Reflective Journal 1 - My reflection of chapter one: Continuity and Change in Early Childhood education PDF

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My reflection of chapter one: Continuity and Change in Early Childhood education...

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Ana V. Torres EEC 4005 Assignment: Reflective Journal 1 Chapter one: Continuity and Change in Early Childhood Education Every time someone asks me what I am studying, I tell them: "Early Childhood..." but since I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic, my friends and family who still live there, are not familiar with the term, so I just said, "I am studying to work with children." Then I realized that the definition I knew about early childhood education was not enough for someone that it is studying it. After reading this chapter, I have a better understanding and most importantly, a clear perception of the role of a professional in this field. Is not the only role of an expert in this field to teach children, is it? That is what I thought, as well. However, this chapter endorses that this field is expanding, and it is on the rise, benefiting from growing public recognition and support. There are now many career options available to work with children or work for children, and example is my major which is early childhood but the development track. Moreover, in this chapter, there was this vital question about why to become an early childhood educator? And the authors responded by explaining how challenging and rewarding this job is, and they define the characteristics of a professional/intentional early childhood teachers, which I agree. After reading that section, I made I stop, and I applied the same question for myself because I am in the development track. I came up with another question, “What if everybody understood child development?” I think if educators, administrator, parents, and everyone that work with children understand how children develop and what can be expected of them at certain ages, there will be a significant probability that children’s lives would be so much better, and their education would significantly improve.

In this chapter, the section where explain the types of early childhood settings, the one that caught my attention was the Head Start/ Early Head Start program. For a reason, how that program is defined in the book, it reminds me a little of a program that I was part of called JumpStart which provides language, literacy, and social-emotional programming for preschool children from under-resourced communities and promotes quality early learning for all for them to be ready to enter to kindergarten. On the contrary, I wonder if each type of setting provides the same service or standards even though the NAEYC ensure that all children have access to programs that are both caring and educational, regardless of day or who provides the service. My favorite section of this chapter and a topic that I found that it was essential to learn about is the positives effects of early childhood. In my opinion, if we do not know how early childhood education will impact later to the children education and live then how this field is going to grow? The government or companies need evidence of why it is worthy of investing in early education. Furthermore, I still do not understand how politicians are not worried about children. It is a cliché, but children are the future. If they do not invest in children's education, then it will be hard to see any progress in the country. What children experience in their childhood can affect their adulthood. Hence, there is always a gap between children of different socioeconomic status, and it makes me think if the government do that on purpose (of giving more facility to white people) so they can have control on those people who are in poverty. In conclusion, I like how this chapter covers different topics that someone who is in the field needs to know. As future educators, we need to discern how childhood education function so we can know how to contribute and changes things for better....