MY SUPPORTS

My Supports

GOD

As a Christian, I recognize that my ultimate support comes from God. He is my Sustainer and Provider. Without His provisions of health, strength, and the very air I breathe I would not be able to do anything.

FAMILY

Man was created as social beings. As a result of this, my secondary support comes from my family and loved ones. My husband Elgin is a tower of strength to me. He supports my goals and allows me the space I need, and gives me the resources to accomplish them. He loves me despite my faults and I know he wants me to be happy. My daughter Erin looks us to me and motivates me to set good examples for her to follow. She is a constant reminder to me to keep working hard, and not give up. My sister and I share our joys and discouragements. She is a ‘straight shooter’ who lets me know exactly what she feels and does not sugar coat when I am wrong. I did not choose her, but I would if I could.

FRIENDS

My friends provide another source of support for me. Their words of encouragement and advice helps in my decision-making process. I can always look to them for a good laugh to shake the weight of my everyday routines and give me a dose of energy to carry on.

COLLEAGUES

A number of my colleagues support me in my professional life. I am fortunate to have a head of department who assists me with any concerns I encounter in my classroom and helps me brainstorm solutions to challenges I present.

Without the supports I experience, life would be unbearable if not impossible. Without God there would be no life. Without my family I would be lonely, and unfulfilled. Life would be difficult with the help I can count on from my family. Although I may still have the income that my job provides I would be poor without the love of my family. I would be nervous and unsure without the constant stability that my family provides.  Without my friends life would lack the extra sparkle and variety that they bring.  

If I were about to open an early learning center of my own I would need the support of family and friends. I would need the support of my husband and family in many different ways. I would need the financial support of my husband as the first few months of business any income could be negligible. My family would be needed for assistance with caring for my daughter, and being a sounding board for ideas and problems as they come up. I would need the support of my colleagues for provision of professional resources and the sharing of strategies and best practices that could be employed at my program. 

MY CONNECTIONS TO PLAY

"My Connections to Play."

“Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play most certainly is the father”.  Roger von Oech

I think this quote about play truly describes the role of play in my early childhood. I have two older brothers and together we were always creating something, whether wooden go-carts made from pallets and old tires or a covered community made under the brushes of the undeveloped acreage that was in my neighborhood. When I played with my sister we were always designing and creating fashionable wardrobes for our dolls, or for ourselves including wooden footwear from leftover scrap wood that we found in the yard of a nearby woodworking shop.  

The second quote that I believe speaks about what play meant to me as a child would be “At the end of the day your feet should be dirty, your hair messy, and your eyes sparkling”. As children my siblings and I were fortunate to be able to play outdoors regularly, and sometimes all day. During the summer time, I would go ‘exploring’ sometimes miles away from my home with my older brother. We grew up poor so many times we were barefoot when we went outside. So definitely my feet would be dirty but there must have been a sparkle in my eyes as I reflected on all the exotic fruits that we found in the orchards of a deserted mansion that was a short distance from where we lived.

One toy that was a hit during my childhood was the hoola hoop. My sister and I were very skilled with this toy. I remember the competitions we held to see who can keep it up the longest and the tricks we learned to do with the hoop. The good thing was as we played we were also working out and keeping our bodies fit.     

    

Another favorite form of play was the skipping rope. We would skip to the rhythm of nursery rhymes and other diddles that we made up. Sometimes one child would jump by themselves but mostly we all jumped together which was more fun for me.

One last game that we played consistently as children was hopscotch. The good thing about hop-scotch was it did not require our parents to buy anything for us to play the game. We would use the limestone ‘chalky’ rocks to trace out the game and play would commence.

   

During my childhood play was an essential part of life. Neighborhood children came together to play practically every day. Even my mom and aunts would come and play with us sometimes. I can remember one of my aunts having a ‘jacks’ competition with us girls to see who would win. Surprisingly she still had a lot of skills, and if I can remember correctly, she won the competition.

Children play so much differently today than the way I played as a child. Children were freer to move around their neighborhoods safely and parents felt more secure letting their children play outdoors even in the poorer areas. Today children explore the world wide web but we explored our neighborhoods. Children spend much of their time playing indoors watching the television or using their hand-held gadgets, but we spent most of our time outside. Television programming started later in the afternoons so we were compelled to go outdoors.  The games children play today are mostly passive, but our games required a lot of physical activity. 

I think this quote expresses so exquisitely the way I feel about the world today. Wouldn’t it be great if instead of going to work every day we got to go and play with the people we love? 

    

Relationship Reflection

Relationship Reflection

“Man is by nature a social animal.”  Aristotle.

Humans were created as social beings. Our interaction with others helps to keep us happy and fulfilled in life. I have been blessed to have a close-knit family that I love spending time with. I have been married to my husband Elgin for over 22 years now. I can truly say he is my ‘better half’. Elgin is a caring man who puts the needs of others before his own. He is very thoughtful and takes good care of his family. He has taught me how to be selfless and think of others first. With Elgin, I have learned that life is not always about me and how I feel but it involves considering others as well and as I do this I always feel better about myself regardless of how things turn out.

