Microaggression

Microaggression are brief everyday indignities that  maybe verbal, behavioral, or environmental, communicated intentionally or unintentionally, contains an insulting message and often causes severe psychological stress and harm (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.).

An example of microaggression that I experienced this week is that during a teacher meeting at work we found out that we had a mandatory literacy activity on Monday the 10^th of December and I made a comment that it was going to be rough because Monday nights are boy scout night and the comment that “why can’t you husband take him? It is Boy Scouts after all.  The emphasis was on boy and the assumption that I got was that it should be a father/son only thing.  This left me thinking that because I was a girl I was not supposed to take my son to boy scouts.

The information that I received this week has me watching closely at what is being said and for reactions to those words.  Because people take meaning from words in different forms things that are said maybe misinterpreted.  Watching for a reaction will help me in determining if I said something that offended some one.  I need to know if I am going to be able to monitor and fix the hidden biases that I am not fully aware of.  The two implicit Association tests (IAT) that I took young versus old and thin versus fat.  The test suggests that I have a strong preference towards young to old and thin to fat.  I found this kind of interesting as I am on the fat side and older than most of my peers.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.). Microaggressions in everyday Life. [Video Webcast]. In Perspective, Diversity, and Equality Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_1958978_1%26url%3D

Diversity…? Culture…?

I talked to four different people about what diversity and culture means to them.  They all had similar responses.  Their responses were:

Diversity

·         Diversity is the different ethnicity, cultures, social economics, traditions and values.

·         Diversity is different ways of life; cultural, social, economic, psychological.  It is people coming together, working together.

·         Diversity is things that are different about each other, ethnicity, race, demographics, age, and language.

·         Diversity is race and cultures.

Culture

·         Culture is an aspect of diversity, community values, likes, and dislikes. It can be broad like American culture or it can be regional, or community.

·         Culture is the way of life.  It is a group of people and the way they see and view the world.

·         Culture is everything, demographics, the groups that you hang out with, economics, race, ethnicity, and age.

·         Culture is people’s beliefs, the way they were raised, and backgrounds.

“The word culture refers to how particular groups of people live.  It is the way we eat, sleep, talk, play, care for the sick, relate to one another, think about work, arrange our kitchens, and remember our dead.  It includes the language we speak, the religion or spirituality we practice (or do not), and the clothing, housing, food and rituals/holidays with which we feel most comfortable” (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2012, p. 55).  With this being said the people I talked to discussed culture as the way we see and view the world around us, our beliefs and our backgrounds.  They mentioned all the big stuff that people often thinks about we talking about culture; however they did not mention any of the smaller aspects like the foods that we eat, where we sleep, and how we care for each other.

I think that diversity and culture goes hand in hand.  Every culture is diverse meaning that it is different from other cultures.  There is also diversity within cultural groups as no two people are the same. 

Reference:

Derman-Sparks, L. and Edwards, J. (2012). Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves. Washington, DC; National Association for the Education of Young Children



Family Culture

If there were a major catastrophe and my family and I had to evacuate the three items that I would take would be:

1.      Family photo album

2.      A stuffed doll that I have had since I was two.

3.      A quilt that my grandmother made for me.

The photo album reminds me of my ancestors, growing up years, and my children.  My stuff doll was the one thing that I could tell everything to without feeling like I am being judged.  I hurt no one’s feelings and I was able to relieve some of my stress.  The quilt is a patchwork that was made with love especially for me by my grandmother.

To have to give up anyone of these items would hurt very much.  It would be like giving up a part of who I am and how I survived to get here.  I do not which item that I would choose to keep if I could only keep one.  Though I do not use my doll like I did when I was younger she would be very hard to part with as she knows more about me than anyone else.  The quilt is very special to me it was made out of materials from dresses that I used to wear.  My grandmother signed the quilt with love and made it special for me.  It would keep me warm and remind me of times that I spent with my grandmother.  Pictures are something that cannot be replaced.  Pictures help to tell stories of the past and to see relatives that I have never met, such as my grandpa on my mother’s side.  He died during war when my mom was just four months old. 

I grew up in a large family and I really had to think about what I would take with me.  It might be to my benefit to place pictures on my computer and making my computer one of the items that I take with me.  If I did this I could take a picture of my doll and the quilt to have though it would not be the same as having it in person. 

