Foresight

Sometimes we get caught up spending so much time running around and putting out the little fires that could have been avoided if we had just arranged things ahead of time.

Farewell to 6165

It is getting exciting as this program continues to move forward and I dream about being almost done.  I know there is about a year left, but I am happy to see how far we have come together and that I have been able to stick with it.  I have also found a greater love for really learning on my own and find that I spend tons of time just doing extra research and reading extra articles and staying more on top of current events and trends in the field.  I would say my eyes have really opened to more that is happening in  my field.

Additionally, I have been happy to meet so many of my colleagues who are willing to share their ideas and experiences in the field to help me to be a better person and think about how I might handle situations.  It has been nice that I have had many of the same people in my classes along the way, and hope that as I continue to move forward that there will still be many of you that I know and am familiar with.  I wish all of you the best in your journey and encourage you to stick with it for another year and be proud when you have finished!  I would love to stay in touch and can always be reached at khcondie@gmail.com.

Adjourning in Project Work

At most of my adjourning meetings I like to hold a reflective conversation and talk about all that went well and the things that could have been improved.  I have someone take notes and save this information to use again for similar projects, to make each project better than the next.  This is also a great time to celebrate successes, not just with the project but with individuals.  In what ways did this project grow individuals?  Did someone step out of their comfort zone?  Did someone go above and beyond the call of duty?  Did someone do something new for the first time?  I believe part of forming teams for projects is also part of growing individuals and helping them reach their personal goals.

When they teams are adjourning, and they will most likely not see one another again, I think a celebration good-bye party is in order.  Play some games, invite their loved ones and reminisce for a little bit.  Have the opportunity to share desires to remain in contact more in the future and in what capacity.

When teams are adjourning that will continue to see one another, a smaller celebration or public recognition is enough.  While I have over 30 people who work for me, we typically are forming small teams to complete projects.  When the project is completed, the teamwork is done, but those who were on the team will continue to work with one another and see one another in the workplace.  They are just not concentrating on this specific project.  I believe adjourning provides you with closure and an opportunity for reflection.

As it comes time to adjourn from my group of colleagues, I hope that I will have grown to know a group of professionals whom I can call upon and rely on when I need help in my field.  Lately I have become very involved in what is happening in the education sector in my community.  The more I learn, the more questions I have.  It is through reaching out to other professionals in the field that I have grown.  I hope to be able to continue to be connected to them where we can share the occasional emails.

Conflict Resolution

Working for a nonprofit organization requires funding from many private individuals and corporations as well as federal, state, and private grants.  While private donations typically don't require anything in return, grants stipulate that you uphold certain requirements and report back statistics of how your program properly implemented those things.

A new government grant opportunity became available in the field of early childhood.  The government is offering a large sum of money to organizations to help promote and implement quality early education for preschool age children.  On the surface, the grant is very appealing and certainly will bring about a large sum of money to fund such a program.  What goes unseen by the untrained eye is how the grant funds are defining a quality program and what it is asking of the organizations who accept the funding.

For the development director, whose sole responsibility is to find funding for our organization to keep us in business, this opportunity is definitely intriguing and worth the fight, even if it means sacrificing or changing practices to accommodate the requirements of the program.  For myself as the director of our early childhood programs, my responsibility is to look after the best interest of the children, their families, their education, and my teachers.  How can I ask my teachers to teach and assess young children in a manner that does not compliment our current practices, beliefs and core values and does not follow what we understand developmentally appropriate practice to mean?

Certainly, this creates a conflict between myself and my development director.  It also expands it reach beyond just the two of us.  I must be the spokesperson for our program while she must be the spokesperson for our administration and board of directors, those who do not have a background and education in early childhood but instead in principles of business management.  Indeed, this is an area that creates conflict.

