Reflection Time

Looking Back

 As I look back to my experience writing these blogs, I have to say that I do not regret sticking to blogs. I know that I had a chance to step out of my comfort zone and create a video or podcast but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I think the main reason for this is because I view myself as a perfectionist. Even though I would receive full credit just by submitting some form of media, I knew that if I didn’t do it to the best of my ability, then it would be haunting me for years to come. I knew that I was confident in my writing abilities yet new to blogging so the bumpy journey to learning a new medium was going to be less anxiety-induced than if I did a video or podcast.

Moving Forward

I still think I came out of this with a new skill; blogging. Although I’m not as good as true professionals, I think I made the right choice. If I had to give any future 496 students any advice, I think I would just tell them to do whatever they want. If they want to explore new grounds then do you boo-boo, but if they wanted to stay in their lane and expand on what they feel comfortable with doing than, again I say:

“Do you boo-boo… ‘Cause Imma do me.” -Kevin Hart

Self-Care During COVID-19

Confusion+Panic=Stress

2020 has brought the world a rollercoaster of wild. The COVID-19 virus has flipped everyone’s world upside and many people are left trying to cope with unusual amounts of stress. In a time like this it is important to remember that taking care of yourself is the most crucial part of coming out on top when the fog finally lifts. Some may think that taking care of yourself means going to work so you have money for food, rent, bills, etc., but it really means taking care of your body and mind. Self-care is the one true approach to tending to your own needs as a human and looking out for yourself in the long run.

What is Self-Care?

According to Dictionary.com, self-care is, “care of the self without medical or other professional consultation” and according to Lexico.com, self-care is, “The practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s own health”. Self-care has become a growing trend in today’s society because it is being marketed as face masks and bubble baths and ‘treating yourself’. It sounds fantastic and healthy, however face masks and bubble baths aren’t the only way to improve your own health and wellness. There are other, less instagram-able, ways to practice self care that have better lasting effects than a $3 coconut-infused de-aging one use only face mask.

How To: Self-Care

There is no single best way to engage in self-care because everyone’s ‘self’ is different but there are many different paths of self-care that anyone can start on. For example, a method of self-care may involve going to bed at an earlier time. One way to approach this method can be going to bed 30 minutes before you normally do and continue doing this until you are going to bed at your targeted time. If your sleeping patterns are too chaotic, then picking a consistent time to be in bed by every night can help as an alternative. Since COVID-19 has resulted in many workers being laid off, now may be a good opportunity to ‘catch up’ on sleep or get into a solid sleep schedule as a way to reset your body and wake up feeling refreshed every morning.

As listed by PsychologyToday.com, another self-care method can consist of being conscious of the food you are putting into your body. Giving your body the fuel and energy it needs to survive is an important basic human need and with all the fast food and delivery services that are out there now, it’s sometimes easy to forget that. ‘Treating yourself’ by ordering takeout because you deserve it after cooking and working all week isn’t self-care because you are not caring about the lasting health effects of the treat. It is often very easy to persuade your mind that you deserve something if it is disguised as a good thing, like self-care, when in reality it is only a temporary fix of something ‘good’ because you are getting it in that moment. The grocery stores may be very bare at the moment and a lot of people are not working due to COVID-19, but buying fruit and/or vegetables can be a step in the right direction towards true self-care.

An additional tip from psychologytoday.com is to read a book about self-care. Reading can be a relaxing activity for some, so reading about self-care can be a win-win situation. Staying informed through a published book from an accredited source/author can be much more affective than a quick Google search. Below are some different self-care books found on amazon.com:

Practicing Mindfulness: 75 Essential Meditations to Reduce Stress, Improve Mental Health, and Find Peace in the Everyday

The Self-Care Solution: A Year of Becoming Happier, Healthier, and Fitter–One Month at a Time

The Self-Love Workbook: A Life-Changing Guide to Boost Self-Esteem, Recognize Your Worth and Find Genuine Happiness

Why Self-Care?

Self-care is a very important thing to think about when faced with situations like COVID-19. Many of us are quick to ask if our friends and family are okay but rarely ever stop to wonder if we ourselves are okay. Self-care is that moment of running around a burning building making sure everyone is getting to safety and then stopping to think, “hey, what about me?”. Caring about yourself is a good habit to start and keep throughout your life because it can flourish into self-worth and a strong sense of worthiness in this world is something that everyone can benefit from regardless of who you are.

