From the Classroom....

I planned to write this blog last evening. However, when I read the word 'passion' in the assignment mine had pretty much dissipated into panic. I had just completed the first draft on our application paper for this week and the enormity of the task was daunting. There is so much to consider: that it be developmentally appropriate; that no one is excluded; that everyone has their individual curriculum that best meets their needs.

Then you have the cultures, ethnicities, languages, personalities, years of tradition, government, laws and being the foreigner.

Not to mention  the poverty; internalized failure and hopelessness; abandonment and years of getting by: doing the best with what they are left with.

Did I mention the disabilities that probably have not been given a name and could be thought to be best terminated or at least thrown away. This could include girls.

And...

But wait....

It is Sunday morning. A beautiful, sunny Autumn day. My world is full of hope and smiles. I am attending my friend's second birthday which means games in the park and pizza. I have wonderful resourceful people around me and live in a country where anything is possible when you put your mind to it. The contacts I have made in the past three months are already walking me along the path of future opportunities.

So..

I will begin where I am - in my classroom. Disabilities are the biggest vacuum in our Nursery curriculum. Right away I need to start putting pictures on the wall, ordering books and teaming  up with an orphanage with whom we can share photos and names. Lucky for me the lady with whom I would like to team up with in an anti-bias adventure, volunteers at just such a place.

Amazing what a good night's sleep and sunshine can accomplish.

The second doable and important thing is building our library with anti-bias children's literature. Books are the very best way to move an idea along, I think. This will garner comments from the teachers and new insights from the students. And perhaps push the borders of our doors open even further.

I will continue my contact with UNICEF here. Also working on an internet, instructional tool on child development that will be sold and gifted to the very places I want to make a difference in. The producer's dream is that when we finish, I could travel to the areas where it has been distributed and do something like a well baby clinic, complementing what they have studied on line. This all seems nebulous right now and I have lived here long enough to know there may be roadblocks up ahead that I could not have imagined.

OK now I am ready for the passion: Keep on keeping on.

May the words and passion of Louise Derman-Sparks remain clear in my thinking. May I see each child as valuable and not turn away anyone. May they learn respect for themselves and those around them through the life I model. May they be equipped to go out and stand up against unfairness and injustice (Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edwards, 2010).

Now to my classmates. Thank you for welcoming me into your group. Because I took the summer off, I am a new member. Thanks for the personal and professional examples and the expressions of your passions. I hope to meet you again in the next class. If not, good luck to you and may your flame for ant-bias education keep burning brightly.

Reference

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-Bias Education. Washington, D.C.:

            National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)

UNICEF - Child Supporter abd Protector

I felt a little like dropping in on an old friend when I went to the East Asia and the Pacific area of the UNICEF website this week. One of the first names I see is Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF's representative in China. She has worked tirelessly to get the Chinese Central government to put real effort behind their words of caring for the poverty in this country. Her special interest in children and families has set the path for the projects I will speak about today. Her passion for the welfare of this country and relentless 'badgering' of the officials has shown leaks of success in this mission.

Most recently UNICEF is launching a fund to provide schools to improve and provide education for those who are marginalized . These include girls, some ethnicities, those with disabilities, those in poverty and those in remote areas. They are providing inclusive education which is largely unheard of in the mainstream schools here. The schools for the blind,  cognitively challenged and the like are far from the support at the center of the city and public support.

With the help of these funds, UNICEF is looking to train teachers to include all children,  providing an anti-bias and  first class education. This  education will include life skills: health, nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, HIV prevention and safe drinking water. A similar program has been successful in Africa and now it is coming  Asia Pacific including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines as well as China.

These children face a life of exclusion and hopelessness and one that is often cut off too soon with little hope for the next generation. The need is huge and I find it overwhelming. I need to visit this site more often and stay in contact. Because, UNICEF is making a positive difference and have a reputation that is worth putting your money, time and skills behind.

