A note of thanks and support

This internship class has been an exciting journey and thanks to everyone in the class for their support and feedback.  Getting to know everyone has been a great experience and it is nice to know that others are going through the same thing that I am experiencing.  Everyone's suggestions, feedback, and support has made it possible to get through this class as well as the class before this one.  Thanks to everyone and I wish you all good luck in your future endeavors.

Enlisting and Providing Support

Questions you have with which your colleagues may be able to provide help and support.

I plan to present my final advocacy plan with a power point presentation.  Can I insert the presentation in a work document so that the instructor can open it as a power point presentation?  I use the computer a lot but am not familiar with inserting presentations into papers.

Resources and information you are seeking.

I have several sources for social/emotional development but does anyone have any other resources that they have found useful in the past?  Currently, I am pulling information from Conscious Discipline, this book helps teachers teach the child through a whole curriculum and by using the positive discipline techniques in this book will build their social emotional skills needed to address the issues of today’s world. Creative Curriculum for Infants and Preschool, help teachers to build a high-quality program for their students by utilizing the standards of the profession.  These standards use indicators that can help identify an early childhood program of high quality.  CSEFEL, the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning provides information on the social emotional development and school readiness of young children.  NAYEC, National Association for the Education of Young Children, provides information for young children from infancy through school readiness.

Resources and/or information you have found helpful and insightful.

Pulling information from CSEFEL, NAYEC, Conscious Discipline, and Creative Curriculum for Infants and Preschool has given me a lot of very useful information.  Using these three together helped me pull together a great research paper and hopefully a good Advocacy Plan.  Social/Emotion development must be nourished from infancy and continued throughout a child’s development according to Dr. Becky Bailey, Conscious Discipline.  These four resources stress the importance of using developmentally appropriate practices with children in order to build their self-confidence and social emotional development. 

Personal Advocacy Journal-Social/Emotional Development

“Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.”

― Bill Drayton, Leading Social Entrepreneurs Changing the World

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/advocacy

What inspires and excites you most about your advocacy plan and being an advocate?

My advocacy plan is on the importance of social/emotional development in young children.  It excites me to know that by intentionally building relationships with children from infancy a provider can make a big difference in how that child is able to handle their social development, such as making friends or being social, and also their emotional development, such as knowing how to control their emotions or handling how to share.  The relationship between the caregiver, parent, and the child is one of the most important relationships that the child has during the first five years of their life and I want to revolutionize social/emotional development at least at my center.

What challenges and/or anxieties do you feel related to engaging in the advocacy efforts you have targeted?

My biggest anxiety is that others will not understand the importance of social/emotional development.  I do plan to implement my plan in my community.  I am sure that others are going to get tired of me talking about the importance of social/emotional development but I believe strongly that this is such an important issue for young children that I am not going to give up.  I do not have any control over what the other centers and their employees do about implementing social/emotional development but I intend to make sure that my employees know what it is and how to properly implement it.  I want the children that are entrusted to my center get the best care in all aspects of their development.

What do you believe will be most effective in helping your overcome any challenging emotions you may be feeling with regard to presenting and implementing your Advocacy Action Plan?

Presenting the plan is going to be pretty nerve racking because I am not sure how the people I am presenting to feel about social-emotional development.  I also do not know some of the people that I will be presenting very well, even though I have worked with them over the past couple of semesters I still believe that they look at me as just someone in childcare and not really knowing what is going on in the educational world.

How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?

I believe that the best way to encourage others is by giving them positive feedback concerning their advocacy efforts.  I believe that positive feedback motivates a person to perform more effectively and do more in their advocacy efforts. 

Others can encourage me by providing positive and helpful feedback concerning my advocacy efforts.  I do not want everyone to agree with what I plan to present but tell me where I might need improvement.  I would much rather hear about improvement from my classmates than from co-workers.