For now, we have put it on the back burner until we can have a chance to gather additional information and come back together to talk about whether or not our organization will seek this funding.  Here are some things I have learned that I must do to prepare to address this conflict with my co-worker:

• Prepare myself by increasing my knowledge and doing my research.  Talk with other professionals in my field, talk with my teaching staff, and research national organizations that take a stand for early childhood education and determine how they would respond to the requirements of this grant.
• In my research and preparation, gather information for both sides, not just my own.  Be willing to understand both sides of the conflict and come up with some creative possible compromises.  Is there a way that we can both get our needs met? This will help in staying focused on the actual problem: our organization needs money and we need to uphold developmentally, culturally, and individually appropriate practice.
• Determine what areas I am willing to compromise and what areas I am not willing to compromise.  Perhaps  making a list of items in priority of what I am willing to abide by in the grant and what I am not.
• Learn to manage my own emotions.  While I may personally feel strongly for or against an aspect of this conflict, I  must learn to manage and appropriately express those emotions.  I must also be aware of the feelings of the other people involved in this conflict, either directly or indirectly.

If I properly take these steps, I believe that I will be more prepared to address this conflict in a constructive manner, whether that be that the outcome comes out the way I hope, or a way that both sides can live with.

Who Am I as a Communicator?

I used three assessments to self-evaluate my communication styles, and then had my husband and my supervisor at work complete the same assessments as they related to my communication skills.  I was surprised how differently my husband rated my listening skills compared to how my supervisor and myself rated my listening skills.  Do I listen differently to him and possibly other family members than I listen to colleagues?  His score indicated I was more content-oriented while my own score and that of my supervisor indicated I was more people-oriented.  Could it also be the perception of how others view my listening skills?

I was happy to see my results of communication anxiety.  This has been something that I have been working on for several years.  I have been placing myself in positions where I can speak out in public and teach in front of large groups of both people I know and those I do not know.  If I had taken this assessment many years ago, I can easily see how I would fall in the high category.  Today, my husband rates me as having moderate anxiety, although the score barely borders the line between moderate and mild.  My supervisor and myself rated me as having mild anxiety.  My supervisor's score was close to being moderate, but my own score rated on the low end of mild, bordering low anxiety.  This is interesting to me because although I may feel less anxiety, others interpret or perceive that I have a higher level anxiety.  Does this mean I am not being true to my feelings and trying to convince myself that I feel less nervous and anxious than I really do?

In my professional life, I am glad I have made changes in my levels of communication anxiety, but realize that I still have more work to do to be more comfortable in more situations.  I believe my professional life will put me in more situations where I may be uncomfortable than my personal life, so I know I need to keep working on this.

In my personal life, I feel I need to be more responsive to the feelings of those I am close to.  It is difficult to think that I may listen differently to those in the work place compared to those in my personal life.  While I understand the need to conduct myself professionally in the work place, I don't feel I should be treating those closest to me differently, especially if having empathy is something that is important to them.

Communication Among Different Groups & Cultures

Do I communicate differently with people from different groups and cultures?  Of course I do.

In general, I tend to speak very fast.  People who know me well, and in casual conversations, this does not seem to create any problems.  However, when I am speaking with people who I know do not speak fluent English, I try to slow down, enunciate my words, and provide good eye contact so I can heighten the chances of them understanding me.  When I am presenting in front of a group of people, I cognitively slow down, think about my words, and change my tone at different times so they will catch the points I am trying to emphasize.  There have been times that I have been presenting or in a business meeting when I get very passionate about what I am talking about and my speaking tends to naturally speed up and my volume increases.  This is hard for some people because they have interpreted that to mean that I am upset.  I have had to learn from this experience to be cautious of how I am speaking and to take the time to slow down.

The things I communicate to others can be different depending on whom I am talking to as well.  In an article titled Interpersonal Communication and Diversity: Adapting to Others I read, "When we communicate with people who have different cultural backgrounds than our own, we tend to share less information with them than we do with people who share our cultural heritage" (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2011, p.97).  I have seen this true with personal experiences of mine that are of a more spiritual nature.  When I am speaking with those who I know share the same religious beliefs and values, I tend to give more details to my experience than when I am talking with those who I know do not share the same religious beliefs as myself.  While I don't necessarily agree with my thinking in this aspect, it is what is comfortable for me. 

I think there are times when we are more comfortable sharing greater details about an event or experience with some people than we are with others. There will always be information that I will share with my spouse or possibly other close friends or family that I would not share with others.  I have noticed even after an event, like a conference I participated in or a vacation I attended, people will ask me how things went.  While I may not base my answers so much on differences in culture, I may base my answers on how well I know the person or how much time I think we have, and then leave out certain aspects of my experience to match who I am talking with.  I think we can all find our happy balances between information that could or should be shared with everyone, and information that should be kept between just a few individuals.  I think the important thing to pay attention to is that I am not intentionally leaving information out just because someone is different than I am.  Instead I should be giving the information that fits the situation and individual I am speaking with.

