Making A Difference

How do we make our special need child feel included in our classroom? Should staff be more trained in Special Ed in an inclusion classroom?

In the article Holding Nyla, Katie Kissinger shared the number one obstacle in working in a inclusion classroom. Our fear of not knowing how to have a relationship with the child. As a Head Start teacher, I was subbing in an inclusion classroom a few years ago. There were two D.O.E. staff and two Head Start teaching staff. I had never worked with special need children before. Keoki was a six year old child with Down Syndrome. There was one incidence that all the children were already outside at the playground. He was still struggling to put on his shoes. I stayed back and waited for him with another D.O.E. teacher’s assistant. I noticed that he was looking at his peers outside at the playground while struggling to put on his shoes. I asked if he needed some help. But the other staff yelled out,” No! Let him do it by himself.” At that moment I wonder if the staff understood that Keoki had tried for a few minutes and he needed some help. My question is should staff be trained and have more empathy when working with the special need children? Should we be more aware that the special need children needs more special attention? Another incidence was that Keoki had just finished playing outside. During lunch time he was hot and thirsty and he pushed the milk carton to me. I knew he wanted me to open the milk for him. As I was ready to open the carton for him, the other staff grabbed it from my hand and she yelled,” Say open please! Say it! You have to say it or I won’t open the milk.” Did the child really benefit in an inclusion classroom? I wonder. I bonded with Keoki with the two months that I subbed at that classroom. He liked to play soccer and we played every day. I got him to smile while and he caught the ball and kicked it back to me.

Who determines a teacher’s qualification?

In Talking the Talk by Cathie DeWeese-Parkinson, she shared that the indigenous teachers were relinquished to a lower level of positions, or dismissed from Head Start. Years ago when I first entered the early childhood field, a teacher’s qualification was a C.D.A or preferably an Associated degree in E.C.E. In Head Start as we are funded by the Federal government, we are mandated to determine the qualifications of the teachers. I have met some people who have a bachelor a degree from their own country. But we won’t honor their educational achievement, unless they have a valid and accredited degree from the U.S. They may not be able to teach. I know some really talented experienced teachers from other countries and yet they do not have the degree from America, they were being discriminated. Should we reconsider the experiences and the education that our foreign early childhood educators brought with them that can enrich our children’s learning?

Are We Making A Difference In Our Children’s Lives?

How many percentage of those women came from an abusive and seemingly hopeless background, obtained the strength, encouragement and determination to make the change? In A New World Is Born in chapter 4, we realize that as a wife and mother, we gave up our hopes and our dreams just to fulfill our obligations and duties to our husbands and children. We put our needs and wants aside. I also wonder how many of these women had actually finished and gotten an education. The journey of early childhood education is a continuum of constantly reminding us that we want to make a difference in our children and their families’ lives.

Why Do We Teach?

How can we use our own personal experience to offer to our children and parents?

The Emerging Stories in Chapter 3 of New Possibilities for E.C.E. demonstrated the bravery of these women. They had contradicted that “According a large body of research, these painful experiences were supposed to be predictors of a disturbed personality, of a person likely to be abusive to others.” (p. 29) They had broken the poverty cycle. If one is a non-White, growing up in a single parent family, and neither one of one’s parent has a marketable career, one has to beat all odds. Like the Lotus flower, it is usually grown in the muddy and murky water. When you look at a Lily pond, it is just a pool of muddy water. And yet when the pinkish brilliant colored Lotus flower pushes its way through the heavy muddy water and emerges to the top of the pond; you will stop and admire how beautiful it is. Like these women, they took a lot of courage, perserverance and resiliency to become the Lotus flower. I had the opportunity to become a teacher/case manager. Two weeks after I took over a classroom in the middle of a school years, I was faced with a sexual abuse case in my classroom. The text books never told me that I would be emotionally involved. The books told me about how to do the legal procedures. I held the hands of the victimized mother and child, together we went through the whole painful experience. I learned to look beyond our children and our parents’ silences. I learned to be empathetic. I learned to feel the pains that our children and parents went through and I learned to be a good listener.

Should I have taught my children to speak in Chinese?

In Strawberries Forever, I can relate to the experience that I had. As an immigrant, I had the hardest struggle while bringing my children up. Should I teach them my native tongue or should I help them to concentrate on one language only. One time my husband had invited a few friends to come to a barbeque, and he yelled from the patio,”Bring me some mayonnaise and ketchup.” I stood and looked at the fridge for a quick while. What were mayonnaise and ketchup? Feeling liked a dummy, I told him I did not know what he asked for. I told myself that I would concentrate on learning English. My cousin has a son who was the same age as my son. She only spoke Chinese at home. When the children went to kindergarten together, her son was always being teased of his poor English. So I was more determined to omit the Chinese language spoken to my children. When I took the ED classes, I learned that children could learn more than one language and they could master the languages when they were young. I regret that I had never taught my children how to speak in Chinese. I will work on my grandchildren.

