When I Reflect About My Collegial, Professional Learning Community

As this class winds down, there are things that I can be very grateful for as I have gone through this class. When it comes to being a part of a caring, collaborative, supportive learning community all I can say is thank you.

1) The feedback on the assignments has been really helpful especially when I think in my own mind that I am not making any sense in what I write. Somehow some helpful little bit of information gets picked up on and expanded upon and it is that extension of my pitiful little thought that helps me to learn that even no matter how bad I write, someone will follow some part of my logic.

2) The depth that we have had to go into for some of these assignments has helped me to learn a lot. Particularly when we had to do the power point presentation for one of the assignments. Just the fact that the material that has been covered has made me think, sometimes harder than I really wanted to, has been good. It has made me realize that no matter how much I know about the subject that we have been studying, I don’t know everything and unless I become an absolute genius, I will never know everything.

3) Reading my classmates discussions and blogs has made me realize that there are times when I do not exactly agree with everything that they say, but I am willing to keep an open mind. Just not so open that all of my brains come out.

4) The encouragement that I have gotten from my classmates and teacher has been really good. It has helped me to strive to be an early childhood professional that cares and has a passion for wanting to help young children and their families.

The goal that I have for using this collegial experience to enhance my future advocacy, public policy work so that I can help young children and their families is to keep on learning because no matter what issue I may decide to focus on, there will always be new information that will help me to stay informed and up to date or that will challenge me in some way. Also by continuing to learn, I can also help myself as a professional be able to be more accepting and willing to adapt to changes that may come my way.

My Hypothetical Family Situation

In this scenario I have been married for five years and already have one child and am expecting my second child. I am 33 just about to celebrate my 34th birthday and I go to the doctor for my check-up. The doctor does an amniocentesis during the appointment to make sure that everything is just fine. When the doctor gets the results he contacts me and my husband who happens to be home with me for a month long break from driving long haul over on the east coast. The doctor tells us that our child will be born with Down’s syndrome. The doctor asks if there is any history of heart problems in the family and I explain that I have had Pulmonary Stenosis since I was a baby and the doctor explains that there is a good chance that our child will be born with a congenital heart defect.
My husband and I are middle class having worked hard to get to where we are from being in the lower class after first getting married. I have been teaching at a local school teaching K-2 in a local Adventist church school for about two years after being a teacher in a public school for six years both as a teacher’s aide and then as a classroom teacher. I have been working on my Master’s in Education and am on the road to graduating but I have to take time off from the program so that I could have my baby. I plan on getting back into the program after being out of school for three months. My husband has been driving as a long-haul driver for about two and a half years and works hard to help support me and our two boys.
As my husband is hardly ever home, the childcare rests with me and church members that offer me help from time to time to give me a break. I take my oldest child, who is two years old, to a nursery program that is in the same building at the school that I am teaching so that I know that he is getting the care that he needs. I call up the doctor and ask him several questions about what I can do after my baby is born so that I can get the help with being able to care for him and give him many opportunities that he needs. The doctor says that after the baby is born he will give me a list of early intervention places that are in the local area that can help me and answer any more questions that I have. This includes information on how I can help my son be able to support his baby brother when he is born as well as how to interact with having a baby in the family that has Down’s syndrome.

The questions that I have for my classmates is:
• Have I given a complete picture of my family, or are there details missing that I should include in order to complete the assignment successfully? If so, what are your suggestions?
• Is this situation realistic?
• Are there any specific websites I should be reviewing with regard to learning about quality services and programs for my child and family in this hypothetical family situation?
• Does anyone have any thoughts, based on my specific family situation, that will affect the early childhood system I am creating?

The Political Will to Improve Early Childhood Systems

When it comes to the political ability to help improve Early Childhood Systems, there are groups like NAEYC (http://www.naeyc.org/) or the National Institute for Early Education Research (http://www.nieer.org) that are doing great things with improving early childhood systems like Kindergarten. When it comes to what I have learned about this is that groups like NAEYC really focus on what policymakers will do to help with making sure that every child is able to get the education that they need to get. NAEYC will post information on the website that gives the latest research to policymakers, advocates, and professionals. NIEER also posts the latest research so that policymakers and early childhood advocates and professionals have this information both on their website as well as on their blog.

One of the strategies that I noticed as I was looking at the NAEYC website, was that of position papers. These position papers give valuable information. Another thing that these position papers can do for early childhood professionals is give information that politicians are focused on. An example of this was a position paper written explaining how President Obama plans to help with making child tax credits available for low-income to middle-income families.

When it comes to strategies that have been used by NIEER was that people have written articles or policy briefs that help explain the need for different areas of early childhood. These policy briefs give very important information regarding different areas and how there could be changes made so that it can be improved. While the information that is presented on the NIEER website is focused more on preschool rather than Kindergarten, the focus is still just as important as the NAEYC website who focus on children that are up to 8 years of age. Both of these websites when they are combined are a real asset to the early childhood field.

the reason that I feel that this type of work appeals to me is the fact that everyone, regardless of how they work with or for children need to have information on hand. The information and resources that are provided to policymakers from early childhood advocacy groups can help with creating policies that will help all children and not just ones that it seems politically expedient to help, groups whose families have a certain skin color or whose families have the most money to pay in order to have laws passed that are supposed to help every child but there always end up being a group that still manage to fall through the cracks because of a lack of ability to get the resources that they need. This can happen for children and their families from all walks of life, any religious affiliation, ethnicity, or even children who come from families that may have a different sexual orientation than everyone else. Young children are important and it is up to early childhood professionals/advocates to be the voice for these children, whose voices cannot be heard.

References:
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/
National Institute for Early Education Research. (n.d.). Retrieved from (http://www.nieer.org)