Another issue that UNICEF is supporting is that of breast feeding. By way of a Chinese social network and web chats with experts and professionals they are offering the modern mother with facts and support for breast feeding.  This practice is under attack by the formula making companies and culture. With UNICEF support they are able to stand up for what is right for their child and provide a healthy beginning.

One more set of children that UNICEF is protecting is the child of the migrant worker. These children are often left at home with grandparents with often little or no education opportunities. They are separated from their parents and often live in poverty and unsafe conditions.UNICEF is looking for ways to unite the children with their parents in the place of work and see that they are able to enroll in area schools. Coming to the city and even seeing traffic lights is often foreign to these children so again UNICEF is reaching out to give them survival/life skills for city living.

My principal brought back news a few months ago about the school board looking to close the schools for migrant children. The reason they gave is that they need to be in their home area because the school budget here cannot support them. This does not consider that there may not be adequate or any schooling in their area.  It looks like UNICEF is working with the governments and the National Working Committee on Women and Children (NWCCW) here in Beijing to find ways to provide support for these families.

UNICEF seems to have its finger on the pulse of what is needed for the marginalized children in this country to find hope, health and success. I suggested at  our last staff meeting that we not exchange gifts this  year but choose a cause to donate to. The support of these inclusive schools may be my choice. Perhaps we could even offer some teacher training and supplies.  It makes me imagine that these children that have gone without for so long just might be the best educated in the country.

UNICEF puts the child as its first priority. This means supporting the expectant mother, the family, the community and the education and health institutions. Seems to me they are going about the solution in the best way to make a better for the child.

Reference

www.unicef/eastasia and the pacific.com

The Sexualization of Early Childhood

In the introduction of their book, So Sexy So Soon, Levin and Kilbourne (2009 ) address the reality of increased exposure in early childhood to sexual vocabulary and behavior. They point out that  it is largely media driven and has more to do with "consuming than connecting" (Levin & Kilbourne,2009,  p. 5). I agree with the concern expressed for the retrieval of a time in a child's life when they should be free to investigate in a developmentally appropriate way. Rather they are forced to deal with issues before they are ready. The sad result is that their ideas become narrow and rigid and are not easily informed with factual information(Levin & Kilbourne, 2009).

My young 7 year old friend has recently asked her mother about babies and the sexual act. She was satisfied with the idea of friendship, love, marriage then babies. However, she pointed out that a friend re-arranged these steps. The fact that it is best to do something so important with someone you know and love very well  seemed to make sense to her on that day. Hopefully this honest answer will cause her to come back to her mother when other questions surface.

In department stores, the pink/princess clothing seems to be up front and center. It is difficult to find clothing for little girls that is useful for exploration and investigation. This seems to say to the girl that you are only an object of beauty and your mission is beauty and desirability (Lee, 2008). As Levin and Kilbourne (2009) warn these sort of messages divide the gender roles even farther apart and deny the girl the chance to explore all that may be available to her.

Being aware of this onslaught I wonder if it were counteracted with healthy activities and space for climbing, jumping, roller blading/ wiggle boarding/ skate boarding,  running and the like there would be less time for this kind of exploration. I do believe that screen time should be monitored and limited in early childhood. The fact is active and social play is usually the preferred choice unless there is a state of inertia in front of a screen.

I wonder also at the aura of fear that is put around the student/teacher bond. A 5 year old boy  came to us from a country where teachers were not permitted to touch the children a couple of years ago. Our teachers do not have these sort of restrictions or suspicion as yet. We are still free to touch/hug children in appropriate ways. I can imagine it is abused. But it does not come into our thinking most of the time. Other than saying there must be two teachers with the children at any time, it is not spoken of. This child went home with stories of sexual abuse by his teacher. We immediately sent him to a clinic connected to our school to see a pediatrician. She was suspect of the story and saw no physical evidence. Then started a series of meetings involving the teacher, child, principal and parents and multiple calls to a child psychologist also connected to our school. The end result was the teacher had asked him to push his chair in and when he started to walk away, she touched his shoulder to direct him to the chair. In his anger at her, he made up this story. He used terminology that shocked us and that was not brought up in the class because honestly the rest of the children had not been exposed to it.  We were all saddened by this because, understandably the teacher was cautious around him and we listened and watched his interactions with the other children very closely. The time that could have been spent running, climbing, discovering his new friends in Beijing was muddied with this pre-occupation. He came near the end of the school year and was off to Primary school and we did not succeed in successfully getting him 'in' to the school with friends and freedom of choice.