Additional Resources:

https://www.thelawofattraction.com/self-care-tips/ 

https://botanicahealth.com/blog/5-benefits-self-care/

Harvard Health Blog

Psychreg.org

FOR THE PARENTS

Living in the era of COVID-19 can come with some drastic changes in live styles or regulations. One thing that hasn’t changed though is washing hands. Hand washing is a task that has been taught early on for generations so why now is there a sudden urge to teach children proper hand washing techniques? Well, with COVID-19, the main goal for everyone around the world is to stop the spread as much as possible when coming into contact with others around you. Children are known for being kinda gross. Younger kids stick their hands in their mouths constantly or don’t cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing so they are a big contributor to the virus spreading which is why educating young children on proper hand washing techniques can play a part in limiting the transmission of the virus.

Keeping Clean

During a time like this, it is important to take the time to teach children any age how to properly wash their hands. Normally this is a task that parents teach their children how to do regardless, however now is the time to crack down on making sure children are washing their hands properly and are aware of the all the correct reasons to wash hands (i.e. after coughing/sneezing, before eating, after eating, after touching their face, after touching someone else, etc.). Parents, the best way to get your child(s) top wash their hands is to model the behavior for them. Not only should they wash their hands when they need to, but you should be to so why not make it a fun family activity? The following links belong to videos that you and your children can watch or listen to when washing hands!

Wash Your Hands with Baby Shark | Baby Shark Hand Wash Challenge | @BabyShark

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Here are some other hand washing songs for your kids to enjoy!

Washing Your Hands Song | The Kiboomers

The Wiggles: The Handwashing Song

Keeping Calm

In today’s hectic pandemic, schools are being shut down for the remainder of the school year. As a kid, this can seem like a good thing at first. No more going to school means no more homework and class, right? Well, not exactly. Many schools are opting to switch to online classes where teachers deliver content to students via video chat. This means that there is still homework for the kiddos to do. As youngsters, elementary school (and possibly middle school) children are having their school world flipped upside down with this sudden change. Not only do the students have to get use to learning from home but the teachers also have to learn how to teach from home and this can cause some stress on both ends. Even as adults, a situation like a global pandemic can be jarring and stressful but it is important to make sure that you keep calm and composed in order to help your child(s) keep calm about the situation. In any young child’s mind, if a grown up is panicking then it’s time for them to panic as well. Just like hand washing, the best way to help your child(s) learn how to stay calm is to model it for them. Doing yoga and mediation is a great way to clear a stressed mind and relax a tense body. Yoga is also a great way to keep kids activity while they are stuck inside.

According to the American Osteopathic Association, there are many physical benefits to yoga including:

      • increased flexibility
      • increased muscle strength and tone
      • improved respiration, energy and vitality
      • maintaining a balanced metabolism
      • weight reduction
      • cardio and circulatory health
      • improved athletic performance
      • protection from injury

Below is a fun Frozen themed yoga video for kids to watch and follow along to along with links to multiple mediation videos to help kids learn breathing exercises to reduce anxiety and stress.

Frozen ❄️ | A Cosmic Kids Yoga Adventure! Frozen Videos for Kids

No Description

Mindful Meditation for Kids

Breath Mediation for Kids

Conclusion

Keeping calm and keeping clean are the two key factors in not only surviving COVID-19 but also surviving the isolation period, social distancing, and overall quarantine around the world. Keeping clean will help to control the spread of the virus while keeping calm will help limit frenzies caused by the panic of how long this quarantine period will last.

Field Observation Research Questions

Every education major is familiar with field observations. Some love them and some tolerate them for the time being but regardless of their excitement level, when you’re at field, you have many questions. Most of those questions can be answered by your co-op teacher but other may need further digging in order to be answered.

The Question

During my own observation, I noticed that the class does a whole group activity revolving around letter identification. The activity started with each child getting at least two letters of the alphabet that were not consecutive. Once the cards were distributed, the teacher began the activity by singing, “letter ‘A’, letter ‘A’, where are you?” at which time the class would join her. The child with the letter ‘A’ card would then sing out, ‘here I am, here I am. How do you do?” and would hand in the card to the teacher. The song would continue with the next letter and so on and so forth.

When I first observed this activity, I thought it was cute and something I hadn’t seen before. Usually in a classroom, there’s the generic singing of the alphabet song and maybe a few ‘flashcard’ activities but this was something I hadn’t seen before and it intrigued me. The next day I came to observe, I saw the same activity being completed as well as the time after that. This activity seemed like part of their normal routine so I had assumed they did it almost everyday. To me, this wouldn’t have raised a question however I felt as though the kids were not getting better or faster with their identifications. Some students had it right away while others were looking at their cards but not saying anything and others weren’t looking at their cards at all. This made me start to think of other methods or strategies that could be used to help enhance the students’ agility in identifying their letters.