Reference:
Beebe, S.A., Beebe, S.J., Redmond, M.V. (2011) Interpersonal communication: relating to others (6th ed). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/USW1/201520_02/MS_MECS/EDUC_6165/Week%203/Resources/Resources/embedded/beebe_ch4.pdf  

Reading Non-Verbal Communication

I watched a show called Granite Flats, season 1 episode 2, a show I have never watched before.

First I watched the show without sound, attempting to read the characters non-verbal cues to how they were feeling and their relationships with one another.  At the beginning you see things shake, what I would relate to as an earthquake since I grew up in southern California where we experienced many earthquakes.  The scene took place on what seemed to be a military base. People ran around panicked.  Families were rushing into basements, MP's and hospital staff ran to look out windows.  Their facial expressions all seemed to show a look of immediate concern and many looked scared.  As they looked up in the air, a black smoke cloud rose from one area in town, indicating to me this was not an earthquake.

The interactions with one another without sound made it hard to tell their relationships to one another.  For instance, there was a scene with a fire truck where a man in pajamas seemed to be bossing around men in military uniforms as they put out fires and kept people from rushing into the fire.  The man in pajamas seemed to be their captain or someone they knew and took orders from.  However, when I watched the show again with sound, it was quite apparent that the man in pajamas was someone none of the men knew.  At first contact, they tried to get him away from the scene, but the man in pajamas introduced himself as a Lieutenant.  Then the men listened to him and took orders from him and they all worked together to put out the fire from where the bomb has happened.

Another interesting part about relationships was between the town sheriff and the military police and veterans hospital staff.  As the town crisis happened, the scene showed the sheriff in his house with is family.  He immediately moved them to the basement out of harm's way, kissed his wife and left in his police car.  It showed him make a radio call from his car, expressing looks of concern and what seemed to be yelling.  He arrived at the veterans hospital where he was met by the head MP and hospital staff as they watched men come in badly injured from the explosion.  They chatted quickly as they looked at the injured men coming in the door and seemed to be talking about how they would be helping one another.  After a few minutes, the sheriff said something which made them all chuckle and they seemed to be in lighter moods.  After watching the show with sound on, I realized I had misjudged this relationship as well.  There was tension between the town sheriff and military personnel.  They didn't seem to get along.  The sheriff was there to offer his help and support for the crisis, but the MP and hospital staff didn't seem to want him around, thought he would get in the way and interfere.  With sound, you could tell their relationships were strained, but without sound, it seemed as if they were all there helping one another.  The sheriff stayed in good humored spirits throughout the show, despite knowing he was not welcome while the military men spoke poorly of him and his sticking his nose in their business.

Then the third relationship that was shown in this episode was between three children, probably around ten years old; two boys and a girl.  One boy, shown as the son of the sheriff at the beginning of the episode, seemed to always be smiling and excited.  Even when the shaking happened and all rushed to the basement, he was smiling and asking something.  Even with the sound on, this crisis seemed to give him excitement instead of scared.  The other boy's mother was one of the nurses at the hospital.  When we watched the show without sound it showed her looking in her son's room right after the incident, not seeing him there and then rushing to the hospital and talking with a man who seemed to be her supervisor.  I assumed she had asked him if she could go find her son instead of working.  He asked her something, then shook his head no and went inside, leaving her standing outside contemplating whatever he said.  When I watched the show with sound however, she really ran up and asked him what she could do to help and if she was needed in a certain spot.  He actually inquired about her son and if she needed to get back with him, but she insisted he was fine and she was there to help.  He told her what she could do and walked inside.  This is opposite of the conversation I thought had taken place.  This episode never introduced the family of the girl, although the kids did eat sandwiches at her home.