I am not saying abstinence. Children are inquisitive and need answers that meet them at their level of understanding. They need to be aware of human anatomy and have correct terminology. Many are having siblings or see women who are pregnant so a factual explanation that satisfies their curiosity without overwhelming is necessary. 

A 5 year old Kuwaiti girl in the Primary class is pre-occupied with her wardrobe and hair and often spends most of her work time arranging her one of these or looking in the mirror. More worrisome is her refusing lunch because she does not want to get fat. This is all a part of the freedom of choice that should be available in early childhood.

Children are curious and need to have answers to their inquiries. However, they need to be answers that they can work with - simple and concrete.  As much as is possible they need to be protected from having to cope with complexities of relationships and spend their time in developmentally appropriate activities.

Emotions and connectedness are huge issues in life. We spend most of our life span trying to get a handle on them.  Seems to me the longer a child has to explore and work through healthy relationships within his family, teachers and peers the better equipped he will be to navigate his way through later complexities

References

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

Lee, L. (2008). Understanding gender through Disney’s marriages: A study of young Korean immigrant girls. Early Childhood Education Journal, 36(1), 11-18. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database.

My Life on the Outside

The exercise this week is to place myself in the position as a subject of prejudice and discrimination.

I have chosen religion as the topic.What would my life look like if the power of public opinion was against Christians. If it was unsafe for me to go to a place of worship. It would be difficult for me to buy books or impossible for me to contact resources pertaining to my faith on line.

Let's say there was some outward sign that I am a Christian, perhaps a red scarf.

The source of the anger is the retaliation of Western/Christian countries in war. I am seen by society as a trouble maker, war monger and iconoclast.

The personal price is that people will not sit next to me on the bus, taxis will not pick me up, clerks in the store may not wait on me and some apartments will not allow me to rent. When I walk down the street people avert their eyes or point and stare.

How would I approach my class?

Life would be easier if I did not wear the red scarf. The point would then be: I have to pretend to be someone else to be acceptable in this environment.

If the families and children are cool toward me and questioning everything I say in the light of who they believe me to be, my job would be continually sidelined. Working in an environment where I am not respected as a person, is at this moment unimaginable and extremely sad.

Because of the tenets of my faith, I would take the abuse and continue to do the best job I could. But I need a place of belonging (Derman-Sparks& Olsen Edwards, 2010) it would be difficult not to be angry and speak out against this unfair caricature or to run away to a place of acceptance.I would desperately try to get people to understand that is not who I am. I knew a little of this frustration when I tried to open this blog for this program. Foreign social cites are blocked here and even the network I purchased to bypass and in reality break the law was also blocked. I remember at the time wishing there were someone I could talk to and promise that I would not misuse this privilege and the purpose is to improve my skills as an educator in this country. But there was not to speak to and so I joined another network and paid more money and am still outside the law.  This is a minor issue but when it involves safety of your family, housing and food it is a life- threatening and debilitating way of life.

My health, disposition and joy of life would be thwarted.

I am very fortunate. Yes, I am in a country that is not politically religious. However, economic zeal has made it possible for religions and government to co-exist as long as no waves are made. However, I do know of jobs that have been denied for color of skin and sexual orientation. If someone were to pull their hand back from shaking mine, as I have seen happen, I cannot imagine the personal toll that can take. However, there seems always to have been a support. I as an early childhood educator in this country have the privilege of providing that environment of support and acceptance; both on a personal and professional basis.

Good exercise!

Reference

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-Bias Education.

Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)