Aloha To My Ohana EC Bloggers: April 2011

ALOHA TO MY OHANA

To my Fellow Early Childhood Bloggers,

Welcome to my blog site. Let me say: Aloha to my Ohana, which means "Welcome to my Family".

I am an Asian American who migrated in the US in 1997. I came from the Philippines and Filipino/ Tagalog is my first language. I migrated here in the US to start a family. I am now living here in Hawaii with my husband and three children. I am currently working as an Assistant Director at Ford Island Child Development Center in Pearl Harbor.

This is going to be an interesting journey for all of us and I am looking forward to blog with all of you.

Friday, April 15, 2011

NAEYC and DEC Codes of Ethics

These are the three ideals contained in the NAEYC and DEC codes of ethics that are meaningful to me:

1. I-1.8 - To support the right of each child to play and learn in an inclusive environment that meets the needs of children with or without disabilities.

Inclusion benefits both children with or without disabilities. Both of them learn important aspect of social skills such as making new friends. Children with disabilities or with special abilities learn to become a part of a community. On the other hand, Children without disabilities learn and understand that disability is part of natural part of life. This ideal is very meaningful to me because every child will now have the opportunity to live a normal life. Each child will be recognized base on t heir abilities and not their disabilities

I-2.4 - To listen to families, acknowledge and build upon their strengths and competencies, and learn from families as we support them in their task of nurturing children.

I am here to support our families by providing programs that are developmentally and age appropriate for their children. We are not here to replace parents and families but to support them in nurturing their children.

3. We shall honor and respect the rights, knowledge, and skills of the multidisciplinary colleagues with whom we work recognizing their unique contributions to children, families and the field of early childhood special education. (DEC Code of Ethics)

I took this ideal from DEC Code of Ethics under Professional Practice (Professional Collaboration), this ideal is very meaningful to me because we recognize that even though we have one goal in our center, it is really important to understand that our colleagues have their own unique way of doing things and achieving our goals. We need to learn and respect each other’s differences for providing quality childcare to our children. Everyone is as important as the other.

References:

Article: NAEYC. (2005, April). Code of ethical conduct and statement of commitment. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from
http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PSETH05.pdf

Article: The Division for Early Childhood. (2000, August). Code of ethics. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from
http://www.dec-sped.org/

Saturday, April 2, 2011

New Collections of Early Childhood Education Resources

Aloha Fellow ECE Bloggers, I found new websites and resource materials that will be helpful for early childhood studies. Please visit these sites and give me your feedbacks. They are as follows:

1. training wheels.com - http://www.training-wheels.com/whoweare/

Michelle Cummings - Training Wheels - A Creative Resourceor for Team Building

Training Wheels is a known leader in the team building industry and prides itself in creating quality, affordable activities, books, and trainings for those seeking experiential resources.

2. childcare exchange.com - http://www.ccie.com/resources/free_articles.php

3. The Creative Curriculum®System For Preschool: research-based resources and daily plans for a full year of effective teaching. www. TeachingStrategies.com/system

There are some of the learning resources that are helpful in the field of early childhood:

NAEYC. (2009). Where we stand on child abuse prevention. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from

http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/ChildAbuseStand.pdf

The Division for Early Childhood. http//www.dec-sped .org/

Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families. (2010). Infant-toddler policy agenda.

Retrieved May 26 2010, from http://zerotothree.org/site/Page Server?pagename=ter _pub_infanttodler

NAEYC (2009, April). Early Childhood Inclusion: A summary. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http//www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/DEC_NAEYC_ECSummary_a.pdf

World Forum Foundation - http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf//about.php

Article : UNICEF(n.d.) Fact sheet a summary of the rights under the Convention on the rights of the child. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http//:unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf

Walden University's resource collection

My Nanay (means ‘Mother’ in Tagalog) Clarita is the heart and soul of our home. She is a positive thinker and a good motivator. She always look at the good things in life and understands also the challenges that comes with it. The only face you see is her smile which brighten the day of so many people. She lives everyday making sure that she has done everything she could and treated each day as if it was her last day. You will never see her complain about things and finds solutions rather than blame people.

