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.
Hi Katherine,
ReplyDeleteI could not agree with you more on the importance of social and emotional development. One of the kindergarten teachers in my district, and also a good friend of mine, has uttered time and time again, "If they know how to control their emotions and interact in socially appropriate ways, I can teach them anything." I think that there has been such an emphasis on the academic portion of preschool and earlier that the social and emotional piece gets left out of the equation. I am focusing my paper on early intervention and one piece of that has to do with social and emotional maturity. I also feel that a big part of this is self-regulation. If this life skill is not attained, children will struggle. There are different levels of self regulation and I like Lev Vygotsky's research and approach on it. Achieving self-regulation, in my opinion, is paramount to a child's success in kindergarten and beyond.
Michelle
I also agree with you that social emotional development is a very important area in development. I see so many children with what looks like delays in this area. I will be interested in learning more about how us professionals can encourage social emotional development in our classrooms. Do you think most of the source of the delay comes from home? My neice its extremely shy and always has been and I always wonder if this is because they do not get out much as a family, and interact with other people as often? What's your opinion on this?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you will be learning a lot throughout this research paper. I also think you will be teaching us a lot as well. Good blog!!!
Kathy,
ReplyDeleteLike the rest of the United States, it seems as though our very last priority is addressing the social/emotional issues of our children. It is so sad that our politicians don't see that a healthy mind will be a healthy and positive education. We cannot educate our youth when their social/emotional needs are so developmentally delayed. It's just so sad that our social workers are getting cut because they don't teach reading or math. We really need to set our priorities on educating our youth not just academically but also socially and emotionally. More left for the educators.
Kathy I truly believe th topic you picked concerning the importance of our young children's social/emotional issues and learning is just what this country, this profession and especially our young children need as a focus point in early childhood education. I belive this domain and its issued are too often overlookded and deemed as not important yet I feel that social/emotional development is a priority in our early childhood classrooms. I myself focus first on this area with each and every student both individually and as a whole classroom family. I believe that if I can help the children in this area the rest will follow easily and more naturally. Great blog.
ReplyDelete