become an effective anti-bias teacher, I will go deeper into liberation in order to help young children to over- come thoughts of biases they might have. Early childhood teachers should have faith that all young children deserve the opportunity and resources to fulfill their potential goals in life (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010).

Dr. Pickens,

Thank you for teaching this wonderful course. Also, thank you for your comments, for answering my e-mail at an appropriate time, and thank you for the feedback.

To my colleagues,

This has been an amazing course. I have enjoyed reading you all posts and comments on the discussion board. I have learned a great deal of information and ideas from you all to help me on my journey in the early childhood field. Thanks for sharing your insights with me. Good luck on your journey!!

Reference

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).

Impact on Early Emotional Development

The area of the world I chose to share with my colleagues is Eastern and Southern Africa. The reason I chose this region because it had a section wherein Malawi the leaders of Africa had a say on disability. It was said that “Disability is not inability” and organized by the President of Malawi (UNICEF, 2013). There were several young children and adults with disabilities joined the football team. “Not only did the teams bring football legends together, but also a new type of player, athletes who despite their intellectual disability, were demonstrating that they could compete with the best” (UNICEF, 2013).

In this Malawi, young children with disabilities faced many obstacles in their lives. They spent their whole life with disappointments and difficulties. Rachel Kachaje, who once was an activist, and now confined to a wheelchair; hope and dream for the future of people with disabilities in Malawi and across the world is that there would be no more barriers to break down, and people with disabilities, will live free from humiliation, misunderstanding and myth (UNICEF, 2013). There were only people with disabilities on the football team; this team was organized to send a message that “disability is not inability”. This article showed that children can do anything that is appropriate with time spent.

 Joyce Banda a Minister of Disability and Elderly Affairs.

It look like young children in Malawi with disabilities being treated with just and fairness. There should not be any effect on children’s well-being and development thanks to the president in Malawi. The president herself has made it possible for children with disabilities to have the same rights as other children. On the day of the football game, a special Olympic athlete from Malawi acknowledged the unique day. He never though growing up with an intellectual disability, that still keep him hidden, and shunned, that he would be speaking before the Vice President and many dignitaries in a crowded stadium (UNICEF, 2013).

I think all young children should be treated with respect, dignity and honesty. Young children with disabilities should have the same learning opportunity as those without disabilities. It is essential for teachers to provide activities to enhance young children abilities in classrooms setting. The insight I have gained as a professional in the early childhood field is to spend extra time, show passion and have patient with children of special needs; this will show disability is not failure in our country. Young children learn fast, and helping them to learn as they grow and develop will help them to reach their potential goals in life.

Reference

UNICEF, Eastern and Southern Africa: Children with Disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html.

The Sexualization of Early Childhood

It is essential for adults and teachers to know where young children are at all times. After reading the topic “So Sexy So Soon”, I have gained many insights related to sexualization of early childhood. Young children growing-up within society today are very different from long ago. At an early age, young children are playing with sexy items, and engaged in sexiness within society. Young children encounter these issues at much younger ages than in the past, long before they have the ability to understand or deal with them (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Young children have toys and video games that sexy and violent. Most industries are making a large amount of money using sexy toys and other objects to gain young children interest (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Some children can afford these sexy items with parent’s income and some children cannot afford them, but all of them are seriously hurting. Whatever their race, ethnic group, economic status, or gender, and whether they can afford to buy a lot or very few of these products, children are deeply affected (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009).

When parents buy sexy toys for their children, it is inviting them to want dress and look sexy as well. For example; my oldest granddaughter is twelve years old and like wearing red lipstick, but we only let her wear it for dance class because it is a requirement for all dance students. Every time she put on the red lipstick my two year old granddaughter push her lips out to get some. Another example, my friend has a sixteen year old daughter in high school. She is in the band and love turning around so she can see her backside in the mirror. Now, my two year old granddaughter turns backward to the mirror and says “big butt”. I am working on this situation fast and in a hurry. Lastly, my neighbor was keeping two little girls after school for two working mothers. One child was eight, and the other child was four. He walked into the bedroom where they supposed to be watching TV and found the oldest child on top of the small child doing sexy things. While parents struggle to make sense of all this, children are being robbed of valuable time for age-appropriate developmental tasks, and they may begin to engage in precocious sexual behavior (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009).

When we stop long enough to listen to the voices in our head, we should realize it makes perfect sense that young children might like sexy objects given the sexualized environment around them. What worries me the most; young children suffer the consequences for the sexualization of their childhood. As young children grow and develop; they are constantly facing images and sexual messages that they do not understand at their early age. Young children can become very frighten and confuse as they learn about their gender role in life. At an early age, girls learn that their value determined by how beautiful, thin, “hot,” and sexy they are (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Boys learn about masculinity and how to judge young girls (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). As professionals, we have to teach young children that when exposed to sex too quickly it can hurt their healthy development. It can cause violent, attachment, diseases and even the birth of a baby.

My awareness of the sexualization of early childhood been influenced in many ways. One thing that stands out the most to me is as young children get older they learn to associate physical appearance and buying the right products not only with being sexy, but also with being successful as a person (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Another thing, parents teaches their children to say no to sex, but saying no is not enough, we have to find other approaches. We should be caring adults to help children to understand what they see, instead of leaving them to judge for themselves. Adults should know what stores children are shopping in, know the media they are seeing, what they are watching on TV, avoid stereotyping, eliminate items pertaining to sexy, and allow children to ask and answer questions concerning sex if they choose to. Also, adults should engage in conversation on a regular basis with young children. In doing this, it can reduce the corporation from marking sexy items to children.

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

Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

“ISMS” are institutionalized that could lead to discrimination and prejudice, verbal or nonverbal within society. Institutionalized discrimination and prejudice based solely on social identities, which includes one’s ability/disability, culture/ethnicity, economic, class, gender, sexual orientation and race identity all plays a role in which individuals may be treated within society (Derman-Sparks & Edwards). Many people living in an “isms” world where prejudice and discrimination exits in institutions because of social identities hinder them from achieving their potential goals in life. This is the reason why many families today maybe suffering from poverty.

I do not see any consequences young children and their families can expect from me because of the “ism(s)”. I have a greater understanding on how social identity shapes a person’s life. As a professional, I have not had experience with “ism(s)” that would cause me to disrespect young children and their families. Associating with different groups of “ism” will help me to learn, appreciate, adapt and respect the differences and/or similarities of others. I still plan to teach young children to respect the different and/or similarities of each other as well.

There are several ways young children will benefit from learning not to be prejudice or bias toward others. For example, they can build better relationships with parents, professionals and parents can work side-by-side for the well-being of young children, and each child will have the opportunity to provide activities and pictures of diversity into the classroom setting; this can reduce any prejudice or bias feelings they may have toward others. In doing this, it can decrease cultural racism and young children and their families can learn to respect each other and not destroy other cultures (Derman-Sparks & Edward, 2010). In all team relationships, there should communication, collaboration, respect, honesty, a vision of desired outcomes, commitment to achievements, and trust when times get hard on relationships.

Reference

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).