Sunday, May 22, 2016

Resources for Families 
in Graham, Washington 

Here are just a few resources for families in need.

One stop shop for resources: 




Crisis Help:


Homelessness:

Child Care or Respite Care

  • Ashley House (respite & care for medically fragile children) - 253-925-9220
  • Child Care Resource & Referral - 253-591-2025
  • YMCA Child Care - 253-534-7840

Child Development, Services, & Programs

Early Learning & Head Start

Support for Parents

Financial Assistance

Food Assistance & Nutrition

Medical Services

Housing Assistance

Information, Support or Advocacy

Transportation

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Saturday, April 16, 2016

My thoughts on Slum Dog Millionaire

I would first like to say that this movie was never on the list of movies I, or my family, wanted to watch. Why? For me, because I don't normally like movies that aren't fantasy or historical. For my Mom, because of the violence. After watching it, I'm glad that I did. The views of Jamal's childhood felt really historical, even thought they weren't that old. I also liked the message of the movie.

I still can't talk my Mom into watching it, though. She agrees that the story sounds really good, but she just can't watch graphic violence. I wish that they would make movies in a way that you know bad things are happening without showing (and making sounds of) all the blood and gore. I think the reason they include it is because violence sells tickets, which is at least a part of the message of this movie.

The three main characters of the movie - Jamal, Malik, and Lakita, represent three different perspectives on like. They all start out pretty much the same, very poor and of a lower caste. As time goes on and life happens, they each take a different path.

Malik is the "fight fire with fire" type. He tries to be tough and beat the people who treat him badly at their own game. Although he sometimes acts like he cares for his brother and their friend, he mostly looks out for himself.

Lakita is the perpetual victim. She just lets life happen to her. She is the opposite of Malik.

Jamal is the eternal optimist. He never stops trying to live a good life and to make his life better. He also does his best to bring the other two with him.

In the end, Jamal's way wins out. Even Malik seems to be influenced by Jamal's sense of family to do what is best for someone other than himself. Jamal and Lakita are together again and we're left to decide for ourselves how their lives go on from there. I don't think Lakita will ever really stop being so weak, but hopefully Jamal can help her.

Jamal's life experiences only help to make him stronger. He takes each event and finds a way to build himself up with it. The Millionaire game is just a metaphor for this. In the game all his experiences give him the answers he needs to win the game. The real game is his life and his experiences made him a better person.
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Tuesday, March 15, 2016

My Reflections on Several Articles & Videos

This blog includes my thoughts about the articles "Raising Boys and Girls", and "Supporting Dual Language Learners." It also includes the video "Diversity: Contrasting Perspectives."

These three items covered three different ways in which children are different and help to point out to us the need to individualize learning as much as possible.

The "Raising Boys and Girls" article talked about the physical difference between how boys and girls develop. Most of these differences don't really start to show until the child is way beyond the preschool years. However, some of them, like girls being better at fine motor skills, do need to be considered. To me it's more of a "back of the mind" topic. Other things matter more. I also don't think we should use these differences to "let boys be boys."

The second article, about dual language learners, was interesting but overwhelming. Another study I read talked about how losing a language can have a negative effect on kids. I feel like that puts a lot of pressure on me to help all of my students. Every case study said to find out more about the child's language and background. How do you do that with 10 or more children? I did come up with some ideas based on the article. I could make signs for stations, objects, and activities that show a picture, the word in English, and also in all the languages of my students. I could also send home flash cards with a picture and the word in English on one side and just a picture on the other side. The child's parent could write in the word for that picture in the home language.

The video showed the same types of things that I learned about in the zero to 3 article. Different cultures have different expectations for all kinds of things. Some things, like eating, we just assume are the same for everybody. This video shows that is not the case.

Overall, the lesson that all of these brings home is that every child is different. They come to us from every kind of background and what we think of as strange may be totally normal for them in their family. We must recognize and work with these differences. However, it is also our duty to help prepare all of the students to be productive members of society. That means they must learn to understand the "American way."
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My thoughts on the article "The Changing Face of the United States: The Influence of Culture on Early Child Development."

This article talked about a lot of studies on how culture effects child development. It also talked a little bit about the effects of ethnicity and wealth/social class. What I read pretty much reinforced what I already knew from my own observations. I watch and read a lot of books and programs that are made in other countries. I noticed a long time ago that some things are done very differently with/by children from those countries.

One thing that I found very interesting is that most studies seem to show that in families that are new to the US, cultural differences had a large effect on how children compared with typical middle class US children. However, the longer the families were in the US, the more their economic status became the more important influence.

I think that the main point of the article was to point out two things:

1. We need to be aware of the difference that culture make to how a child behaves and reacts.
2. We need to understand that we have cultural biases, too, and we must work to overcome them.

I liked the information about the cultural line of individualistic to interdependent. I was not surprised to find that the US is one of the most individualistic countries. You just have to look at how many people are voting for Donald Trump to see that! I suppose that Bernie Sanders would be at the interdependent end of the list of candidates.

I think we, as child care educators, should try to keep to the middle of the spectrum.
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