The relationship between these three kids was interesting.  Without sound, it seemed like the sheriff's son was always happy and overly excited, not always displaying the most appropriate responses to the situations.  The girl always seemed to be angry, yelling at the boys and telling them what to do.  The nurse's son seemed to be caught in the middle of this and unsure how to respond.  There was  time the sheriff's son left the room for a moment and the girl and nurse's son talked and he started crying.  Whatever the other boy said when he came back made them all laugh and it seemed he was making fun of him for crying.  When I watched it with sound, I realized I had guessed the relationship between these three kids all wrong.  The nurse and her son had just moved into town and these three kids had been assigned to do a science project together at school in the previous episode, so this was a new formed friendship between the three kids.  In the previous episode, which I had to go back and watch to make more sense out of this episode and their relationships, some kids at school were picking on one of the boys and the other boy and the girl stood up for him which also helped to form the new relationship with these kids.  Although the girl did seem a little bossy even with the sound on, I realized had dramatically misjudged the conversations between these kids.

For instance, in one scene she walks in the bedroom where the two boys were looking through a box of comic books they had pulled out from under the bed.  She came in with her arms crossed and her brows furrowed and said something to them.  They looked at her and then at each other and put the box of comic books away.  It had seemed as if she had told them to put it away, but when I watched it with sound, she actually was showing her disapproval that she had been helping the boy's sister in the kitchen because she didn't like cooking.  Then she was expressing concern of what had taken place and indicated this was something other than what people in town were saying it was.  The boys were intrigued and put them away to come over and talk about it.  What seemed like a conversation where the sheriff's boy was putting together a plot to go investigate and she was saying no and they turned to the other boy for his opinion, really ended up being quite different.  She had proposed an original plan, they argued only over the best way to accomplish that plan, and did ask the third boy for his advice.

While there were many other relationships and incidences which happened in this show, including one man who had to tell a wife her husband had died and he got slapped, and then it showed a strained relationship between him and his son and he seemed to look to the sky and curse God often, I realized that without sound, I misjudged quite a bit of the show.  I had assumed people were in relationships that they were not.  I had thought some looks of concern were for one thing, but they turned out to be something entirely different.  The plot was very different than I had guessed.  At first, I related the shaking to an earthquake, something I was very familiar with from my own life experiences, but through the show it went from missile attack to bombs and then the unknown.  There was thought it was from terrorists, then spies, to local town people.

In general, I learned that if all you do is read the non-verbal cues, you can misjudge often what is really happening.  I related this experience for me as if I was watching a conversation taking place from across the room.  Not being able to hear what others are saying but just watching them, one can assume they are talking about certain things, but they could be talking about something entirely different.  Another difference watching people in person however, is my relationship with them or what I know about them.  Watching a new show and choosing something other than the first episode made it hard to understand the relationships between the people. Had I seen even the first episode of this show before watching it without sound, I would have known some of the characters, know about the new formed relationships, the strain between the sheriff and military, and the new faces that were introduced in this show.  I think it would have been easier to guess conversations or things that were taking place had I been more familiar with the characters of the show.  Overall, a fun experiment to watching non-verbal cues in others.

A good communicator

A great communicator can sometimes be the person who listens so well that I can solve my own problems just by talking with them.
 
Not too long ago I felt the despair that accompanies anxiety.  Things just didn't feel right in my head and I couldn't shake it.  Things I normally cared about had no meaning to me and my motivations to accomplish my tasks were fogged.  I was in a daze.

I agreed to see a counselor.  He listened intently, he showed compassion and care, and he let me talk.  It was more than just giving me eye contact, he seemed relaxed, genuinely interested, not hurried or rushed, and that he cared.  I felt I could trust him and learn from him.  He asked clarifying questions, or questions that made me think and talk through the answers.  He was knowledgeable about my situation and offered small pieces of advice when the time was right, advice that once again, made me stop and think; advice that sometimes resolved my own problems and perceptions.  He never interrupted me and when he spoke, it was with a calm confidence and peace, without judging me.  While he made it clear that I could never be wrong in what I was saying because it was my opinion, he appropriately challenged my perceptions and offered possible alternative thoughts to consider. 

He showed me a great example of an effective communicator.  I never felt like he knew what he was going to say to me before I came in, but he listened well enough each week to know what I needed to hear. I think this is what Stephen Covey meant when he said that it was more important to listen to understand the other person rather than coming up with a way to reply and thinking of what you will say when they stop talking.

