My Supports...

My family has been the biggest support of my life. According to my sister, it is tough love and she surely did when I got myself into trouble. They might have not agreed to the  majority of my decisions I have made in my life, but they were always there whether I wanted to come around or just plain stubborn. I have a lot of love for my family for putting them through pain and trouble. We argue and fight like cats and dogs, but at the end of the day I know they are always by my side.

I do not have many friends in my life, but the ones I do have, have supported me through rough times. Times when I was almost homeless, give me money when I had none, and stood by my side when they were needed the most. 

One of my struggles now is having anxiety attack at work and home. There is so much on my plate sometimes I want to bury myself in a hole. I never had an attack and when I did I thought I was having a heart attack. Another struggle is my fiance not having a job and it is putting me in a position of all bills and concerns around the home set.

Childhood Connection to Play...

     I am 5 years old with my sister, brother and two of my cousins at a small stream. My mom, who sat two feet away from us, to make sure we were playing safe and not hurting each other. We were given a shovel, bucket, light, thin blanket, and a play fishing pole. The stream was very small and the water was calm enough for us to walk through it and find rocks, sticks and tad poles. My sister and I starting looking for big enough sticks to make us a little tent to keep cool, while my brother and two cousins were out in the stream looking for rocks, tad poles, leaves, sand and acting like they were fishing. My sister started to make the tent with the sticks found and placed the blanket over the sticks. I gathered the leaves that were picked up by my brother and placed them like into a plate, grabbed two handfuls of mud and started shaping the mud into a pie. I placed flowers I found around the stream and any tiny pebbles to make decorations with the mud pie. Between my brother and two cousins, they found ten tad poles that was placed in the bucket. The tad poles became our pet and raised it until it became frogs. 

     After I was done with the mud pie. My sister and I go walking in the stream looking for pretty rocks or flowers, big branches and collecting sticks to bring to the tent. The branches were to use it as a broom to sweep the area so we can lay down like it was cement. The sticks was to make a bomb fire to cook dinner. I went out to the stream myself and try catching tadpoles. They are quick little suckers, but I managed to get one out of the many I saw. We laughed, splashed water at each other, slipped a few times, and went back and forth until we got tired. We all came back to the little tent that was built and relaxed. It was not too long afterwards my mom said it was time to go home. We were still damp from the water, dirty feet, bucket full of tadpoles, tired, hungry, and ready to go home.

Reflecting on Building Relationships

Good relationships don’t just happen, It takes time and patience. Communication is the best keyword.

Source : http://www.coolnsmart.com/relationship_quotes/

14 years of friendship. We have been dragged through the mud, cried, laughed, fought, and had long talks together. We have our lives to take of, but we always have the time for each other and talked like there is no tomorrow.  Others would try to tears apart, but we managed to get through any barriers to not let the friendship go down the drain. 

My fiance, Scott who has been there for me when I was almost homeless and helped me through the hardships of life. We have always kept an open communication between us so we understood each other. We have argued, laughed, and had deep conversations about life itself. He can completely drive me insane, but he is my better half when I am at my worse. I honestly wouldn't where I would be if it wasn't for him.

Relationships are not just built overnight. It takes time and a strong foundation to make sure any relationship work, whether it is with a significant other, friends, parents, clients, or families. According to Alva Deluna, one has to understand oneself before opening up to someone and having a relationship with an openness. When all your bias is set aside and have an open mind about the individual, the relationship will be positive and the individuals are more comfortable with you. 

Trust is a key in any relation and do not need to convince anyone to prove it. If there is need to prove it then believe me there was nothing in your relation. 

Sanjiv Dogra – Toronto

Source : http://www.coolnsmart.com/relationship_quotes/

Laureate Education (Producer). (2013). Building relationships and partnering with families [Video file]

The Importance of Early Childhood Development

This is all a child wants and much more if there is more to give.

Children are free of stress. The things you teach them are the things they learn, whether it is good or bad. 

Thank you all to my fellow classmates with all the suggestions, questions, thoughts and support throughout this class. I hope to see anyone of you in future classes. I wish you all the best of  your endeavors and succeed in any of the goals you have set on. Good luck.

Thank you Dr. Trevino Meyer for the support, criticism, and quick response to any emails. I greatly appreciate the high standard you set for the class to better us as an individual.

