WEEK 3- PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY AND CULTURE

For this assignment I was asked to call at least three persons and to ask them to give a definition of culture and diversity. I decided to ask the following persons: My colleague, my eldest daughter and sister. These three persons are close to me. My colleague believes that culture is about our beliefs systems and the simple things in life that affect our lives every day and she believes diversity speaks to how unique an individual is. My colleague who is a very close friend works in the early childhood field as a sector support supervisor. She has to interact with many persons, including many of the external stakeholders. My colleague’s definition speaks to one of the main characteristic of what culture is. She mentioned that the nature of her job must take culture into perspective because in planning projects and workshops it is integral to understand the culture of families and practitioners. Although diversity is not a big issue in her job, she also believes that diversity must also be taken into consideration because the early childhood field is slowing changing in Jamaica. There are small evidences that diversity will soon be a factor to contend with in the future of early childhood. My sister is older than I am and she teaches and is a guidance counselor at very prominent Catholic high school. My sister believes culture relates not only to our way of life but to our value system. She also sees diversity as having a various persons who might share different cultures and religions. My sister says diversity is not prominent at her school but there is a small population of children from two particular ethnic groups present, that is, the Chinese and the Indians. She says it is important that as a teacher of religion she must be very mindful of the diverse groups in her class because they are small in numbers they become lost in the system. My sister also pointed out that although many of the children shared many common cultural attributes, the families from which these children came from had what we could refer to as a sub-culture and so it was sometimes difficult to get children to align their cultural beliefs and adopt to the belief system of the school because this high school is influenced by the Catholic faith. This simply means that the children had to conform to the belief system during their time at the school. My daughter was the youngest of the three persons I chose to ask about culture and diversity. My daughter has had her encounter with different cultures and diversity as early as her prep school years and so I thought it would be interesting to get her opinion about what she believed culture and diversity are. My daughter defined culture as the way we live our lives such as the traditions, the lifestyle such as fashion, food, trends and how we interact with each other. She sees diversity as very paradoxical; because even though we might be different in the way we look, our language and our heritage she believes we are so similar because our human nature is that need to want to have a feeling of belonging and to be loved. She believes that we all do things differently but most times it ends up with the same result. I learned from this experience that different persons have a different view of what culture and diversity are. It is also important that we learn to accept each other for who we really are and be open -minded and be willing to learn from each other. I also found my daughter’s reaction to diversity really different from my colleague’s and my sister’s because my daughter believes that no matter how different we are we are similar. Diversity and culture are very wide topic but I believe my daughter came the closest to incorporating many of the characteristics of culture and diversity.

PERSPECTIVES DIVERSITY & EQUITY- MY FAMILY CULTURE

This week I am asked to blog about three precious items I would take along with me and family if I was faced with a terrible catastrophe and had to leave my homeland. This is very hard because when I look at the few possessions I have acquired since my lifetime and what helps to define my culture and who I am is very heart rendering. After thinking about it I realized I would not be able to take my pets --Caine my cat and Benz my dog because they are far from being small items but I know I would be devastated to leave them behind because they are a big part of my family. The three items I would take with me are (1) a small family album. I would ensure that this album have pictures of every little thing that reminds me of my previous life such as pictures of my parents, brothers and sisters, wedding and birthdays and my pets, and other special events. (2) My bible is very important to me. My spiritual life is embedded in the bible and because I have special scriptures I use for prayer, this is definitely of great importance to me. (3) The third item I would take with me is my documents to identify who I am such as my passport, marriage certificate and birth papers. My family knows that these three items are very special not only to me but to them. The bible is important because our lives have always been embedded in strong Christian principles and these principles have always brought us through some very difficult times in our lives. The album is also very important because the pictures capture so many memories and we can always look at the pictures and be hopeful for a better tomorrow. The documents are also very important. To be evacuated to another country without any proof of who you are is very difficult and the documents would still give us hope that we might be able to go back to our country one day and having our travel documents would make the ease of passage much easier. For me to leave behind two items upon arrival would also be very stressful. But when you are faced with adversity you are not even given time to really think or rationalize; however, I would definitely keep the family album. The pictures cannot be reproduced but with time I can always get a new bible and regain documents to prove who I am and where I am from.