I think if I could learn to have the patience and ability to model some of these characteristics in my professional position, I would be a much better leader. 

Professional Hopes and Goals in Providing an Anti-Bias Education

I hope to live in a world free of prejudice, bias, and discrimination.  A world where people think before they speak and act. A place where all feel welcome, all feel respected, all feel valued, and all feel they have something marvelous to add to our growing and ever changing community.

Personal Goal: Set the precedence and example in the field of early childhood to shut the door to prejudice and celebrate diversity.

 

Thanks!  to all my colleagues for trusting us enough to share your personal stories, memories, and private moments of your life.  Some memories are hard to recall and even more difficult to tell.  I have been touched by the hardships each of you were willing to open up and provide.

 

 

Welcoming Families From Around the World

A family comes to my childcare center who has immigrated from Finland.  There are several things that I will do to prepare myself to be culturally responsive to this family.

• As I am talking with the family during enrollment, learn all I can.  Politely ask questions specifically about where they are from, showing interest in their culture.  Ask them about things they are concerned about, traditions or cultures they would like to maintain, and things they think are important in their child's educational experience and the way they are treated.  Also to find out why they came to America and what they  hope to gain from their experience for their child.  Also, ask if they would be willing to share family photos from where they are from.
• Then research and learn what I can about typical customs and cultures for the area they came from in Finland.  This would be moving beyond things like their capital and state bird, but really learning what the people do, their education systems, holidays they typically celebrate, etc.
• Next find books, music, posters and perhaps toys or clothing that represents where they are from.  Finland has some beautiful landscapes and obtaining posters and pictures from their area may help them feel welcome.  Integrating music, toys or other cultural materials may help make the transition easier and help them feel respected.
• I can also ask other people I know from this area to tell me a little more about what it is like in Finland.  I have found that talking with people you learn more about culture and traditions and what things are really like than reading about them online.  This would help me get different perspectives and may even spark further conversations with the family at another time.
• Last I would look for community resources for the family.  I would want to be prepared to connect them with groups or organizations in the community where they may be able to relate to others who are in their same situation or who may be able to make their transition easier.  These community resources may also be able to provide support and help for our center, especially if there are translation services that may be needed.

I hope that these preparations will help both myself and the family by helping us to have a better understanding of one another needs and desires, lessen unintentional microagression or discrimination, and help feel supported in our efforts to provide a quality educational experience for the child.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Last week I observed the following conversation take place between a white person and a person with brown skin:
P1 - "Are you from Mexico?"
P2 - "No, I'm from Utah"
P1 - "But where you born in Mexico?"
P2 - "No, I was born in Utah"
P1 - "Well are your parents from Mexico?"
P2 - "No"
P1 - "Well where are your parents from then?"
P2 - "My mother is from Utah. My father is from _____(some other country but I can't remember what was said)"
P1 - "Do you speak Spanish then?"
P2 - "No"
P1 - "Do your parents speak Spanish?"
P2 - "No, my mom only speaks English and my dad speaks ____ (can't remember what language he said)"
P1 - "Well why did you go to Mexico then?"
P2 - "I always wanted to visit there."

I believe in this conversation P1 is making an assumption based on a small piece of knowledge, he knew P2 had just visited Mexico, and based on the color of skin.  This conversation may have began by just being a simple conversation, but leaves room for discrimination and prejudice towards P2.  I believe P1 put himself in a position of power, diminishing equity, by making an assumption based on the outward appearance of someone.  It didn't seem at all that P1 was uncomfortable with the conversation, but it did seem like it made P2 uncomfortable with the conversation.  As an bystander to this conversation, it made me uncomfortable and I was a little at awe.  Someone else actually jumped in and changed the conversation to be a little more appropriate. 

I think there are several things that could have changed this conversation to bring about better equity.  First, I think P1 didn't have the slightest idea that what he was saying could have been hurtful.  I think the way he was talking, the tone he was using, and to some extent the words he actually said put him in a position of power and authority and talking that way to anyone could have made them back down.  It was almost as if he was giving a silent message saying that he was better than him because he was white and from America and anyone who was different was not good.  Second, I think as a bystander I could have done more or something sooner to try to change the conversation or ask more details about his family and culture and highlighting the good and exciting pieces of that. I felt uncomfortable in a way that I wasn't sure how to respond or react, and to some extent, as a female bystander to a conversation between two men, I also felt that I didn't have the power or right to step into that conversation. The person who did change the conversation was another male.  I am not sure why I really felt that way, but it made it difficult for me to intervene. 