Kathy Mulvin EDU455B1-Social Emotional Development

EDU455B1

I am excited to start my last semester at Kendall.  It has been a long journey but a great one.  Many of you I have had in classes over the past couple of years and it has been fun getting to know you and your families.  Good luck to everyone in this class. 

A Note of Thanks and Support

Over the past 8 weeks, we have gotten to know each other better and have helped each other with insights and direction in writing our research papers.  I want to thank everyone for their input and insights to my topic of social-emotional development.  I went through many stages of learning and discovery while writing the research paper.  First, I could not believe that we had to write a 12-15 page paper, I was afraid that I could not write that many pages.  Second, the task of finding nine sources scared me but I found them fairly easily and had problems narrowing them down.  Third, the actual process of writing the paper and the time that it consumed.  Now, we are at the end of our journey for this class and I have learned so much about writing and a lot about each of you in the class that I do have the overwhelming feeling any longer but it has been replaced with one of success and the making of new friends. 

I would also like to thank Professor Susie, she has been such a help and has responded so quickly to any questions as well as grading assignments promptly.  I was in one class where the professor did not have anything graded until the last module, it was very difficult trying to figure out what she expected from the students but Professor Susie made it very easy to overcome any mistakes before the next module.  Thank you Professor Susie for your professionalism. 

I wish everyone in the class success in implementing their advocacy plan and also on their paper for this class.  Good luck and thanks to everyone!

Social/Emotional Development

Observing and Interacting with Families of the Children in your Setting.

I am observing in an early childhood program in the public school.  All the children in the classroom have identified special needs and also have an IEP.  I spoke with one of the parents when they dropped off their child.  Mrs. Wilson has a child with autism and her son is four years old.  I explained to her that I was involved in an advocacy project for the promotion of social/emotional development for young children.  I asked her if she believed that her son was emotionally at his age level or did she feel that he was behind?  She replied that she really was not aware of his social/emotional level but she did not believe that he acted like other four year olds his age; she believed that he was more on a three year old level.  Since I have had this child at my daycare in the past I agreed with her that he was probably only on a three year old level with his social/emotional development.  

Mrs. Wilson also shared with me that she believed that special needs children were normally behind social/emotionally.  I told her that from my observations that I believed that this was true.  I asked her if she had ever had a discussion with her son’s doctors concerning his social/emotional development and she said that topic had not come up.  Her answer was one that I had suspected because in my experience a doctor does not focus on this aspect of a child’s development.  I then asked her if she had any conversations with her son’s teachers at early childhood concerning his social/emotional development.  She said that they had not discussed this aspect with her.  She also said that the only thing that they talk to her about is his behavior and usually only his poor behavior.  The answer to this last question was a surprise to me because I thought that as an early childhood teacher they would be focusing on the child’s social/emotional development.  

I also spoke to Mrs. Gray who has a five year old child with physical disabilities and he is also in the early childhood program.  Her child has a quick tempter, plays very intense, throws a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his way, and has a very short attention span.  I asked her if she knew about social/emotional development and she replied that she did and she believed that her son was at the level of development that he needed to be.  I have been observing her son since early January and he definitely is not at the social/emotional level of development that he needs to be.  I asked her what indicators she used to come to this determination.   She replied that the child’s doctor had told her that he was perfect and not to be concerned about his social/emotional development.  This was a real surprise to me and I can only image that the doctor has not spent any amount of time with this child. 

I asked her if the early childhood teachers had ever talked with her concerning his social/emotional development and she said that they had not mentioned it.  They only talked with her concerning his poor behavior and this was almost daily.  At this point of our conversation, I wondered if she was not connecting his poor behavior with his lack of social/emotional development.  

These conversations confirmed what I had believed that a child’s social/emotional development is not being fully considered and many early childhood teachers do not know how to identify a child’s social/emotional level or how to help the child move to the next level of development.  As a result, my advocacy will be focusing on providing additional education to early childhood teachers so that they can help a child promote their social/emotional development.