My mother raised seven children and she treated each one of us uniquely because she believes that each one of us have our own strength and weaknesses. She treated us differently in a good way because she believes that we are unique in our own special way. She also respects us and allow us to grow independently knowing our unique qualities. She also make sure that we discover our own identity and passion and supports us in any endeavor that we want to pursue.

I remember when I was little that my father an mother were so proud of my siblings because they excelled academically in school. I remember my brothers and sister compete in spelling bee or represent our school in science, math or debate contests. Every recognition day, my parents stayed on the stage to accept awards or medals for my siblings achievements. My mom never said anything to me but I know she tried her best to motivate, inspire and give incentives or recognition to inspire me to do well in school. She continued to support me in any activities that I am interested and always believe in me. She reminded me all the time not to feel or think that I am different but believed in me all time. I may be different from my siblings but I am no less than them. She said that each one of us has our own unique way of doing things and should not be compared with each other. She never compared us with each other. She accepted us as unique individuals with unique qualities and abilities.

Now that I am a parent of three wonderful children I would like to do the same with my children. Respect their differences, support them with their choices and guide them to become a better person.

Tatay Benito

My father is the foundation of our home. He is a good provider and has dedicated his life working to send us all to a good school. “Good provider to us” is giving all he got and most of the time “more than what he got”. My father works as a supervisor in Central Bank of the Philippines. Though he does not have enough to take home for pay, he still managed to send us all to college and to a good school too.

I remembered my father telling us the importance of education. He said his wish for us is to study hard and finish college. I remembered him saying that he regrets not going to school, he often said: “If only I studied harder and finish college, our situation will be better than this.”

During enrollment time my father will bring the title of our land and our house to the bank and serve as “collateral” for our educational loan. One time, my little brother wanted to buy something and he asks my father if he could have five pesos (our currency), my father gave his pay envelop to him. The coins fell off the envelope, my father only have about five pesos and about sixty cents. My little brother gave it back to him and never asks money from him anymore.

Another experience my eldest brother shared with me was when my father brought him to the cemetery, the jail and the museum, where they display the pictures of the President of the Philippines and their accomplishments. My father told him: “Son I brought you here to show you that these are your choices in life - either you die, go to jail or make the most out of your life and become a successful person; it is up to you to make that decision”.

With these inspiring stories and experiences that I learned and wanted to pass it on to my children. I would like them to make their own choices and whatever decisions they made, whether it is right or wrong, they need to take responsibility, find resolution and face the consequences of their actions.

These are my brothers and sister. Believe it or not, we never ever fight. We have so much respect for each other. When our parents ask us who is going to wash the dishes or clean something, all of us are in a hurry to do it first. When somebody gets to do it first, we still help each other out to finish the tasks. I am the fifth out of seven and I treat my elder brother and eldest sister with much respect as we have for our father or mother. In our culture, when your big brother asks you to do something, we just do it without asking questions. We just obey. If we have one candy, we will cut it into small pieces and get our shares, the weirdest thing is: the biggest portion of the candy will be left and nobody will take it or we give it to our youngest brother. We complement each other and respect each other’s privacy.

Our house has five rooms on the second floor. Our rooms do not have doors on it because my parents believed that an open room means open communication. Anyone can go in and out of any rooms. When I was little, we all sleep together on the floor with mat on it; except for my eldest sister and eldest brother they have their own bed as well as my parents. Nobody says: ‘it’s not fair!”

Aloha To My Ohana EC Bloggers

ALOHA TO MY OHANA

ALOHA TO MY OHANA

Friday, April 15, 2011

NAEYC and DEC Codes of Ethics

Saturday, April 2, 2011

New Collections of Early Childhood Education Resources

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