OBSERVING COMMUNICATION

Observing Communication

 

                I am the teacher and Director at the center where I work.  My hands are full throughout the day!  However, I brought in a substitute and went to visit another center.  I visit Amazing Grace Learning Center.  The teachers were full of life and seem to enjoy what they do.  I observe Ms. Turner who worked with the three and four years old.  She had a great schedule that she followed however, she did not communicate with the children well in the learning centers.  The students ask her to come and eat with them and she told them in a minute.  She never stopped what she was doing and visited the children in the centers.  Children learn through communication.  She let the children play with the toys but there was no interaction with the students and teacher doing center time.  Ms. Turner seemed to enjoy the time to do other things than engage with the children in the learning center. After observing the children and Ms. Turner for over twenty minutes I intervened and visit the children in the learning centers.  Before intervening, I ask Ms. Turner will it be okay if I visit with the children in the learning centers.  The children were very excited.  In Dramatic Play the girls ask me could they comb my hair, I said “yes.”  Zadaisha and Carmen told me that I was at the Beauty Shop and they were going to wash and roll my hair because I did not need a perm.  So I asked them what is a perm, Zadaisha said “a perm is what you put in your hair to make it straight.”  I talking with Zadaisha and Carmen I visit the Block Center.  Zadarian and Kenji were in the block center building a farm house for their animals.  As you can see these children had great vocabulary and were very eager to have conversation.  I ask them what kind of animals live on the farm.  Kenji and Zadarian said that on a farm there are pigs, horses, cows, chickens, goats and sheep.  They told me they were going to put the pigs in the sty with some hay and mud.  Kenji told me that a sty is where the pigs sleep.  I told him that he was right and ask him where did he learn that from?  He said, “My mother read me the story Big Red Barn.” 

            The students had great communication skills whether they learned it from school or home.  The students were great, but Ms. Turner was poor at communicated with the children during center time.  Ms. Turner could have been learning the children as they played in the centers.  As Lisa Kolbeck stated, “You learn a child by watching them play.”  Learning children is getting to their level.  You have to interact and intervene to establish learning in the classroom.  She could teach the children but she seems to be unaware of the best teaching experience that may happen in the classroom.  Children learn from teachers and teachers learn from their students.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010) "Communicating with Young Children"

 

CREATING AFFIRMING ENVIRONMENTS

Creating Affirming Environments

The visual of my at home care child facility would provide every opportunity for parents and children to feel that they belong here.  Keshia’s Kinder Care Learning Center will be an anti-bias environment.  When entering the building their will pictures of people from all over the world with different background, representing cultural diversity. The center name and labels throughout the building and classroom will be written in Engalish and Spanish. In the dramatic play center I will provide food from other cultures so the children my explore and learn the types of food that other cultures such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Mexican, Caucasian and African Americans may eat.  I would provide a variety of cultural diversity of dolls in the center as well.  In the reading center and the other centers as well, I would provide a variety of books that represent cultural diversity.  The books may focus on foster children, children with disabilities, same sex parents and families that are mixed.  In the block center, I would provide people with different disabilities, puzzles that display disability and teach the children that we are all different but we should still be treated equally and with respect.  I would display pictures of individuals from different cultures and famous people.  There will be plenty material for the children to choose from in the art center.  The children will have their free choice to create their very own portrait with its own unique style.  I will invite the families to come to the center and teach us about their own culture.  Children are living in a diverse world everyday but are unaware of the term because it is not spoken of in the home.  Keshia’s Kinder Care Learning Center will be a “Learning community that truly nurtures and supports all children, and will make our efforts worthwhile and exciting” (Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. 2010).

 

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children       (NAEYC).

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED

The hope that I have when working with children is to treat them the way I would like to be treated.  To encourage them to be the best they can be and be the one that they look up to for advice and answers.  I want to be the one who makes a difference in each child’s life that I touch. The goal I would like to set is to always teach diversity in the classroom and increase the children’s learning of other countries, religions and biases. 

I would like to thank my colleagues for the support and comments during the past eight weeks.  I have learned a lot from each of you as well as myself.  I pray that we are the best educators for our preschoolers and great communicators for our children, parents and community.

Thanks,

LaKeshia S. Short

shortlakeshia@yahoo.com   or

Short325@gmail.com