When I Think of Research...

The duration of this course has really been an enlightening journey. Although some of the areas were familiar to me I have learned so much new information. The simulation process was all new to me. The last research course I did was in 1994 approximately twenty years ago when I was pursuing a diploma in secondary education and even though I did a research project to complete my bachelor’s, I believe this is the first time I did research in such details. I must say I am grateful for the knowledge and I am also aware of the sacrifice and hard work researchers must endure in order to produce quality effective work. The research process is no walk over.

Some of the main lessons that I have learned over the past weeks are planning, understanding ethical issues, designing and conducting research. I must admit the process is very time consuming and many of my Sundays had me locked down in reading and exploring materials that relate to research. Sometimes I got it right and sometimes I was totally off but it is a learning process. The simulation exercises and the discussions helped me to understand the research process better. Persons who conduct research that leads to positive changes in early childhood must have a special love or deep passion for the subject area and I must commend them for their efforts. My greatest challenge was to refine my research topic as it relates to how technology has an impact on children’s development in middle childhood.

Every early childhood professional should be aware of how to do research in early childhood. This is a very important aspect of early childhood because the field is constantly changing and I believe research is one of the effective tools we have as professionals to keep up with these changes.

I must say a big thank you to my colleagues and instructor who guided and helped me for the past eight weeks. Your comments and support has surely helped me understand research in the early childhood field.

When I Think of Research...

The duration of this course has really been an enlightening journey. Although some of the areas were familiar to me I have learned so much new information. The simulation process was all new to me. The last research course I did was in 1994 approximately twenty years ago when I was pursuing a diploma in secondary education and even though I did a research project to complete my bachelor’s, I believe this is the first time I did research in such details. I must say I am grateful for the knowledge and I am also aware of the sacrifice and hard work researchers must endure in order to produce quality effective work. The research process is no walk over.

Some of the main lessons that I have learned over the past weeks are planning, understanding ethical issues, designing and conducting research. I must admit the process is very time consuming and many of my Sundays had me locked down in reading and exploring materials that relate to research. Sometimes I got it right and sometimes I was totally off but it is a learning process. The simulation exercises and the discussions helped me to understand the research process better. Persons who conduct research that leads to positive changes in early childhood must have a special love or deep passion for the subject area and I must commend them for their efforts. My greatest challenge was to refine my research topic as it relates to how technology has an impact on children’s development in middle childhood.

Every early childhood professional should be aware of how to do research in early childhood. This is a very important aspect of early childhood because the field is constantly changing and I believe research is one of the effective tools we have as professionals to keep up with these changes.

I must say a big thank you to my colleagues and instructor who guided and helped me for the past eight weeks. Your comments and support has surely helped me understand research in the early childhood field.

RESEARCH AROUND THE WORLD

The link to the website is: http:www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/

What are some of the current research topics?

The research topics included

1)      Getting the balance right: The challenge of balancing praise and correction for early childhood year’s children who exhibit oppositional and defiant behavior.

2)      Young Children’s beliefs about including others in their play: Social and moral reasoning about inclusion and exclusion.

3)      Building foundations for numeracy: A qualitative analysis of the basic concept knowledge demonstrated by young deaf children.

4)      The use of technology to facilitate music learning experiences in preschoolers.

5)      Professionals don’t play: Challenges for early childhood educators working in a trans disciplinary early intervention team.

 

I gained new insights and ideas about research in early childhood. Some of these new insights that I have gained is the Australian’s approach to research to early childhood. Although the topics covers research topics that relate to issues such as play, diversity, transitions I have come to recognize that they use research to support best practices and unravel even issues that might seem minute or insignificant in the field of early childhood. This website is a good ground and provides support  for a beginner researcher like myself to explore for information in the field of early childhood.

