Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

            Everyone has a gender; we are either a male or female.  No matter what we wear or the things we enjoy doing our gender will not change.  Children learn their gender identity in their very early years.  They start discovering differences in their bodies, and they learn what is expected of each gender through their families and communities.  In the media presentation, Start Seeing Diversity: Gender, we learn that we need to listen and watch children during free play to learn the biases that children have about the roles of gender (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011b).  After listening to the media presentations and reading our resources this week, I have been really paying attention to what children are saying and doing in my classroom.  I had a child tell me that only girls can wear a certain straw hat and only boys can build with blocks.  I could see that she had learned gender bias roles.  I clarified to her and her peers that both boys and girls could play with any toy in the classroom (there are not any only boy toys or only girl toys).

            Children learn so much through their family, books, movies, television shows, commercials, cultures in early childhood centers and schools.  A lot of children’s favorite stories and television shows to include movies depict gender roles as well as family types.  Most stories and children’s shows demonstrate a family as a mother, father, and children; however, in reality there are many types of family structures.  Television shows are starting to show more single parent families.  Though you do not find many books or television shows for children that demonstrate the lesbian or gay family structures.

            I believe that it is important that centers include books that include all family structures.  We need to help all children learn and value their identity not just the few that in the “normal” family structure.  Children need to be able to see and hear about other families like theirs.  They need to know that have two moms or two dads is part of who they are.  As early childhood professionals we need to help all children value and respect the diversity of family structure as well as helping society to understand and value all children no matter what their family structure is.

            The term tomboy is used a lot.  I was called a tomboy when I was a child and teenager.  I really never thought much about it.  After reading the resources and watching the media resources I realize that this is a stereotype given to girls that do what society considers boy activities.  Some examples that I did that was considered to be boyish are climbing trees, swinging on grapevines, riding stick horses, and playing with cars.  To be fair my brothers played school and house, we had a whole city in our play and our stuffed animals were the residents this could have been considered kind of girlish.  Being called a tomboy could have given me a gender identity crisis.  As Tina in the media presentation Learning from Another’s Life Story, learned through growing up being forced to follow society’s roles of a girl and then allowing her children free to decide what they want to wear and play (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011a).  It is so important that children realize that gender will not change no matter what they do.  We need to teach children about stereotypes and how our words hurt people even when we do not mean to.  Sexual orientation comes up when we talk about our families, according to the media presentation, Start Seeing Diversity: Sexual Orientation and we need to validate our families through pictures, drawings, and stories (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011c).

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011a). EDUC 6357-6 Diversity, Development, and Learning [Webcast]. Learning from Another’s Life Story. Baltimore, MD: Author. Retrieved from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/EDUC/6357/CH/mm/audio_player/index_week3.html

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011b). EDUC 6357-6 Diversity, Development, and Learning [Webcast]. Start Seeing Diversity: Gender. Baltimore, MD: Author. 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_2651072_1%26url%3D

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011c). EDUC 6357-6 Diversity, Development, and Learning [Webcast]. Start Seeing Diversity: Sexual Orientation. Baltimore, MD: Author. 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_2651072_1%26url%3D

Week 8 Saying Good bye

I have made it through our final class before we move in different directions as we begin our specialization classes.  I do so hope that I see some familiar names in the diversity and teaching specialty.  We have almost completed our Master’s degrees and I am so excited for all of us.  I have learned a lot through our discussions and blog posts. 

I want to take a moment and thank each of you for your contribution to my learning experience and for making a respectful space for learning and growing.  I do hope that we can continue to inspire each other and help with our challenges that we will face as we move on with our careers. 

I will leave you with my personal email address if anyone wishes to keep in touch, share resources, and ideas that may help us help children become life-long learners.  My email address is lucibarnes@hotmail.com

Thank you again for this great learning experience,

Luci

Week 6 – Team Adjourning

I have been in many groups; some of them were good and others not so well.  The teams that were the hardest to adjourn from were the ones that had unfinished business.  Though I find it is easy to leave the teams that have not established trust and respect with all of the members.  It is also very hard for me to leave teams or groups that I have established a bond with.  It will be very hard for me to adjourn from the team of colleagues that I have learned with and from throughout my master’s degree program.  I truly hope that we can continue to learn and help each other throughout our careers.  I feel that it will be hard because we have grown together and have learned so much from each other.  It is essential that we experience the adjourning stage because it provides closer.  With closer we can celebrate our success, explore thing that we need to continue to work on or build on for future situations. 

Week 5 Conflict Management

A conflict that I have experienced is with my youngest daughter.  She is ten and is trying to spread her wings.  We have a fire hydrant close to the house and the water department had it turned on; draining the water (they do this every so often).  The conflict arose because my daughter enjoys playing in the water and I thought it was too cold for getting all wet.  Just to kind of set the stage I was fighting a flu-like virus and I am still fighting the remains of this virus.  It was in the low fifties here and the sun was still out.  I told her that she could not play in the water and had to redirect her multiple times out of the water.  She had a hard time understanding why she could not play in the water especially when the neighbor children were allowed to. 