    

Reference

Brookings Institute. (2014). The Importance of Early Childhood Development. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qmkxytBeDs 

Viewing a young child as a whole would be hard to do unless you have had the child for a long time. To not know what the child has been through in life and the different obstacles they have faced. A child changes every day from school, home life and the people they are around. The assessment tests that all schools have to see where it is needed for a child to succeed and meet their potential. Schools are here for the children so they can strive to succeed, not have a low self-esteem about failing and becoming a nothing. All children have potential and some have a different way of learning, but it does not mean they are any different. A teacher would not know about a child’s disability unless it was told to them under confidential.

The Assessment Experience

For Students on Winning Streaks	For Students on Losing Streaks
Assessment results provide
Continual evidence of success	Continual evidence of failure
The student feels
Hopeful and optimistic	Hopeless
Empowered to take productive action	Initially panicked, giving way to resignation
The student thinks
It's all good. I'm doing fine.	This hurts. I'm not safe here.
See the trend? I succeed as usual.	I just can't do this . . . again.
I want more success.	I'm confused. I don't like this—help!
School focuses on what I do well.	Why is it always about what I can't do?
I know what to do next.	Nothing I try seems to work.
Feedback helps me.	Feedback is criticism. It hurts.
Public success feels good.	Public failure is embarrassing.
The student becomes more likely to
Seek challenges.	Seek what's easy.
Seek exciting new ideas.	Avoid new concepts and approaches.
Practice with gusto.	Become confused about what to practice.
Take initiative.	Avoid initiative.
Persist in the face of setbacks.	Give up when things become challenging.
Take risks and stretch—go for it!	Retreat and escape—trying is too dangerous!
These actions lead to
Self-enhancement	Self-defeat, self-destruction
Positive self-fulfilling prophecy	Negative self-fulfilling prophecy
Acceptance of responsibility	Denial of responsibility
Manageable stress	High stress
Feeling that success is its own reward	No feelings of success; no reward
Curiosity, enthusiasm	Boredom, frustration, fear
Continuous adaptation	Inability to adapt
Resilience	Yielding quickly to defeat
Strong foundations for future success	Failure to master prerequisites for future success

(Stiggins, 2007)

The assessment provides both students and teachers with clear information in a form they can use immediately to improve performance for each child. As you can see on the chart of the differences from a child who is capable of succeeding and their outlook from a child who is failing and their outlook of failing. To keep that from happening, the teachers and students need to partner up to meet their fullest potential.

In other countries, I did Africa and their assessment with children. External examinations have played a major role throughout the history of modern education in Africa. The most important of which is to select students for successive level in the educational system. Unfortunately, Africa has been criticized for their quality. Their examinations are very limited in the areas of knowledge and skills that they assess, their knowledge and skills are through everyday life outside of school and measured achievement at a low classification level (Kellaghan & Greaney, 2004).

Kellghan, T. & Greaney, V. (2004) Assessing Student Learning in Africa. Retrieved from

 https://books.google.com/bookshl=en&lr=&id=LCBB1in38ucC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Assessing+student+learning+in+Africa&ots=aJhHLlES37&sig=K0HYLzNePpjVsQ4Qysn17NlBiXo#v=onepage&q=Assessing%20student%20learning%20in%20Africa&f=false 

Stiggins, Rick. (2007). Assessment Through the Children's Eyes. Retrieved from

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may07/vol64/num08/Assessment-Through-the-Student's-Eyes.aspx

     “You don't seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich person who is unhappy. Because the poor person has hope. He thinks money would help” (Kerr, 2015).

     If I can recall, I was in elementary and I know my parents did not have much to give me as a child, but their love, a home, food and clothes on my back. I was fine. I had a friend, who had very little, wore the same clothes every day and seemed like she never bathe. I took it upon myself to bring some of my clothes from home and give it to her. She was so excited and happy that she got a new outfit. This made me feel good as a person, even though I knew my parents were pulling ends to make bills meet.