The website is quite is to manipulate and subscribe to. Australia I believe is one of the leading giants in the field of early childhood research and the more time spent  in exploring the website is the more we can gain from the website and apply it to our own situations.

MY ULTIMATE RESEARCH DREAM

Farrington (2002) cited “when people are asked what they think are the main causes of crime, they often nominate poor parental child-rearing methods and especially poor discipline or control of children.”

Early Childhood is such a wide field that I really found it difficult in choosing a topic to research. But for the many years my little country Jamaica has been riddled with much crime and violence and I wonder if it has to do with our early childhood system.  Sometimes I wonder does it have to do with poor parenting skills, the economy and other social issues.  I ask myself questions such as why is the ghetto system alive and well.  Why do young children continue to have children at a very tender age when there is so much information on birth control in schools and there supposed to be laws to protect our most vulnerable? And why do we choose to give our children guns instead of giving them a good education? Why the government sees it so hard to invest in early childhood when they know it can provide us with solutions to the many issues that we are faced. Do we really lack vision for our country and if so, are we really going to perish?

My research in early childhood would focus on the social and emotional development of children. My primary focus; however, would be to examine the impact of teenage pregnancy on the life of the child in in the formative years. For the past four years as an early childhood inspector I have discovered that many of the parents who send their children to community owned basic schools give birth to the children between the ages of 13  to 18 years. Another startling discovery I made is that the fathers for these children are also very young or the fathers are much older than the mothers. I also found out from some practitioners that if the mother who has given birth was below the age of consent many of the fathers’ information is not presented on the birth certificate. We know that children from the time of birth go through social and emotional changes and they also experience cognitive changes. I believe this research will help to identify how poor parenting skills will affect the social and emotional development of our children.

References

Farrington, D. (2002) Family Influences on Delinquency. Retrieved from http://samples.jbpub.com/9780763760564/60564_CH10_Springer.pdf

 

PERSONAL RESEARCH JOURNEY

The topic I hope to focus on for the next of couple of weeks for the simulation exercise is cognitive development in middle age children. The period between the ages of 6 to 11 is a very important time in a child’s life. Piaget called the cognition of middle childhood concrete operational thought, characterized by concepts that enable children to use logic (Berger, 2012). Children during this stage naturally learn quickly. It’s the age where the children are required to think. However, are the children’ thinking are being affected by modern technology such as computers, electronic toys and the long hours being spent watching television. Berger (p. 368), states “U.S. fourth graders score far below those in East Asia. Some critics blame the teachers, some the students, others the schools, and still others the culture.” This could be caused by various things such as the pressure to do well on assessments so that children can matriculate to higher grade, the lack of play, the excessive use of technological devices such as sitting and watching television for long periods of time, the use of other toys. Are children taught how to rote learn and not to think and apply information? My intention is to find out how all these aspects affect children cognitively in their middle childhood. Every aspect of child development is very important but middle childhood marks a period of increase independence and confidence in the middle childhood and therefore children who are not able to perform in school because of low cognitive development may end up becoming school drop outs are just passing through the system If we can identify from this early stage of child development what affects the child cognitive development we can save ourselves millions of dollars that are spent on remediation programs.

So far I am in the preliminary stages of the research chart. The first week was very challenging but I hope I am getting a true understanding of how to manipulate the chart.  Learning about the research process is challenging but learning about the different aspects of research such the various terminologies and the validity of the credibility of resources will prove to be both useful and as guide in ensuring that we understand and apply the research process.

I would greatly appreciate the views of my colleagues on cognitive development in middle childhood. Are children given stimulation exercises to help them cognitive development? Are the children bombarded by too much assessment exercises, therefore, less time is spent on allowing children to discover their world? How does play affect the child’s cognitive development in middle childhood? There are so many questions about cognitive development in middle childhood and I know many of you have much information to contribute to this area.

Judy,

Reference

Berger, K. (2012). The Developing Person Through Childhood(6th ed.) New York: Worth Publishers.