When I Think of Research…

When I Think of Research…

I want to start by saying this has been a challenging course for me.  I knew next to nothing about doing research before I began this course so the insights that I gained are too much to write in this paper.  I learned that there are different methods of research quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods.  I learned that there are different methods of choosing the participants that are in the research study.  I found it interesting that in quantitative research researchers perform experiments and get facts that are numeric related while qualitative gives the meaning or understanding of the study (Mac Naughton, Rolfe, & Siraj-Blatchford, 2010).  If researchers mix the methods they could get a complete picture with a numeric experiment with meaning and understanding.  I guess you would say a full story of the research study. 

I understand more about research and the process of doing a research study.  The simulation that we did during this course has helped to build my understanding.  Research is challenging and hard work.  I understand more about research that I am comfortable about reading and conducting literature reviews.

Designing a research study takes time to gather the question and to decide what method of research to use.  Deciding who the participants that are needed and how researchers decide their sampling is a step that I never considered.  Conducting research is a challenge for me however I feel that with practice research designs would be less challenging.

Writing a research question that was simple enough to be conducted in a single resource study was challenging.  I feel that my research questions have been very broad; however I learned that in a qualitative study the researcher question can be broader then in a quantitative study.  The quantitative research question needs to have a cause and effect that can be turned into an experiment.  This whole course has been challenging for me.  Learning a lot about research and the ways to design a research study is a challenge in itself.

My perceptions of early childhood professionals are still held highly.  I have found a new perspective of researchers in the early childhood field.  Research is continuously needed to improve the early childhood field.  This research benefits children and early childhood educators by giving new information that is needed to increase the learning and development of young children.

Finally, I would like to thank all my colleagues for their support, feedback, and sharing of their knowledge.  I have learned a lot about research with your help and I thank you.  I would also like to thank Dr. Barbara Walker for stepping in, not making a bunch of changes for the course, and for your responses and feedback.  I appreciate your assistance in this course.

Luci

Research Around the World

I explored Early Childhood Australia through the website http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ I saw a lot of similarities to NAEYC website.  The following are the research themes that I found while exploring this site:

·         Being, Belonging, and Becoming

·         School Readiness and Children’s transitions

·         Sustainability, global warming and climate change

·         Baby and Toddler sleeping

·         Child health and childhood obesity

The Early Childhood Australia (ECA) position statement of regret and commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families:  The ECA recognizes them as the original inhabitants of Australia; the ECA is committed to reconciliation and recognize that home cultures help develop an identity and self-worth. 

While exploring ECA position statement: children of Asylum Seekers I found this interesting bit of information: “half of the world’s refugees are children.”  This tells us that we really need to focus on these children giving them the extra support.  As I explored I found that Australia’s early childhood field is researching the same or similar issues that we are in the United States.

This website is worthy of further exploration. 

Research Studies

            The research that I would study if I had no limitations or restrictions would be: What skills do young children need to be successful when entering public school?  School readiness skills are very important for young children to be successful throughout their education and life. As years go by I am seeing more and more expectations on young children and most of it is not developmentally appropriate, and I feel that we need to know where young children should be developmentally to be successful.  My goal would be to study developmental skills starting in infants and setting standards that build up to replace the standards that start at third grade and goes down.  We need to start at the beginning and move forward in what we expect of young children.  We need to teach them to be life-long learners and that will not happen if our expectations for them are out of their reach.

Research Journey

The topic I chose is at what age do problem-solving skills start in young children?  I work with children that have special needs and I facilitate problem-solving skills.  I use the Second Step curriculum to help with this and to build social skills in my classroom.  I need to know that I am not pushing skills that children are not ready for and to know where my students should be.  Problem-solving skills are used throughout life and are a very important school readiness skill.   Children need problem-solving skills to be successful in school and in life.

This class and constructing research has been very challenging.  I have learned a lot and we are only in week 2.  Any suggestions and insights for researching as well as research articles that you might find on problem-solving skills in young children would be much appreciated. 

Some articles that I have found:

Webster-Stratton, C. & Reid, M. J. (2004). Strengthening social and emotional competence in young children-The foundation for early school readiness and success: Incredible years classroom social skills and problem-solving curriculum. Infants and Young Children, 17(2), p. 96-113. Retrieved from http://journals.lww.com/iycjournal/Abstract/2004/04000/Strengthening_Social_and_Emotional_Competence_in.2.aspx

Bernard-Opitz, V. Sriram, N. and Nakhoda-Sapuan, S. (2001). Enhancing social problems solving in children with autism and normal children through computer-assisted instruction. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31(4), 377-384. DOI: 10.1023/A:1010660502130 Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/content/k2t2416v357q3883/