Course Project-Challenge

My challenge will be: Children exposed to risk, stress, or trauma.

My sub topic is: Poverty

I selected this topic because it is one that I work with every day in my role as a kindergarten teacher at a small rural school in Western, Maryland. We have over 73% of our students in our school who receive aid and qualify for extra services because of their families poverty level. We are beginning to see more and more homeless families entering our school community that need extra help. This school year I have a little girl in my class that is part of a one of the homeless families. She has four sisters and the family lives in a community  house with other homeless families. The student in my class needs simple things such as socks, gloves, and shoes. As we know if basic needs are not meant then students can't learn. I always feel attached to students in need and want to help in any way that I can. In education there are always big changes happening especially with state testing and standards, but on a smaller level there are bigger challenges to be met. I feel strongly that working with families who live in poverty is very important. The long term effects that living in poverty can have on children are immense. Cognitive delays and developmental delays are common in children who grow up in extreme poverty. Many families do not even know what resources are avialable within the community to help them. It is the school and teacher's job to inform the families of resources and reach out to help them help their children. We as educators can be the first line of defense! 

Questions that I have about working with families who live in poverty: 

How do I approach a family that I know needs help and doesn't seem to want any? 

How can I identify families in need? 

Can I help the children in my class without helping their siblings in other classrooms? 

Should I collaborate with other teachers in my building to work together to help families? 

What types of resources should I offer families? 

Resources, Quotes, and Sources of Inspiration

Resources, Quotes, and Sources of Inspiration 

Play by definition means the spontaneous activity of children. Unfortunately we have lost the word “spontaneous” in our teaching vocabulary. Everything we do now is a scripted or according to standards. Whatever happened to kids being kids? Check out the picture below I believe it captures that essence of play.

This website I found very interesting because it has pediatricians giving their views on play and the benefits of it. Who better to tell our children to play more, but their doctors!

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/1/182.full

 

I thought this pdf article was very informational and thought provoking. This would be a great resource for parents or teachers to print and have a around when they need some ideas on different ways children can play. It addresses how adults can support play, it reviews the stages of play (I thought that piece was very important for parents so they know what to expect at each stage), it also has recipes for fun to create materials to play with, and it lists additional resources to use to find out more about play.

http://www.childaction.org/families/publications/docs/guidance/Handout13-The_Importance_of_Play.pdf

This is one of my favorite quotes about play. It inspires me everyday. I have it hanging on the file cabinet beside my desk at school. I read it each morning to remind myself to let my kindergarteners be themselves and to explore with free expression.

“Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child’s soul.”

-Friedrich Frobel

The Founding Father of Kindergarten

Innovative or Inspiring Approaches

I like to use technology and project based approaches when working with my kindergarten students. I use technology to kick off every new science and social studies unit I teach. Our county purchases a video-on demand program from PBS called Safari Montage www.safarimontage.com . It is focused mainly on science and social studies videos, but there are a few math and reading videos available also. You can search by grade level and topic. Many of you have probably heard of Bill Nye the science guy. He is the host of many of the science videos that Safari Montage has to offer. I like to make the kids feel like they are in a movie theater when watching these videos so I always show the videos on “big screen” in my room and provide popcorn and juice for my students. They are totally engaged in the video and it is a great way to introduce a new unit topic. In addition to the videos I also create SMART table lessons based on the new unit topic http://smarttech.com/table . During center time I invite four students back each day to play interactive games on the SMART table to reinforce the new topic we are learning about. At the end of each unit I have students work in small groups to create a project based on the information they learned in the unit. For example we just finished our science unit on plants. One of the groups in my classroom, with help from my instructional assistant, build a plastic green house and started to grow their own tomato plants. They watered and measured them each day. Providing hands-on projects helps to strengthen learned concepts.

IDEO is a new model that is about the constant creation of knowledge and empowering individuals to participate, communicate, and innovate.

Two questions this company’s website proposes are: What would the world look like if everyone saw the problems in the world as design opportunities? What if every child believed in his or her creative abilities and had a means of productively tapping into them? These are great questions that we as teachers need to think about when working with our students. We are as teachers building a generation of design thinkers and we must help our students foster the skills they will need to become effective design thinkers. After reading the IDEO website and articles I have been influenced to think more about how to help my students bring out their creative abilities and offer my students more opportunities to explore with real world materials. I believe that if children are given more opportunities to be creative, work with their peers, and problem solve they will learn more effectively.

http://www.ideo.com/expertise/education/

How many of you have access to a SMART table? If you have used a SMART table what are different ways that  you have used the table in your classrooms? Are you required in your county to have students work hands on to create projects or is your curriculum mainly teacher directed? 

Let the Kids Talk!

Let the Kids Talk!

