Web Resource

The organization that I chose is Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (https://cscce.berkeley.edu/). This organization's purpose is “Conducting research and proposing policy solutions aimed at improving how our nation prepares, supports, and rewards the early care and education workforce since 1999.” One issue that catches my attention immediately is, “Why do parents pay so much for child care when early educators earn so little?” This catches my attention as both a parent and an early educator, childcare is quite expensive, and it makes it tough to pay weekly with how much I make. I am learning that these issues that I see in childcare are not just my issues, but more people have these issues. I am learning that I am not alone in how I feel and that there are people out there that want to make a difference.

The website that I chose to study is Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (https://cscce.berkeley.edu/professional-expectations-without-professional-conditions/) As I was searching through the websites I was looking for something that stood out to me, something that I could relate to. Once I opened this website I knew it was the site that I wanted to study, I am a preschool teacher and I relate to what I have seen on the homepage. The first thing that popped up was resources for teaching during this pandemic, articles about the little pay and expensive care, racial age gaps, and babies don’t do social distancing. As an educator all of these topics are something that happens every day, I love that there is a place addressing these issues. I want to ask my colleagues their thoughts on these topics and see how they feel about it.

My Supports

My biggest support is my husband, he is always there for, and I know I can count on him. My family also is a big support, even know I don't live near most of them. I know I can still count on them. The family that lives nearby is a huge support as well, they are always willing to help out with our son. In a daily environment, my husband is my support, I am currently unemployed and see him all day every day, and he still supports me. One benefit of him being my daily support is that he is willing to watch our son so that I can have uninterrupted homework time, he is also always asking if I have any homework I need to do. If anything happened to my husband and he was gone, my life would be turned upside down. I would rely heavily on my family that lives nearby for support and also relay on the family that lives far away. The impact of my husband being gone would change everything from day to day life to long term effects. One challenge I imagined having was losing everything we had in a tornado, which thankfully has happened yet. We would need all kinds of support we would need support on finding a new/temporary place to live, replacing clothes and electronics, just to name a few. We would also need help emotionally dealing with the trauma that just happened, we would need someone to talk to and be told that it is okay. My supports would be there for my family and me during this time; they would offer to put us up and replace essential items until we got on our feet again. I could not imagine going through a challenging situation without the support of my husband and my family; they are my rock.

My Connections to Play

"Play is our brain's favorite way of learning."
-Diane Ackerman, Contemporary American author

"Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity."
-Kay Redfield Jamison, Contemporary American professor of psychiatry

Essential play items for my younger self:

Barbie was the most essential play item for my younger self, I played with barbies every day most of my childhood. Barbies allowed me to use my imagination and come up with any scenario that I wanted to play.
(https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn11.bigcommerce.com%2Fs-0kvv9%2Fimages%2Fstencil%2F1280x1280%2Fproducts%2F313910%2F448778%2Fapim5hnjf__34849.1573597138.jpg%3Fc%3D2%26imbypass%3Don&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ftoywiz.com%2F2019-holiday-barbie-barbie-doll-blonde%2F&tbnid=CB1CnYk6WyyZlM&vet=12ahUKEwj26tH8irvoAhVBOK0KHatHBN4QMygregUIARDfAQ..i&docid=EHbFKjVMUMmx2M&w=613&h=1280&q=barbie%20doll&ved=2ahUKEwj26tH8irvoAhVBOK0KHatHBN4QMygregUIARDfAQ)

The next essential play item was my American Girl Doll if I wasn't playing with barbies, I was playing with American Girl Dolls.
(https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fagplaythings.com%2FHistoricals%2FKirsten%2FKirstenDoll.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fagplaythings.com%2FHistoricals%2FKirsten%2FKirsten1854.html&tbnid=gR8yYldF5n0DRM&vet=12ahUKEwiaw6qJjLvoAhVFaKwKHaROA24QMygVegUIARCBAQ..i&docid=V0O_Cu7CJWIi6M&w=250&h=250&q=american%20girl%20doll%20kirsten&ved=2ahUKEwiaw6qJjLvoAhVFaKwKHaROA24QMygVegUIARCBAQ)

People supported my play by not interrupting my play, my family let me take over my living and make it barbie central. They encourage me to play with my toys and dolls, I was the youngest, so I think it was the easiest way to keep me entertained. They also allowed me to go to friends' houses or invite them over to play with my dolls. There were so many times where my living became a Barbie town with my best friend, and we would play in there for hours. They would just step over our town to get to the couch so that they could watch tv, but happily let us continue playing.

I think that play is different from when I was younger because technology is much bigger now, children get into technology at younger ages now. When I was younger technology was around, but a young child did not have a smart device, I didn't get my first smartphone until I was in high school. My hope for younger children and play is that they actually use and explore play and not just technology.

Play has had a big impact on my role in life, I use to pretend that my dolls were teachers, and now I am a teacher. I still like coming up with imaginary situations and playing them out in my head, but I think play as a young child definitely helped make me who I am today.

Relationship Reflection

Relationships are important to me because life is hard, and it can get lonely, having those close relationships really help me get through the hard times. It is important to me that I have people that I can turn to and rely on in both the good and the bad times. The most important positive relationship that I have is my husband, I rely on him every single day. My husband is my main support system, and in order for it to work, we both have to contribute to it. We both need to be able to have open and honest communication with each other, even when it is hard. There are some days that I have to try harder to make our relationship work, while other days, he has to try harder. It can be a challenge when we are both sick and want the other person to take care of us, but they don't have the energy. Over the few years, we have been married, we are still learning each other and what works best for us, but at the end of every day, we know we love each other and always kiss goodnight. My husband has encouraged my education and career choices in the early childhood profession, he has never once told me I need to find a better job. He is there for me every step of the way and ready to support me in any way, including watching the baby while I do homework. There are some people who aren't supportive of this field, but thankfully he is and will continue to support me in every decision I make.

Professional Thanks

Thank you to every who read my blog throughout this course and to those that have responded. I have enjoyed reading your responses during this time. I personally want to mention the blog https://maloechildhood.blogspot.com/, it has been a joy to read your post and hear your opinion on these various topics. The other blog I want to say a special thanks to is https://learningisfunandeducational.school.blog/ it has been great reading your blog throughout this course.
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”  — Fred Rogers, television personality 

Assessments as a Whole

I think that we should assess the child as a whole by using different types of assessments. A child behaves differently depending on where they are at as well; therefore, if possible, we should be assessing the child in each environment or at least different environments. We cannot choose just one area to focus on when we assess a child because in different development domains interplay with each other, for example, while running a child is using both cognitive and physical development to run (Berger, K. S. 2018). Therefore we should be using assessments that can assess each domain separately and together as a whole. A child is not defined by simply one area but as a whole. I looked up more about assessments in Thailand, I found that they do assessments by having the teachers observe the children see how much of the subject they are learning (http://auathai.com/assessment). According to this website, they do not use as many tests and assessments, but instead, use observations. The observations are completed by all the teachers, and the students own assessments as well (https://algworld.com/progress_assessment.php/) They consider many things in their observations, such as how often the student attended, understanding the content, listening, studying, and many other things. I think that the method they are using here is a better assessment then having the child take a test; by using observations, they are able to see the child as a whole rather then what is written on a paper. I know observations can be a lot of work depending on how many children a teacher is supervising, but in the end, I believe it is a good way to assess children as a whole.

Reference

Berger, K. S. (2018). The developing person through childhood (8th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.