 

My two girls Nicole and Erin are a wonderful blessing to me. I believe God has allowed them to be a part of my life to keep me humble and in close communion with Him as I try to give guidance and counsel to these beautiful young ladies. Nicole has grown to be quite mature and independent as she succeeds in her career path in the financial industry. Erin still brings the sparkle to my eye with her quick wit and easy laughter as well as her willingness to forgive and move on. Nicole has taught me to speak my mind clearly and succinctly but with love. Erin has taught me not to sweat the small stuff and to believe that things will work out for the better. She is a lover of children and I see a lot of myself in her. My experiences with Erin have increased my ability to love without looking to be loved back which I feel has a positive impact with my service as an early childhood professional.

                                                                       

 

Nicole, Dellarece and Erin

I have a sister who is one of my closest friends. We work together at the same school, attend the same church and live within a fifteen minute drive from each other. Re-c, as she is affectionately called and I have been close from childhood. I am fortunate to have a sister that I can turn to for advice or assistance whenever the need arises, and I am sure she would say the same of me. Re-c has taught me the blessings of family, and the importance of reaching out for help from others when you are unable to help yourself. I have cultivated a beautiful friendship which resulted from my reaching out for assistance when I was in a predicament. If it were not for my relationship with my sister I do not know if I would have this friendship today and my life would definitely not be the same.

             

 

Me and my sis Re-c

My mom and dad are the foundation on which my life was built. They have sacrificed to provide for my siblings and me and have always given me the opportunity to be the best me in whatever I tried to do. My mom as taught me the value of hard work and taking care of business. She has demonstrated repeatedly the benefit of finishing what was started. My dad is a lover of fishing and the outdoors. He has taught me to ‘stop and smell the roses’ and to never be too busy to enjoy the simple things in life.

       

                                                                                      The Cleare Family            

                                           Dad the fisherman

Some of my significant relationships would include some of my colleagues that I work with and friends I have established from childhood and recent years. In a nutshell, life has taught me to treasure my family and friends as well as the persons I interact with on a regular basis because life is precious and you sometimes never realize how much you need or love someone until they are gone.

Like the words of the song, "If I could help somebody as I pass along, then my living shall not be in vain."

                             

Child Development

I chose this quote because it describes what I feel the role is for children in early childhood. Many parents would like to see their children busy learning their alphabet, numbers, shapes or some other early childhood academic skills. This quote expresses quite nicely the job our children have to do during this phase of their lives.

Our children will learn and develop. They will be more confident if allowed to develop at a rate comfortable to them. It is up to us as the adults in their lives to find a pace that works best with them individually and keep to it and try not to judge or compare them with each other.

ASSESSMENTS

Young children learn by touching and manipulating objects, by listening and acting out what they have heard in stories and real life situations, by moving and playing in different ways and in different environments Bowers (2008). As a result, any assessment given should reflect the way children learn and not rely primarily on the regular paper and pencil assessments. Some of the primary reasons for assessment in early childhood include determining a child’s progress over time and to providing feedback to the child’s parent Guddemi and Chase (2004). It is important that when a child is being tested that they should not feel anxious or nervous so it is suggested that the teacher gives the assessment. The assessment should occur over an extended period of time and not just in one sitting as the single moment of time could be an unfavorable one for the child. Assessments should bring about benefits for the children and they should be reliable, valid and appropriate for the children being assessed Guddemi and Chase (2004).

            I live in the islands of The Bahamas and thought to share how children are assessed here. In The Bahamas, there is a program known as The Bahamas National Screening Programme (BNSP) where cognitive or behavioral problems that could endanger school performance are assessed. The areas looked at are “vision, hearing, motor skills, speech, language, cognition and social functioning. The screening is designed to identify those children who would benefit from early intervention / remediation services due to delays in developmental areas and learning difficulties” Ministry of Education (2005).

            Children develop physically, cognitively, and socially all during the same period of time, but none at the same pace. All children are unique therefore they have different rates of development from other children. Children also come from different family, cultural, and experiential backgrounds. As a result of all of these variables, a typical “one-size-fits-all” assessment will not meet the needs of most children Guddemi and Chase (2004). The assessment has to be adjusted to fit the need and characteristics present in the child. In essence, the assessment must be beneficial to the child.

