Final Thoughts on Global Perspectives Class

One of the resources from this class that was really thought provoking was the watching the movies Babies because it really made me question what I thought was best practices for young children.  I still believe in best practices in the child care setting, but I think it is critical that teachers have a deep understanding of culture and family values in order to meet their needs.  Watching this movie caused me to really begin to think about what is most important in the life of a child.  It is relationships with the family, being loved and cared about, and lastly developing holistically.  the children in this movie all end the first year of life with similar development skills, but they had very different journeys.

My inspiration in this class was directly linked to my research project.  Linking the research to the knowledge base about the amount of time children spend outdoors was absolutely inspirational.  Children need 120 minutes outdoors and in Oklahoma children rarely get more than 30 to 60 minutes most days.  I am linking my Childhood Obesity Power Point here to share some additional information about outdoor time and the potential to preventing childhood obesity. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/aeg2ihdjbea29pu/Childhood%20Obesity%20Power%20Point%20with%20narration.ppt?dl=0

Here is the link to the Let's Move Child Care website.  Great information as well as resources are available here for both teachers and parents.  http://www.healthykidshealthyfuture.org/welcome.html

Please take a look at this information it is really inspiring.  

The current research that most challenged my thinking was the information I read about the government choosing in Spain to ensure that all children have access to universal pre-K in the setting the parents choose so it is not just in public school settings, but also in child care programs.  This is something that is not happening in United States and it is critical that we make some hard decisions about access and quality in this country.  Here is a great article about access from the Office of Administration on Children and Families, Office of Child Care http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/occ/supporting_working_families_report.pdf

Here are few great quotes 

It is our role as scholar practitioners to be advocates for all young children!!!

Intentional Teaching based on the Environment Rating Scales

Inspiring approaches to foster learning made me think of the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ITERS-R) and the Family Child Care Home Environment Rating Scale-Revised (FCCERS-R) regarding teachers practice with infants and toddlers.  In both of these scales the term "Much of the Day" requires that the teacher either bring the toys to the baby or take the baby to the toys.  These scales have helped to change the way teachers thinking about teaching young children because it pushes them to ensure that the youngest child in the program is getting the same experience as the other children in care.

I provide a webinar monthly for child care centers that provide information for teachers on the scales. I share with the teachers and family child care home providers the importance of ensure effective learning experiences are happening for young children.  I provide the webinar monthly because in our state the environment rating scales are utilized as a part of the quality rating and improvement system (QRIS).  Our assessors have been trained to reliability meaning that the assessors can go into a classroom observe and score independently and score it the same or within one point on each indicator.

The scales have become a primary measure used in research to assess quality and to inform policy and programmatic decisions (LaParo, K.M., et al, 2012).  Because states are using this scales as a measure of quality they are having a great impact on the practice of teachers and family child care homes provides across the nation.  My personal experiences have to do with the state of Oklahoma.  I am including the slides on much of the day used in the webinars for both ITERS-R and FCCERS-R as examples of how we share information with teachers.

I think helping teachers think about how the non-mobile infants are interacting with materials is often over looked and not considered and due to the fact that so many states are utilizing the scales there are many more infant teachers being intentional with their teaching in the infant classroom.  It seems simple of course if the infants are non-mobile they are not going to have access to materials unless the teacher either brings the baby to the toys or the toys to the baby.

This example has influenced my thinking about how infants learn.  It makes perfect sense that the infant that learns through sensory motor if they cannot get to the materials will not explore them and experience them because they need to be able to touch and mouth to explore in this stage of development.  Figuring out ways to help teachers and family child care home providers to make sense of "much of the day" stretched me to understand the basis of this and the real value in learning for the children then it made sense to me.

When you think about how infants learn where do you think this happens?  If the baby is having tummy time, but they have no materials are the having the same experience as a toddler that can get to the toys they want to play with?  When teachers do not move the baby or the toys are they intentionally preventing them from using materials?

The Environment Rating Scales Institute (ERSI) provides online training options about the scales that are very beneficial we use them as a part of our initial training plan for new assessors.