The question: What are some other teaching strategies that can be implemented to help students’ learning of the alphabet?

Research

My initial question was broken down into 3 search terms;

1. teaching strategies or teaching methods or teaching approaches or classroom techniques.

2. alphabet or letter or alphabetic knowledge

3. preschool or kindergarten or early childhood education.

I thought these were pretty good until I hit search and realized that I did not quite interpret my true intentions with the first term. I was not interested in teaching strategies, I wanted to learn about different activities, so I revised my search. I also noted that having ‘alphabetic knowledge’ as a search term was throwing off the main focus of my question and directing it towards special education so I replaced it with ‘literacy’ and searched again.

Reflection

After my tiny tweaks, I found an article that suggests a letter name knowledge assessment . This had me think back to the original activity. The activity wasn’t being adjusted for those that knew their letters vs the ones that didn’t and it was very hard to tell if a child knew their alphabet because they only had two cards (two turns) to prove they did. I began to ask myself more questions such as ‘Does the teacher individually assess students on their knowledge of the alphabet?’ and ‘Are there more one on one activities the can be done with those students who are struggling?’.

Additional Resources:

How to Teach Toddler’s ABC Letters

6 Ways to Teach Alphabet Letters & Sounds

 

Who Is Your Educational Guru?

Every college student knows the inevitable stress that Thanksgiving break brings. Going home to your parents’ house and being bombarded by questions from relatives you haven’t seen in quite some time. You’re answering the same questions over and over again hoping that one will actually stick. The most annoying question, in my opinion, is “So what’s your major?” followed by the immediate “Really? Why?”

Uhhh…Just because?

Not acceptable. When you’re in the education field, telling someone you want to be a teacher ‘just because’ is not an acceptable answer because for education majors, specifically, there is always a deeper reason. I have always wanted to be a teacher. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I made that decision but it’s been with me since elementary school. Teachers impact all of us in some way or another throughout our schooling career. Some of these experiences can be good and some can be bad but from these experiences, inspiration grows and flowers into what with later become an education major.

Why Teaching?

I feel as though my whole life has been shaping me and pushing me to be a teacher with the experiences it throws at me. I’m the second oldest out of five children so in any parents’ eyes that translates to ‘built-in-babysitter’. I watched my younger siblings all the time as a kid to the point where I wasn’t able to do extracurricular activities because ‘somebody’ needed to be home with the younger ones.

Traumatic backstory aside, I never really questioned why I liked watching my siblings or why I had to. I don’t know if it was just because I didn’t realize I had a choice or because I genuinely liked it but over the years it just became my ‘thing’. If any one in the family needed a babysitter, I was the one to call. Again, I never argued or questioned anything because I just felt like babysitting or child care was something I was made to do so I decided to make a career out of it since I had so much experience at a young age.

As a junior in college now, I have taken many child development classes, psychology classes, classroom management classes, etc that always seem to bring up the same theories and theorists and I began to fine tune my teaching philosophy and overall view on education.

 

Jigsaw Philosophy

I have a jigsaw philosophy when it comes to education. There isn’t one single theorist that I idolize or love unconditionally. I take pieces of theories that I like and/or agree with and add them all together to create my own look on childhood education. There may be some theorists that I take more from but overall I still don’t fully agree with them and thus can’t fully support them. For example, I am not an adamant ‘nature vs. nurture’ person, but I can see both sides to each argument and why one believes it is more important than the other. In doing this, I take key points from each argument and add them to my ongoing files for child development in the early stages of life.

Guru

I can’t for certain say that I have a ‘guru’ that I follow strongly in my educational opinion. I take from so many theorists that it’s hard to pick through and find one or two that stand out the most. I agree with Vygotsky and his theory of scaffolding. I agree with Piaget and his four stages of development. I agree with Erikson and his eight stages of life. I agree with Maslow and his hierarchy of needs. I agree with Bowlby and his attachment theory. I could go on and on and on but I won’t for your sake (you’re welcome).

Conclusion

I know that there are many brilliant education professionals out there with extraordinary theories and beliefs on child development and education. As I continue to grow as a teacher, I want to push myself to open my eyes to the opportunities that I have to meet these people and ask them questions whilst I have the chance, mainly because most (if not all) of the theorists I believe in have passed on and are no longer taking questions.

If you wish to learn more about the theorists I mentioned above, Children’s Services Website has a list of all theorists and their respective theories listed.