Awareness of Microaggression

Is it discrimination or perceived discrimination?

I left an administrative meeting with several other administrators.  As we walked through the playground there was one teacher running around playing with the kids and three teachers sitting under a covered pavilion. The head administrator of the organization specifically calls out one of the teachers sitting under the pavilion and tells that teacher to get up and go play with the kids.  After we walk inside, the administrator tells me that teacher is always sitting and has been told several times before to be actively engaged with the children while outdoors.  Then asked me to formally talk with the teacher to discuss the issue.  I went back, called the teacher inside, and formally addressed the concern.

The next day the teacher seeks me out to tell me that was an act of professionalism and discrimination.  Unprofessional because something was said in front of others and discriminatory because nothing was said to the other two teachers who were also doing the same thing.  The teacher who was addressed was Latino, the other two teachers were white, and the administrator was white.

Was this actually an act of discrimination or was it just perceived by the teacher as a discriminatory act?  Could the administrator have had invisible discriminatory feelings towards this one teacher or was it simply the fact that this teacher had been told several other times while the other teachers had not been talked to about the issue before?  If that is the case, why were the other teachers not addressed at the same time?  What are my responsibilities at this point to respond to the teacher who feels discriminated against and to the administrator, who is over the organization and my direct supervisor?

I believe there are times when we may say or do something that may be unequal or unfair based on a personal bias against an individual, a group, or because an individual belongs to a certain group.  I also believe that there are times people feel discriminated against because of an aspect they may have, yet it is not true.  For instance, someone may say I didn't hire them because they were too fat, the wrong religion, of a certain ethnic background, etc but the reality may be that there simply was someone else more qualified for the position.  How do we determine when something is an act of discrimination and when it is not?

Perspectives on Diversity & Culture

Most people I talked to thought of culture as relating to a group of people, a country, a civilization, or a specific group such as a religious group.  They indicate that they believe these are a set of norms, traditions, beliefs, values, or customs that have been accepted and are typically followed by those in the group.

I see culture as more encompassing than that, and more individualized than that.  It is everything that makes up who you are.  It is the traditions your family holds, the patterns of behavior, the ways you deal with certain things, and the morals and values you uphold.  Culture is also the roles you take on each day, between being a family member, a member of your community, and how you fit in and act in your work environment.  Culture is what makes you who you are.  It is not what is on the outward appearance, but what is felt deep down, what you come up with through your experiences and learning, it is what defines you as unique, special, and individual.  Part of my culture was rooted within me as a child, but other parts of my culture were created through my experiences, associations, and gained knowledge.  While I believe some things with culture can pertain to a certain group of people, I see it really coming down to the individual and the way they typically behave and feel that defines their culture.

As I asked about diversity, people referred to diversity looking only at ethnicity and race and seeing these being mixed in one geographical location.  One person I asked did go beyond ethnicity and included religions, interests, political beliefs, and things they enjoy doing in their free time.  I felt this last answer was getting closer to being diverse.

One of the things I took pride in when my center became NAEYC accredited, was the inspector told me we had the most diverse staff in our center that she had ever seen and she had been an inspector since NAEYC began.  At that time I thought about diversity.  I could tell what she could see from the outside.  We had people working for us of all ages, from the young twenties who were college students to the veteran who had been there almost thirty years and everything in between.  We have both male and female staff.  We have several different ethnic backgrounds and languages spoken by the staff.  I have teachers of various physical abilities.  This outward diversity was easy for others to see.  I also began to realize the large amount of diversity that was present through observations.  The ways the teachers are the same, and the ways they are very different.  Our curriculum allows the teacher's own style to come out through a framework that guides their teaching, but doesn't have everyone do things the same way.  The classrooms are all arranged differently, they study different themes, they focus on different areas, and run their classrooms and activities differently.  This is diversity, looking at all the ways we are the same as someone else as well as all the ways we are different.  It is taking those pieces of our culture and being able to see how much we are alike when we may seem very different.