Recently I had a very enlightening conversation with a professor of mine from my graduate studies at Frostburg State University. He is still teaching early childhood development classes at the university and though he has many years in he said he has no desire to retire as long as he is still teaching and helping children. He said something to me I would like to share with all educators. He said, “If a child is really learning you will see their speech pattern change because they will begin to ask you the questions. If the child is being compliant they will let you ask all the questions and not say a word. “ I was very inspired by his statement. It made me think that we should never act as scripted robots when we teach. It is so easy to slip into that scripted teaching mode because with all the new national standards and curriculum guides everything is scripted and thought out for us. We need to remember why we became teachers it is not to read from a script or teach to tests, but it is to create well-rounded children who can think for themselves, problem solve, and communicate their ideas. My professor told me he has a great concern about the direction early childhood education is heading. He said he sees less of children being creative and expressing themselves through conversation skills and more of a teacher directed approach with less time for children to talk. He also mentioned his concern for “think-time” for the children. He said he sees many teachers hurrying children along in their responses or not letting then respond at all during a lesson because the teacher feels they need to “get it all in.” I know as teachers we feel all the demands of standards, curriculum guides, and tests but we must remember we are teaching children not robots and that we all teach all different kinds of children will multiple learning styles. Do you find it hard to let kids have think time? Do you feel the pressures of standards and pacing guides? Do you feel like we are focusing more on what we are to say to the kids than what the kids are saying to us?

Two references I would like to share are listed below. The first is a link to a PDF article that addresses the Reggio Emilia Approach. The second is a book my professor recommended and said should be on every educator’s bookshelf.

http://cunaeinternationalschool.com/ExaminingtheReggioEmiliaApproach.pdf

The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach Advanced Reflections- can be found on amazon.com 

Introduction -About Me!

Introduction about me...
      My name is Sarah O'Neal I have been teaching for eight years. I teach in a small school in Western Maryland. I currently teach kindergarten with 20 students. I have taught second and third grade also. I attended a local college for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, Frostburg State University. My undergraduate degree is in Elementary Education with a concentration in early childhood. My graduate degree is in Curriculum & Instruction with a certificate in Educational Technology. I am in the process of perusing my Ed.D. with Walden University in Early Childhood. My aspiration is to be a full time Early Childhood professor at the college level, preferably at Frostburg State University.
   
    I am motivated to help children succeed in school by giving them the foundation they need at the early childhood level. I have great concern for children who live in poverty and are malnourished and neglected. I have conducted some research on the effects of malnourishment and I was in disbelief with my findings. The school I work at has many families who cannot provide the proper food for their children we service those families as best as we can, but I worry it is not enough. Research shows that if a child has more than two periods of true hunger within the first ten years of life, it can have lasting effects such as stunted growth, speech delays, fine motor delays, gross motor delays, and learning disabilities. The focus seems to be going toward standardized testing, national standards, and bridging achieving gaps what happened to what is best for the child? I have students sitting in my classroom hungry, unsanitary, exhausted, and neglected and yet we expect them to learn. I believe our high level officials placing all these curriculum demands on us have forgot about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I want to work on finding ways to help families who live in poverty provide more for their children and want to educate parents on how to talk to their children and support them.
   
    I also have great concern about the media our children are exposed to such as video games, TV shows, and movies. I feel that violence in our schools is on the rise because of these exposures. In my current Walden class I will be working on a project that focuses on exposure to media and I hope to gain enough knowledge to start to make changes in what our children view.
   
    I say all the time "I can't believe I get paid to do this." I do not view going to work and teaching a job or chore. I love my students and enjoy their company each day. I feel they teach me as much as I them. The light bulb moments as I call them are why I teach. I love to see that child who can't write his name the first few weeks of school finally write it and light up with such pride when he does. I feel that each time I can help a child even in a small way it is a reward. I really enjoy seeing my students go on to first grade and achieve success. The most important aspect of my job though is making connections with the students. I strive to have a connection with each one of my students each year and I work hard at learning about their interests so that I can talk with them each day about something other than school. I want my students to feel happy, safe, and excited to come to school.
   
   One of my earliest memories of school was when I was in first grade. I was having trouble with the separation from my mom and didn't want to go to school. My first grade teacher Mrs. Adams made all the difference to me. She greeted me at the door each morning with kinds words and a hug. That made me feel so welcome and safe when she would do that. In addition to Mrs. Adams she had a special friend "Teddy the Bear" he lived in a special brown wooden box under her chalkboard. He usually only came out at story time, but she made a special exception for me. She allowed me to get him out each morning and put him on my desk to keep me company until lunch time. Then after lunch was story time and it was my job to bring him up to the carpet. Once the story was over it was time for Teddy to go to back into his wooden box to go to sleep. That bear literally got me through the first grade! The reason I share this story is to prove that it is usually the small things teachers do to make a difference not the large ones. Relationships have always been important to me and I have always had the need to feel safe and loved. Mrs. Adams filled those two needs everyday for me. I was having such a difficult time letting go of my attachment to my mom and Mrs. Adams saw that and made the effort to be a fill in mom! I think it is important to remember we work with very young children many with little experience in social settings away from home. Though the demands constantly rise in the world of curriculum and academics we must never forgot we still work with young children who are in need of love, nurturing, and security.
 
   As I think about families and lack of family time and structure now, it brings two questions up in my mind. What happened to family game nights, family vacations, family outings, and family dinners? How do we as educators help families get back on track to building important relationships with one another?
   
   This picture is me when I was learning to swim at age 7. My family spent many summers at our lake house at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland. This was a developmental stage of my life because my dad was teaching me how to swim where I couldn't touch. The lake was 25 feet deep off our dock so I had to be able to swim. He would be in the water and I would jump off the dock and swim to him, we did this many times each day. My childhood memories at the lake are some of my favorite I still go to the lake each summer, it works out really well that I am a teacher and so is my husband! Summers off! Our family built close relationships by spending so much time at the lake together. I still feel a sense of calmness and bonding when I go to the lake. I hope children still do simple family bonding activities today because I truly believe those activities build the foundations of great families.