Woven Words or Books that our children are interested in?

A few years ago our organization spent thousands of dollars and purchased a reading program to promote children’s literacy. We were told to read weekly and towrite in our lesson plan the small group reading activity. When I opened the big box, I was disappointed at the three sets of 20 newspaper printed books. The stories were long and I felt they were designed for the kindergarteners. My children were aged from 2 years 8 mos to 5 years old. Each week was a chore as the children were unable to sit through the stories. I did try to read only a few pages a day. Every time I told myself they were not interested in the books. But I did as I was told weekly. In addition, I had also incorporated a lot of children’s books that they were interested in and we read them together daily.

Cultural Divide and Cybertots

What are the prices that our early childhood immigrant educators have to sacrifice to pursuit their dream?

In New Possibilities for E.C.E. on The Cultural Divide, did they come to a land of opportunity? A place that they will find greener grass than their homeland? The story of Bertha reminds me when I left my family, my friends, my culture, my traditions, my customs and worst of all, my authentic Chinese food when I was nineteen years old. The feeling of being a stranger in a new land was difficult for any foreign born and raised American to fathom. The feeling of unable to truly expressed my wants and needs resulted in hopelessness.

Diane’s story made me feel that our country has not done enough to help our needy families. With my experience of working with Head Start, I learned that a few of my moms in my classroom had to work two jobs just to pay for the rent and the food for herself and her young children. I had visited the homeless families that I had at the beach. They are not lazy or ungrateful people. Some of them have a regular day job. It was the high cost of rent and food that they became homeless.

Olivia’s story showed the strength and the perseverance of some of our Early Childhood educators. The difficult journey and obstacles that they had to overcome to pursue their American dream.

In Cybertots: Making mud pies or clicking a mouse?

When my children were young, we made a lot of cookies. We hiked a lot of mountains; we camped at parks and beaches. We played a lot of board games: Checkers, Chess, Monopoly and Scrabble. We also played a lot of card games; Go Fish, Uno and Old Maid. We never spent a lot of money buying games. My children never had a computer when they were growing up.

As they went to elementary school, they acquired the computer skills. I visited my grandson last year in Washington D.C. He was only 1 year and 11 months old. One time we were waiting for our food at a restaurant, he became restless while he was sitting on his high chair. So my son took out his I-Phone and let him played with the puzzles and matching games. The gentleman at the next table has a child who appeared to be older than my grandson. He turned his head and looked astonished as my grandson moved his finger to fit the puzzle pieces into

the allotted space. I was a proud grandma. But after I read the Cybertots, I realized that the essence of make mud pies outweighs the clicking or moving of a mouse.

Focusing on Our Children's Academic or Social Development

Should we focus on our children’s academic or social development? Which one should we value?

If I lean more on the academic side, I will please my parents in my classroom, my supervisors, my program, and the kindergarten teachers in our school.

I remembered when I did my home visits during the beginning of the school year. One of the question that I asked my families was: What is your goal for your child? Eighty percent of the families emphasize the kindergarten readiness. They want their children to know the numbers and letters. Only may be four or five families shared that they just want their children to get along with their peers.

Since I work for Head Start, we assess our children three times a year. My supervisor tells me that if this term this child’s cognitive skill on patterning is at level 2. Then we have to aim at bringing the child to level 3 on the next assessment. I always feel I am overwhelmed with observations, data entries, set up activities so that I can test them, bring them up another notch. Instead of really enjoy my time that I can spend to do the fun science activities or “talk stories” with them about the family events. In addition, I have the children only four hours a day. I feel I have so many things to do but not enough time in the day.

Our classroom is on the D.O.E. campus and we have constant contact with the kindergarten teachers. Since this is a small community, everybody knows everybody. When my children go to kindergarten, I always hear the report card of my children from the teachers. “Johnny is from your class? Oh! He is very smart. He knows all the alphabets. Mary is from the other preschool teacher. Oh! She doesn’t know anything.” I feel I am pressured to focus on what the kindergarten teachers want me to teach and not what early childhood is all about.

I envy the New Zealand’s radical approach. We invite our parents to come in and have our monthly Parent Group meeting. And every month there are only may be two to three parents show up. I know the importance of developing a socially competent child in the early childhood years. But yet my dilemma is: Do my job or reinvigorate early childhood values.