As I talked with others, I was actually surprised at the vagueness that came from their responses.  I spoke with someone of the opposite gender as myself, someone much older than myself, someone of a different ethnic background and who came from another country than myself, and another person just slightly older than me but in a very different profession.  To me, this was a diverse group of people, but it seemed like their answers were very similar.  The person who was much older than myself had a much broader view of culture and diversity.  After talking with these four people I wondered, Do people see culture and diversity on the surface rather than really individualizing it to a person?  I grew up in a family of ten, but we still have a lot of diversity within our own family culture and the way we do things. I think this is to really recognize how different everyone is and understand that just because one person of a certain group does something one way, doesn't mean everyone in that group will act or feel the same way.

My Family Culture

There are not many things I can't live without.

If there were some type of emergency, something that caused me to have to evacuated indefinitely to another country with a culture very different than my own, there is only one main thing I would really want to take.  I would want to have my scriptures with me that have been written in my home language and marked up and studied.  I know that these bring me closer to  my God, who understands me and my needs wherever I am in the world.  This is enough to survive.

Should there be additional room for me to take more things, I would take my music and a way to play it.  Music brings me comfort and peace and there is music for all my different moods.  While I may be able to find music in another culture, I am attached to the music I am accustomed to and would turn to that to bring me additional comfort in times of trial.

The third thing I would bring with me is my computer with a way to access the internet.  I love to research, read, and increase my knowledge.  This is my source of growth.  While I know I can live without my computer, it is my way of reading and staying up to date.  I love the convenience and incredible amount of information that can be gleaned from my computer.

When I Think of Research ...

I went into a class on building research competencies, thinking it was going to be complicated and really not understanding the value research can have in the field of early childhood.  Instead, I learned that it really wasn't all that complicated and that the results could have great benefits and really make an impact in the way we work with children.

I have always thought of research being boring and long drawn out, but as I was able to come up with my own project and propose questions for research that were important to me in the field of early childhood, I became so excited that I wanted to fulfill the research project itself.  I wished my class would extend for a longer period of time so I can actually conduct the project.  I can see how valuable the results could be and I am trying to find a way to conduct the project on my own.  This is a very different view than I had from the beginning.

I have learned that there is a specific process that one must go through just to set up a specific research project.  Steps and rules must be well thought out and followed.  I had to learn different methods of collecting data, different research methods and types of experiments, lines of measurement and analyzing of the data, how to choose study participants and requirements, how to prove validity, and many other things.
I realized in the planning process that there were things I needed to further define before I could conduct the study, and even now I do not have enough information to actually conduct my study.

One challenge I have encountered in designing a simulated research study is the need to define general terms.  My research study intends to answer the question "Do children with large emotional vocabularies demonstrate higher levels of self-regulation and prosocial skills? To successfully answer this question, I needed to be able to define specific levels of emotional vocabulary, how many words should children know at age 4 & 5 and how many words is considered low, medium, and high.  Next I had to define what self-regulation and prosocial skills look like.  To do this I needed to find specific assessments that could be used to determine children's skill level in these areas.  This challenge took time to research myself and find something that matched what I was already thinking, or time to develop something myself that could be understood by others and easily duplicated.

While I realized research is not necessarily complicated in my mind, it is time consuming just putting the research project together before the research can actually be conducted.  There is lots of prep work and thinking.  In the end, I believe the outcomes and results greatly help to increase professionals knowledge and practice in working with children.  If I could use this study to provide ways to increase a child's skill to better control themselves and to react appropriately to others emotions, I could really help advance the field of early childhood and provide a much needed support for teachers of all ages.

Early Childhood Research Around the World

The field of early childhood is ever growing, but all around the world, professionals in the field have similar questions, similar concerns and issues, and conduct similar research.  I have been studying about schools in Europe, specifically Finland, England, and Portugal for my own search to find quality in early childhood education.  I decided to study the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal (EECERJ) to learn about topics being studied there. (http://www.eecera.org/journal/)

At first I was surprised at the topics in the most recent published journal in April, 2014.  They included: literacy development, science instruction, professionalism, barriers to learning, education models, nature and outdoor classrooms, afterschool programming, stress and sensitivity of caregivers, and temperament.  Of these ten items, I am currently studying, training, and researching five of them in my current profession and an additional two of them personally.  It should not be surprising that these are concerns and issues in other parts of the world as well, but helped me to feel that I was not alone in my search to find answers to make early childhood a more meaningful experience for all.

