- Full name and date: The Early Childhood Educator early childhood educators of BC- standing strong together. Spring 2020
- Main Focus of Journal: COVID-19 and Early Childhood Education focus: healthy spaces in early care and learning
- Your opinion on the publication in general: This publication is well laid out and has interesting content. The content was very relevant to what is happening in the world today. The authors of the articles seem to be very committed to this project as their articles were due the same week that the global pandemic was announced and all the authors wrote informative and thoughtful articles that cooperated the pandemic in some way. I like the page “our children speak” at the start of the journal. This page show cased children’s art work and their words. To me this page is a very powerful image of how children are viewed by the staff that work on this journal.
- Title and author: Our Children Speak: Documenting and Sharing Children’s Thoughts, Feelings and Opinions about the Coronavirus by Natalie Lucas.
- Key points: This article for me had three main points. The first one that was evident was the need for educators to stay connected with children and their families while their centres are closed. Secondly that educators continue to provide support for families when they are having discussions with their children about the pandemic. The final key point is for this educator in particular to gain information about how the children in her centre are understanding the pandemic through documentation.
- How the article added to your knowledge: I was drawn to this article because I am very curious about how children are understanding the international pandemic. This article is a good reminder of how we all can help children express their emotions about their world changing dramatically. As a parent to two school aged children my focus has been keeping them connected to classmates and teachers. As I was reading this article it dawned on me that early learning children also need to continue these connections and it is not as easy as it may be with a nine year old who understands the technology. These connections are important for children of any age and really people of any age. It is easy to get stuck only thinking about the people that are being immediately impacted by the virus. It is also easy to think only about your own community (circle) because our circles are much smaller now. This article expanded my awareness of the community we have between children, families and educators in the Early Childhood field. These families were very involved in their child’s learning and exploration when they were creating the documentation featured in this article.
- How this article will influence you: I am always reminded of the fact that children pick up on way more than we think they are paying attention to. This article reinforces that fact for me. It is evident in the children’s art work and their dialogue about the Coronavirus that children are listening, obtaining, learning and understanding things that they hear and see. Especially evident in Garrison’s image of the COVID-19 virus were he drew a pretty accurate picture of what the virus looks like. This activity that the educator has facilitated for children and their families to work on while at home has inspired me to ask more of families and encourage them to become more involved in their child’s learning. I think families often don’t know how to be involved in this part of their child’s day when they are at childcare but if given the opportunity I think families would value the experience. I like to consider myself as an educator to have family first philosophy and I think this would add to that part of my practice.
Category: Uncategorised
In the readings this week Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory struck me as an interesting theory to be review at this time. The theory is broken down into the individual, the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem and the macrosystem. These five environmental systems, according to Bronfenbrenner, all have a contributing factor in children’s development. The reason why this is an interesting theory to consider in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic is because everyone’s social circles have been significantly effected. Families have decreased there contact with people in order to protect those around them but what kind of impact is that having on developing children? According to Bronfenbrenner’s theory the Microsystem is made up of a child’s family, health services, church groups, school, peers, and neighbourhood play area. If we only consider this which is the inner most circle closest to the individual themselves, all of these areas have been effected and in some cases have not existed during the early days of the pandemic. This inner circle is what “most directly affects development” (Dietze & Kashin, 2016, pg 28) and directly affects children’s environment. Only time will tell how keeping our circles small will affect children’s development but I thought this was an interesting theory to revisit during the current world climate.
reference: Dietze, B., & Kashin, D. (2016). Empowering pedagogy for early childhood education. Toronto, Ontario. Pearson Education Canada INC.
It has been a busy week this week so I am completing my weekly assignments at the last minute. After our class on Monday night I was excited about creating this website and it seemed pretty easy and straight forward to do. I was happy that I was able to figure out how to sign back in and post today. Reading through the class assignments today I was excited to get started with them they all are sounding interesting to me.