I am also including some links to information about the scales. 

ChildCare Education Institute is an online child care training provider and they have sevearl trainings that support teachers understanding of the scales and how to improve practice. https://www.cceionline.com/courseCatalog.cfm?&viewCourseDesc=0&language=1&subCat=27

Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. (n.d.b). Environment rating scales. Retrieved from http://ers.fpg.unc.edu

Environment Rating Scales Institute (ERSI). (n.d.). Home. Retrieved from http://www.ersi.info/index.html

La Paro, K. M., Thomason, A. C., Lower, J. K., Kintner-Duffy, V. L., & Cassidy, D. J. (2012). Examining the definition and measurement of quality in early childhood education: A review of studies using the ECERS-R from 2003 to 2010. ECRP: Early Childhood Research & Practice, 14(1). Retrieved from http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v14n1/laparo.html

Conversations about Child Development

This week I was having a conversation in the hallway at work with some co-workers about infant care.  One of our colleagues just recently adopted a new baby that is now 7 weeks old.  She was sucking her pacifier and it dropped to the ground.  We all stopped our conversation and one of my colleagues asked for the pacifier to go wash it off.  I reminded me of the film "Babies" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB36k0hGxDM I have included the link if you want to learn more about the movie.  For my fellow doctoral friends we recently watched this movie in class.  In the file "Babies" one of the infants is giving a piece of meat on a stick to suck on like a pacifier and another is having tummy time on the ground pecking on the ground eating dirt.  In the United States we are so cautious about safety that it makes me wonder if children are able to build up their immune system.  I shared the information from the film with my co-workers and they were appalled.  I remember thinking the first time I saw the film the same thing, but watching again recently with a new lens as a scholar of child development it is not as appalling because that is developmentally appropriate and best practices in those cultures.  Additionally, they were showing the home life of children from various countries and not the care in a child care facility.

I found myself explaining to my colleagues why this it was important for those children to experience their environment in the way that they did and I truly felt like an early childhood scholar.  It is still early in this doctoral journey, but I am beginning to see the transformation in myself and my thinking about how children learn and develop.  Not that my beliefs about how children learn has changed dramatically, but I am seeing how important it is to have a much more broad view of the world.  I am surprised that my transformation has began so early in the process.  

I recently received my comprehensive membership book from National Association for the Education of Young Children titled The Early Years Matter:  Education, Care and the Well-Being of Children, Birth to 8 by Marilou Hyson and Heather Biggar Tomlinson and just reading the first couple of chapters fit in nicely with this idea that we must humanize child development by thinking about the family and the environment when we consider what is best for children.  Here is a link to take a look at the book:  http://www.naeyc.org/store/The-Early-Years-Matter

Children develop in the context of family and society I have read this numerous times, but the true meaning of it is becoming more real to me each and every day.  How has children develop in the context of family and society changed for you during this journey?  How does culture impact development?  How do our beliefs about how children develop impact our interactions with babies?  The journey continues....

Introduction

Play is often, talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning.  But for children, play is serious learning.  Play is the work of childhood by Fred Rogers

My name is Jill Soto and I firmly believe that children learn through play.  I live in Blanchard, OK and grew up on a farm and spent hours playing and making mud pies.  The picture I chose to depict my learning and development as a young child is a picture of a little girl playing in the mud as well as a picture of a muffin tin of mud pies with sunflowers.  I could not find any pictures of myself playing in mud, but the pictures I am sharing come close to my life on the farm growing up as a young girl.

The quote from Fred Rogers eloquently describes the play that I was engaged in during my mud pie making.  I was engaged in serious learning while making mud pies.  What skills do you think I learned when making mud pies?

How did this mud pie making little girl grow into a women seeking a doctoral degree?  As I am writing this it make me wonder just about the answer to this question.  How did my farm life beginning lead me to this place in my life.  I learned to be independent and confident as a learner I think are the foundations that allow me to be the person I am today.  My journey is just beginning, but my roots are strong and allow me to grow just like the roots of tree allow the tree to grow.