This compelled me to go back one more issue, to the February, 2014 issue.  The article topics in this issue included: brain development and academic rigor in early childhood, influence of parents playing with children, social-emotional prevention programs, kindergarten mathematics, science for birth to age four, the Deluge, programs for children with autism, character development in children 3-6, early education and professional choice, and parental concepts on quality. A few of these are similar to the April journal, but they all are very different.  Again, I found that these are areas that I am studying both professionally and personally (although can one really say they are studying something personally when it is in their professional field and helps them ultimately grow as a professional?  It may be more correct to say I am studying them on my own, but not because I see a current need in the organization I work for, although even then it wouldn’t be entirely true).

It is comforting to know that all around the world people are learning about young children and how we can best meet their needs and help them to grow and develop in the best ways possible. There are many professionals in the field who truly are doing all they can to highlight the importance of early childhood and to help other professionals in the field in their journey to help children become all they can become.  There is a vast amount of research and knowledge that has been shared all over the world, I am grateful to have found this research journal to add more interesting facts and information to the areas of the world that I have already been studying.

The last thing on this website that caught my attention was the early childhood conference.  I love to attend the early childhood conferences in my local area as well as the NAEYC conference held every year.  I have known that conferences happen all over the world, but I take pride in seeing and understanding that the topics they will discuss are similar to the ones we discuss here as well.  I would love to one day be able to travel through Europe and observe and learn about the field of early childhood all over the world.

The Perry Preschool Study

Research can be beneficial in the field of early childhood.  Take for instance the High/Scope Perry Preschool Study.  This research project studied the affects of high-quality preschool education for children living in poverty.  The research study identified 123 low-income African American children who were considered to be at high risk of school failure.  58 of them received high-quality preschool for two years prior to starting kindergarten and 65 of them received no preschool services.  These 123 children have been followed over a span so far through 40 years old.  There are significant gains in the children who attended the preschool program compared to those who did not attend the preschool program.  During schooling years, children who attended the preschool program performed better in school and had better attitudes towards school, had less disciplinary problems, and required less specialized services, overall saving the school money and resources. Into adulthood, those who attended preschool had less trouble with the law, had higher rates of holding employment with larger annual earnings, and maintained assets such as cars and a stable home.  They were also more involved in the lives of their own children and less likely to live off of others including their use of social services.

Overall, this study has shown that those who attended a high-quality preschool program had an economic return of $244,812 per participant.  This return on investment stems from crime savings, savings from education special services, increased taxes because they were higher wage earners, and reduced use of welfare services.  Certainly this study does not just prove that high-quality preschool is beneficial to low-income families, but this research project made significant impacts on those children and their families who attended the preschool program.  Children who possibly otherwise would not have been able to attend preschool because of their financial situation, were provided the opportunity to start on a positive educational path that had direct impact on their lives long term.  It is an impact that could carry on through generations as they stress the value of high-quality preschool for their own children.  Research projects such as this do benefit society, but more closely they benefited those who participated.

If we look at this from an ethical stand point, there are many other questions that come to my mind however.  Was this fair to the children who were put in the group who did not attend preschool?  What long term affects has it had for those who missed out on the opportunity.  Were families and children able to choose if they wanted to attend preschool or if they wanted to be in the group that did not go?  Did the children who attended preschool perform higher because they knew they were being monitored and observed over a life time?  Was more emphasis put on education because of the financial gains and incentives that were put in place while they were younger.  For those who did not attend preschool and saw the advancements of those who did, will it make an impact to their view of education when it comes to sending their own children to preschool?  While I believe this study showed great improvement in the field of early childhood, was it considered the fairness of those who did not have the opportunity to go, did financial incentives change family thought and emphasis on education, and was there generational impacts? 

Reference:
More information on this project can be found at http://www.highscope.org/file/Research/PerryProject/specialsummary_rev2011_02_2.pdf 

The High/Scope

Perry Preschool Study

Through Age 40

Summary, Conclusions, and

Frequently Asked Questions