               

References

Bowers, S., (2008). Assessing Young Children: What’s Old, What's New, and Where Are We Headed? Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=210

Guddemi, M & Chase, B.J. (2004) Assessing Young Children. Pearson Education Inf. [PDF]. Retrieved from http://images.pearsonassessments.com/images/tmrs/tmrs_rg/AssessingYoungChildren.pdf?WT.mc_id=TMRS_Assessing_Young_Children

The Bahamas Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. (2005). The Bahamas National Screening Pilot Programme. Retrieved from

http://www.bahamaseducation.com/PDF/Docs/BAHAMAS%20NATIONAL%20SCREENING%20PROGRAMME%202005.pdf

POVERTY

My father has always told of how he and his family lived in poverty when he was a child. Being one of ten children during the era of World War II life was very hard. My father grew up on Cat Island, one of the many outer islands of The Bahamas. His parents supported their family by subsistent farming and fishing. As soon as a child was old enough he either joined his parents in the fields or stayed at home to take care of his younger siblings or helped out where ever he was needed.  My father’s family was poor by the world’s standards but was rich in love and concern for each other, and they are still closely knitted to this day.

Although he loved reading and learning my father was only afforded a few years of school and as a result, he did not complete high school. As a young man, he traveled to New Providence, the capital island in the Bahamas in search of employment. He worked well with his hands and took the opportunity to apprentice with licensed electricians and obtained his three-phase license. With this skill, he was able to support his family. Today he is a strong believer in education and has ensured that all five of his children have completed high school and the minimum four years of college.

The country I will look at where poverty is still being felt in a great way is Haiti. I saw a documentary on National Geographic a few years ago that showed some of the people eating ‘cookies’ made from dirt to still the hunger pangs in their stomachs  (Katz, 2010). I am so thankful to God to live in a country where there is food to eat and people do not have to resort to eating mud. Yes, I recall my father talking about eating ‘flour-pap’ a type of gruel made from flour and water and a little salt and sugar as available, but this is still much better than mud. Food prices around the world have gone up because of higher oil prices so Caribbean countries such as Haiti which depend on imports have been greatly affected.

  

As a result of global price hikes, together with floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season, UN Food and Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti (Katz, 2010).

Reference

Katz J.  (2010) Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt.  National Geographic News Retrieved from

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080130-AP-haiti-eatin.html

Immunization

Immunization is defined by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention as “A process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination” (2014).  The National Healthcare Services records that immunizations began as far back as 429 BC with Thucydides, the Greek Historian, who noticed that people who survived smallpox did not get re-infected. Thus began the process of immunizations. The Chinese are the first nation on record as having discovered and used a primitive form of immunization (NHS, 2014). Today there is a huge debate going on over whether immunizations are life savers or a death sentence. The United States government’s website on vaccinations claimed that “Vaccines are the most effective tool we have to prevent infectious diseases” (Vaccines). This claim is based on the research that shows a drop in communicative diseases after a vaccine was introduced.

On the other hand, there is a growing population of people who believe that immunizations can cause severe life changing adverse effects on children who receive them. Parents have scores of videos and articles online telling of their experiences with their children before and after immunizations. Some of these parents believe that autism is caused by vaccination, however, there is no scientific proof of this. The time period when some immunizations are given is the same time period when symptoms of autism occur. As a result, some parents believe the two are correlated.

            I looked at immunization in Mexico. It is said that the immunization process is better in Mexico than it is in the United States. In Monterrey, a major Mexican city if parents of young children are late in getting their child inoculated, a public-health nurse will come to their home, pull down the youngster's pants and give the vaccination right there in the living room with or without the parents’ presence and consent (Vaccination News, 2002). Obviously this will never happen in the US with privacy rights and the amount of forms and paperwork that must be filled for before the immunizations can be administered. Vaccination News reports that “After the measles pandemic reached Mexico in 1990 and killed 5,899 babies, the Mexican government established a central authority to oversee the national vaccination campaign, known as the National Immunization Program” (2002). While the United States experienced a measles outbreak in 2014 with 383 people in Ohio’s Amish country falling ill with the virus none was recorded for Mexico. This is possible because in Mexico everyone has the right to have access to vaccines, it is free to all citizens, and it is mandatory (Yutacan Times, 2015).

I am a believer in the benefits of immunizing children. My whole family has been immunized, and I immunized my daughter according to the governmentally based schedule. When weighing the risks of encountering life-threatening disease against the benefits of being immunized I decided that immunization was the best choice. The vast majority of children who are immunized do not experience anything worse than short-lived redness or itching at the spot of the shot.  As a practitioner in the early childhood field, the health and prosperity of children is my greatest concern. If asked whether I would recommend that parents immunize their children I would advise them to research the process carefully, pray about it, and confer with a number of physicians before they make any decisions concerning their children.

References

National Healthcare Services (2014). Vaccinations

Retrieved from http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/pages/the-history-of-vaccination.aspx

Center For Disease Control and Preventions (2014) Vaccine and Immunizations

Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm

The Yutacan Times (2015) Retrieved from http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2015/02/while-the-u-s-faces-the-largest-measles-outbreak-in-recent-history-mexico-has-had-not-a-single-case-since-1996/

Vaccination News (2002) Retrieved from http://www.vaccinationnews.org/DailyNews/December2002/MexicoMore22.htm

Vaccines.gov (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.vaccines.gov/basics/effectiveness/index.html