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. 

Module 3-Social Emotional Development

I first talked with the teacher where I am doing my observations and asked her what some of her concerns were concerning a child’s social emotional development.  Since she teaches special needs children she believed that they were not at the social emotional level of development that they should be.  She worked daily on trying to move them to the next level.  The children in her class start when they turn three years old and stay with in her classroom until they enter kindergarten.  As a result of having the child for at least two years she can measure their social emotional development. 

Some of the areas that she worked with them in relationship to social emotional development included:

                       

*Following classroom routines-at first the child allows the teacher to direct the child through the daily routine and as they develop social emotional responsibility they will follow and understand the purpose of this daily procedure and tells others what will come next such as we can’t eat snack until we wash our hands.

*Sharing and respecting the rights of others-at first the child may play alongside another child using the same material without any kind of conflict but as they grow they begin to share as well as defend the rights of other children to have a turn. 

She agreed that this area of development is very important and many times overlooked by early childhood educators.  She believes that social emotional development does not just happen but a child needs to be taught this skill just as they are taught how to catch a ball, listen when read a story, or how to hold a pencil. 

The second person that I spoke to was a director of another center in my area.  She indicated that her biggest challenge in relationship to social emotional development is the lack of education on the part of her staff.  In Illinois, to work in a center the minimum education that is required is an associate degree and many times social emotional development is never talked about at this level.  She tries to provide educational materials and seminars for her staff but many of them just do not seem to understand the importance of working with the child to develop social emotional development.  Before she bought the center and became the director she was a kindergarten teacher and she shared with me that she could see the lack of social emotional development in the children entering kindergarten.  They had to learn this skill as well as everything else that were required of them for kindergarten and sometimes it was to overwhelming for the child.  She believes that if social emotional development were nurtured intentionally during early childhood then the child would not have as many problems when they started kindergarten.

Observing and Interacting with Professionals, Children, and Families in an Early Childhood Setting

I observed at a preschool early childhood program in the Centralia City Schools.  This early childhood program is located within the kindergarten center and is one of two programs that the school system offers.  It is a half-day program with approximately twelve children in each session for a total of forty-eight children receiving special needs services. 

The program that I observed in has a lead teacher and three aides.  There is boy with spinibifida and a girl with autism who have private aides.  The other aide takes care of the needs for the other ten children.   In addition to teaching these children they are also potty training them without a private bathroom in their room. 

I spoke with the lead teacher and asked her if she believed that the amount of special need children in the program has increased over the years and she said that they have definitely had an increase in the number of children that have entered the program.  She said that the children are referred through Birth to Three, Head Start, and a community screening that is done every spring.  There are two special need early childhood classes and when the child enters the program they stay with the same teacher until they go into kindergarten.  She indicated that it was exciting to witness the child develop and grow while they were in her class.  She is a definite advocate for inclusion in the classroom.

I have observed in this class before this semester and I was pleased to see that she follows the same routine every day.  By this I mean they do the same sort of activity daily at the same time.  I spoke with the main aide and she said that they rotate toys on a daily basis in some instances and on a weekly basis in other instances.  They usually start with free play but this is very controlled free play, the aide has manipulatives out for the children to play with individually, then they have a circle time, art project and free play associated with the weekly theme, snack, book time and music.  The children definitely know what to expect next daily.  I believe this routine is very important for all children but especially for a special needs child. 

During the art and free play time each aide works with the children on some sort of individual activity such as sorting from smallest to largest and records their progress on a chart, thus they have a daily evaluation of the child’s development in various areas.  There are usually four activity centers with teacher directed activities going on at the same time.  I thought this was a great way to constantly assess the child’s development and it seemed to be fairly easy and without a lot of paperwork.  When it comes time to assess the child’s development they have a lot of data and input for the child’s IEP.  This method also provides them with a time line for the child’s development since daily sheets have the date posted on them.

One thing that I observed was that the teacher checked their backpacks as soon as they arrived.  I asked her why she checked them and she said that she had sent homework home with them the day before and she was checking to see if it was completed and returned.  If they returned it completed they got to take something out of the treasure chest.  I thought that this was a really good idea for getting them into the habit of doing homework.

Initial blog-week2module1

Insights gained from your interviews regarding current advocacy efforts and needs in your area of interest within the field of early childhood.

My area of interest within the field of early childhood is a child’s social/emotional development.  I spoke to a speech therapist, one who has been in the field for nineteen years, and she indicated that she works mainly with children who have special needs and they tend to be behind other children in the classroom socially/emotionally.  She works for the Birth to Three program.  She also said that it is very important to determine their age socially/emotionally since they are special needs children.  She believed that it would be easier to determine a child’s social/emotional development with a child without special needs.  Since she is a speech therapist, she focuses on their speech and trying to improve it but she also works with them in relationship to playing with toys and following her directions and by this she can determine their social/emotional age. 

The other professional who I spoke to is an early childhood teacher for four-year old children with special needs.  She works for the city school system and her classroom is in the kindergarten center.  I discussed with her that I wanted to do my research paper on the social/emotional development of early childhood children and she thought that I would be able to find a lot of information concerning this topic.  She also indicated that it is very important for the teacher to know where the child is social/emotional in their development.  She told me to observe the children and after they leave for the day we would talk about which ones I felt were not at the social/emotional level of development that they needed to be at.  After we discussed each child (ten total), we agreed on all but one of them.  I thought that the child was further along than the teacher did.

How these interviews may have influenced your decision about which area of interest and topics to choose for your research paper.

After interviewing both professionals, I felt more confident in my choice for the research paper.  Social/emotional development is not anything new however; it has come to the front burner in the past five years and is a topic that few teachers or parents know a lot about.  Knowing their child’s social/emotional development and how to move that child to the next level of development is essential to help prepare a child for kindergarten.  

Which area of interest you are thinking of focusing on for your paper as well as the related three specific topics.

The area of interest that I am thinking of focusing on for my paper is social/emotional development.  Some of the related topics to this would include:  how to identify where the child is in their social/emotional development and how to help move that child to the next level of development; questioning why preschool should not be set up as kindergarten; and what children need to be ready for learning and kindergarten. 

The last item knowing what children need to be ready for learning and kindergarten I have discussed at length with kindergarten teachers and they all told me the same thing, they want children who are confident, trusting, and able to control their emotions.  They can teach their students the alphabet, numbers, to read, etc. but they cannot teach twenty some students how to control their emotions and sit still in class.