My Greatest Hope, and Farewell to One More Class!

My greatest hope for myself as an early childhood educator is that I always approach my work with enthusiasm and hope.  With the many politics and policies that sometimes hamper the work we do I just hope I can always find a reason to continue, the silver lining.  I hope that as I continue to learn and grow that I can inspire others to begin the journey of becoming an early childhood educator and adopt the anti-bias education philosophy.  I hope that the children and families that I work with can always find comfort and hope when they enter my classroom, and that they can open their hearts and minds to learn and grow and help others.

Thank you all for reading and commenting.  I have enjoyed your input and wish you all well in your journey ahead.

Around the World

I chose eastern and southern Africa, because my in laws recently visited that area and I learned a bit about some of the people who live and work there. When I looked at the regional website it stood out to me that the press releases were about war, malnutrition, and getting safe drinking water.

This area is plagued by war and disease with very little access to proper care.  While there are affluent and middle class areas, many of these countries have a large population of poverty.  There is are four topics highlighted on the main page.  One is about a little boy who was saved from a fighting camp and was about helping villages get clean water.  These issues directly relate to the well-being of the children in these villages. 

When children and families are fearful and lack proper nutrition their emotional well-being and development will suffer.  Many of these children will grow up early and take on the adult world before they have had the opportunity to learn and practice social-emotional development.

As a professional this really puts things into perspective for me.  As a Head Start teacher I deal with children that are at risk daily, but I have never had to deal with something as serious as children training to fight in a war.  I know many teachers that travel to this part of the world to help, and my hat is off to them for their service to these children and families.

The Sexualization of Early Childhood

The sexualization of early childhood is alarming.  I recently looked at a set of pictures depicting classic Disney princesses from when they first appeared to their make overs in recent years.  Their waists were smaller, curves more defined, and breasts bigger.  This caused me to stop in my tracks and recognize how sexualized or society has become in recent history.

I have personally experienced this phenomenon.  I have a five year old daughter, and trying to find pants that aren’t hip huggers that eventuate the nonexistent curves of my daughter is nearly impossible.  The pants are not the only article of clothing that that is not appropriate for my five year old daughter.  From spaghetti string bikinis to belly shirts the apparel of the preschool age is becoming strikingly like young adult clothing.

As a teacher I have experienced this sexualization through children’s dancing and the toys they bring from home.  I recently had an experience where I watched as a three year old boy began hip thrusting and grinding on a little girl when we were dancing during music and movement time.  His behavior was obviously something he had seen somewhere before, and he had no idea what he was doing.  On the same day I had several girls bring in their monster high dolls.  I was not familiar with this program, but was alarmed by the clothing and bodies of these dolls.  The little girls adored these dolls and enjoyed dressing them up, but the message these dolls were sending these girls about body image was disturbing. 

The implications of this sexulaization on children’s development range from future relationships to body image.  Levin and Kilbourne (2009) stated, “These lessons can seriously harm their ability to grow up to have healthy attitudes about themselves and their bodies and to have caring relationships in which sex is an important part” (p. 4).  Body image has been something I have seen many young girls struggle with, and as an educator I try to include in my curriculum and classroom environment healthy examples of men and women that are not over sexualized.  I try to stress the importance taking care of ourselves by eating healthy, getting plenty of sleep and exercise, and drinking water.  It is my hope that this approach can help to combat some of the unhealthy body images children are bombarded with in their lives.

This week’s study of the sexualization of early childhood has opened my eyes to the negative outcomes that it can cause in children.  I always knew it wasn’t healthy, but there are many more repercussion that I had every considered.  It has helped me to realize the importance of knowledge and awareness to help our future, our children, to combat these unhealthy trends.

 

Reference

Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books. Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf

The effects of -isms and bias on Me

As an early childhood educator I realize the role I play in the lives of the children and families I work with.  The way I interact with them can impact the way they perceive education and educators into the future.  I have taken time throughout this journey to think about my own biases and how they affect these relationships, but until now I haven't thought about how it would affect me if I was experiencing the same biases.  Where I live and work I am part of the dominant culture, so I haven't often experienced many biases or -isms directly.  However, I have experienced ageism. 


I graduated from college and obtained my first teaching job at the age of 20.  I taught kindergarten and had no idea I would face criticism for my age.  I had parents double guess my strategies and recommendations, because they didn't believe I had enough life experience to give them advice.  This caused me to double guess myself.  I struggled in the classroom, and took out my frustrations on the children by not providing them enough time to explore and learn.  I was told by several parents and even colleagues that I was too young and naive to realize that play wasn't appropriate in kindergarten, and that the children needed more rules and assigned seats.  They needed worksheets and homework.  When I stood up and said that wasn't what research said, they all said, "Well, when you grow up you will realize the error of your thinking."  This ageism really caused me to struggle and do things that I knew weren't developmentally appropriate.  I look back that this year and cringe at some of the things I asked those children to do.  I had them using worksheets and took away much of their free play time.  I was so bombarded by the thought that I was too young to know how to teach that I allowed others to make decisions for me. 


As I look back on this experience I realize that I allowed an -ism to overcome me.  It caused me to be drained emotionally and I wasn't able to provide the best environment for the children in my classroom.  With almost ten more years of experience and years in my life I do realize that I have matured and learned a lot about myself and education, but I also recognize that had I not been bombarded with ageism my first year of teaching I would have provided a much more appropriate environment and relationships with the children and families in my classroom.