     The United States rank the bottom of the pack of wealthy nations on a measure of child poverty, according to a new report from UNICEF (The United Nations Children's Fund). Nearly one third of United States children live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income (about $31,000 annually) in 2008. Since 2008 children living in poverty has actually increased 2 percentage. Overall, 24.2 million United States children were living in poverty since 2012, reflecting an increase of 1.7 million children since 2008 (Ingraham, 2014).

https://www.google.com/searchq=children+in+poverty&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=YABsVc_EOsjgoASQ9YKQBQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=children+in+poverty+graphs+in+United+States

     Children who experience food insecurity may be at higher risk for behavioral issues and social difficulties, such as having a greater risk of truancy and school tardiness. They can also experience increases in a range of behavior problems including: fighting, hyperactivity, aggression, anxiety, mood swings, and bullying (Feeding America, 2015).

     There are 17.9 million children under the age of 18 in Thailand. Even though the situation has been improving for children in recent decades, some continue to face difficulties. UNICEF estimates that around one million children live in vulnerable conditions in Thailand. These include those who live in poverty, have lost parental care, have a disability or are forced to live on the streets. There was an estimated number 290,000 children who have been left without parental care due to HIV/AIDS. Migrant children, as well as the ones in poverty or those who have run away from their families or dropped out of school are most at risk of being involved in the worst forms of work labor.  They suffer from serious abuse, including physical confinement at the hands of employers (SOS Children’s Villages International, 2013).

Feeding America. (2015). "Child Development" . Retrieved from

http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger/child-hunger/child development.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/?referrer=http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger/child-hunger/child-development.html

Ingraham, Christopher. (2014). "Child Poverty in the U.S is Among the Worst in the Developed World".  Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/29/child-poverty-in-the-u-s-is-among-the-worst-in-the-developed-world/

Kerr, Jean. (2015). Best Quotes about Poverty and Poor. Retrieved

fom http://www.ranker.com/list/notable-and-famous-poverty-and-the-poor-quotes/reference

SOS Children’s Villages International. (2013). General Information about Thailand. Retrieved from http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/where-we-help/asia/thailand

     Breastfeeding is builds a bond between the baby and the mother. Some mothers enjoy the breastfeeding and others prefer the bottle right away. Breast milk is the best way to feed your baby. The benefits goes beyond basic nutrition. It contains the vitamins and nutrients a baby needs in the first six months of life, as well as substances that will protect the baby from any illness. According to Berger, nutrition starts with colostrum, a thick, high-calorie fluid secreted by the mother’s breast at birth (Berger, 2012). Colostrum is full of antibodies and immunoglobulins, which not only help protect the newborn, but also has a laxative effect that helps them expel the tarry first stools call meconium (Barger, 2015). Babies who are not breastfed are more likely to be sicker than the ones who are breastfeed. The specific fats and sugars in breast milk make it more digestible and better for the brain than any formula (Berger, 2012).

     I chose breastfeeding because I do not see many mothers breastfeeding anymore. The high level of working mothers are using the bottle now. Some mothers think it takes too much time to pump milk or going to the location where the baby is present to breastfeed her or him. For example, my god daughter who was not breastfeed and was sick with a high fever when she was three months old and consistently sick, from head cold, viral infection in her chest, and chest congestion. My niece and nephew, on the other hand was breast feed and was sick once from the weather change, allergies. Otherwise she is healthy, chunky and happy.

Breastfeed babies. (Nephew and Niece)

     China is a bit of a challenge. Statistics says that China has better breastfeeding rates than the United States and Europe, but the hospitals there are less supportive and understanding about breastfeeding. The mothers in China have a large amount of pressure to use formula in the hospital. With that being said, there are formula samples given out at prenatal checkups, free “breastfeeding classes” are held by formula companies and their posters are all over the hospitals to promote their products (Carman, 2015).

     This may impact my future work because I hope to be a nanny to a newborn and hoping the mother of this baby will be breastfeeding as well as my future home daycare I would like to open. I will have mothers come and bond with their babies.  It is so beautiful to see a mother come breastfeed her child and just bond with her or him. The small moments like this is precious and meaningful. I may not be a mother anytime soon, but to hear the cooing from the baby and the small talks from the mom is wonderful.

Carman, Jeremy & Jacquelyn. (2015). Breastfeeding a Baby in China. Retrieved from

http://www.havingababyinchina.com/reference/breastfeeding-a-baby-in-china/

Barger, Jan. (2015). What's colostrum? Retrieved from                                                               http://www.babycenter.com/404_whatscolostrum_8896.bc

Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.