I could have been more compassionate by using The Center for Nonviolent Communication’s (NVC) model and demonstrated empathetically listening and honest expressing while redirecting.  The three R’s would have been appropriate here as will.  I should have listened to her side of the issue with an open mind and then explained my issue with her playing in the water instead of just saying it was too cold to play in the water.  If I had followed these steps I would have demonstrated respect for my daughter’s view of the issue and might have been more open to maybe some play without getting wet. 

           

Some help that I need is how to put a stop to the constant bickering of siblings.  My son age 13 and my daughter age 10 are always at each other’s throats.  They go as far as telling each other that they hate them.  It is a constant battle.  My son being three years older is constantly telling his father that he should have more privileges then his sister and maybe he should and in reality he does.  However their chores around the house are the same and my son does not realize that with more privileges come more responsibilities (which he does not like).  If you can help me come up with ideas to slow or stop the constant bickering in my household I would be grateful.

Thank you for your support!

References

The Center for Nonviolent Communication. (n.d.). The center for nonviolent communication. Retrieved from http://www.cnvc.org/

Communication Evaluations: Self and Others

            After I took the three communication quizzes I had my husband, and one of the speech therapist, Ms. Mary, that I work closely with for several years also assess me on my communication skills.  It surprised me as how close all the scores were.  My husband and Ms. Mary assessed my communication anxiety in the moderate level while I assessed myself in the elevated level.  My husband did make the comment that he didn’t know whether my pulse raced, or my heart beat faster.  I was surprised that I hid my anxieties at all though I still need to work on it.

            The scores were even closer on the verbal aggressiveness scale.  Ms. Mary and I were just one point apart and I assessed in the moderate level.  My husband assessed me in the lower end of the significant level.  I think that I am more aggressive communicator with him because he never truly hears what I have to say.  I really do try to take other people’s feelings into account when I communicate with them.  My family frustrates me at times and I tend to forget to considerate their feelings when mine are being ignored.

            My listening style is people-oriented.  All three of us assessed me in this group.  I am very empathetic and concerned about others.  It impressed me that Ms. Mary and my husband saw that in me as well.  I also do find that I sometimes make poor judgments because I am a very trusting person.  This is something that I need to work on so that I am not overly trusting and improve my judgments.

            I learned that I have a hard time perceiving things about people that are not obvious.  I learned a long time ago that looks can be deceiving.  However I do use my perceptions to keep my family and myself safe.  If I perceived the situation or person as unsafe safe, than I would not communicate with them or engage in that situation.  I might take the chance if I was with friends though.  I also learned the different levels and styles of communication and none of them are bad per se though it is best to have some of them all I think.  Learning about perceptions and my communication styles will benefit me in how I communicate with my family, friends, colleagues, families that I work with, and the children that I work with.

Communicating with Others

I find that I communicate differently within different contexts and with different people.  The way I communicate with my children differs from how I communicate with my husband, and I communicate differently with my extended family.  I communicate differently with my colleagues at school than I do when we are away from work.  My friends are communicated with differently than all the rest.  All of the above people have different cultures and I communicate with them in different contexts.  There are professional, social, and just play contexts that I communicate within.  I am very professional within a professional context with my colleagues and during other times I am less professional. 

My nonverbal communication is what I really have to watch when communicating or attempting to communicate.  I think that my nonverbal language is used more often than my verbal communication.  However I am working on improving my nonverbal communication.

The things that I learned this week that will help me in my communication are the Platinum Rule, as it would be beneficial to me if I worked on looking beyond myself and taking in what others are feeling.  I also need to work on my tone of voice and my nonverbal communication skills. 

I am learning a lot about my communication skills and what I need to do to help improve these skills.

Communication in Television

This show seemed to jump from scene to scene.  The show started with small talk with a couple of teenagers cleaning the pool.  A lot of body language was used such as arm shrugs and pointing.  The facial expression was serious.  The next scene showed a housekeeper leaving the house her expression was tires.  Teenager went to room looked angry as he was making his life plan.  Teenager moves earphones away from ear as opens the door some small talk around the table. 

This show is about a dysfunctional family.  The teenager had a one night stand with a murder and takes responsibility for his baby when the murder was executed.  It was really hard to see that it was about a family until you got into it.  They all looked about same age except mamma that was considerately older. 

The communication that I saw would have been easier if I knew the characters that were in the story or the story theme.  I would probably make better observations if it was a show that I was familiar with.

This was somewhat challenging activity.  I have a hard time watching silent shows and then my family wanted to turn the volume on.