A Note of Thanks and Support

             During this semester I had learned the importance of advocating for the rights of young children as an educator it is our responsibility to defend the students right to quality education. In addition, of working in my advocacy plan I have the great chance to work with wonderful colleagues and professors. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the teacher and other colleagues that took the time to read my discussions about my advocacy paper and provide me with feedback  You really help me to put my research paper together. I know that it has been difficult to read with all the grammar and sentence structures mistakes. It is noticeable that English is not my first language and that I been having difficulty to understand the English grammar. But from the bottom of my heart thank you.  I also wish you good luck with all your future plans and hope to see you in the next semester EDU 412. It’s been a pleasure to work with all of you guys! 

Blog 4 Observing and Interacting With Families of the Children in Your Setting

·         Whom you observed and interacted with in your setting during this module

      I had the opportunity to observe and interact with the teacher at Pablo Casals and her classroom. This is her first year to teach and she is working in AUSL School also known for turning around schools and making them more functional. This schools objective is to provide teacher training of classroom/school management. All the classrooms look similar in environment structure and expectations. For me was amazing to see that the behavior expectations in the entire school were the same all the students were standing in lines and being silent to move to one place to another. In addition, AUSL School requires students to go outside for recess and promote healthy food in the lunchroom. The classroom have posted classroom rules, chart of students’ behavior and promotes students to do better to receive a praise, chart of attendance to promote students to come every day and they would get praise, and teacher objectives of the days in all the subject areas.

      I used to observe this school before this AUSL took charge of Casals school and the changes are wonderful. The staff has a lot of respect towards students and students towards staff. I love the idea of having a uniform makes everything consistent plus the uniform is affordable. I am gratified of the respect that is fostered in the school towards everyone including parents. According to the host teacher they attend training before the school begins about students’ behavioral expectations, classroom environment expectations, teacher job expectations, and classroom management. Even the school organization is wonderful because they have staff outside the classroom to supervise the students in the playground, hallways, and around the school outside the premises to make sure students are safe and well behave at times.

      Chicago public schools give teachers the liberty to choose rules, classroom expectations, and the overall classroom authority. But I think that AUSL school train teachers to achieve the maximum in their classroom. I strongly believe that too much power or liberty for teachers to conduct in the classroom lack teacher responsibility to promote a learning environment. I considered that is essential to hold teachers accountable to provide students with a wonderful learning experience therefore teachers should be trained on how to provide those experiences to their students. Plus having the same behavior standards and curriculum make a smooth transitions between grades teacher the next school semester doesn't need to take time about their expectations because students already know what is expected from them making room for more learning opportunities. At last, respect, discipline, and being consistent is the key for students succeed at school and in our society.

·         Any special learning experiences you may have had or an experience that provided you with insight about children and families including advocacy efforts

      The insight that I gained during this observation is that being consistent, discipline, respect, and classroom structure is essential to foster a positive learning environment. I considered that would apply all these posters in the classroom, teacher approach, classroom expectations, and classroom consistent into my classroom. I am looking forward to learn more about this turn around school program. 

·         At least two insights gained from your observations of, and interactions and experiences with, children’s families regarding advocacy efforts and needs related to your area of interest within the field of early childhood

      One insight that I gain from this observations is that AUSL program is trying to make some changes in the students’ life by providing them with physical activities such as recess, and provide students with healthy food choices to promote a healthy life style. AUSL program really understand children as a whole and not just part (math, literacy, science, etc.,) I considered that is essential to understand that children are complex that they need much more than academic skills to be successful they need discipline, self-control, be active, eat healthy, and parents involvement in their education. The second, insight that I gained is that even the school is trying to promote healthy food choice at school parents are sending children to school with juice, candy, chips, or other poor food quality. Therefore, is essential to inform parents how vital is to provide students with healthy food to help them to growth healthy, to prevent diseases, and to foster life skills into their adulthood. 

Observing and Interacting With Program Director(s) and Other Administrative Staff in Your Setting

How will you address advocacy issues with professionals in your setting?

The approach about obesity and overweight that I took to talk with other professionals was asking questions to them that really concern me as working in the early childhood education field. I talk to my colleagues and host teacher about how I had noticed that children in the classroom are having difficulty to breath, walk, exercise, or just doing basic daily things do to their weight. They also express their concern saying how difficult is for children that are having obese or overweight problem to socialize in the classroom with other peers, or concentrate, due well academically, and more.

The way that I would address about the obesity and overweight problem that we are facing with the students in the classroom is bringing pamphlets about nutrition, physical activities, parents/school involvement, and about obesity/overweight. Taking into consideration that not to be direct when talking to the parents could be less offense that tell them that their child is obese and they should eat better and do more exercise. In addition, we should do more training that help parents to understand the importance of well balance diet as a lifestyle, and the combination of nutrition with physical activities. This training could involve hands on activities like making meals and games that could promote physical activities.

 How might you find out more about or possibly become in involved with current advocacy programs in your setting?

The form that I found that I could be more involved to advocate in my program is to foster more engaging activities in children that motivate more to move in the classroom. In providing information about the importance of a good nutrition and physical activity to prevent their children in becoming obese or overweight. Talking to the parents the importance of preventing obesity or overweight due to all the disease that poor weight could bring to their child such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, sleep apnea, depression, anxiety, poor concentration, and much more. I think that to raise awareness in the classroom is a small step but I am sure that is a significant to provide a healthier tomorrow to our young children. Overall, I should expand more obesity/overweight, nutrition, and physical awareness to the lunchroom, other colleagues, and more parents at the school.

What kind of difference would you like to make in your setting, your community, or your field?

The difference that I would like to make in my setting, community, and field is for them to understand the effects of been obese and overweight could make in the growth of young children. Being obese or overweight could affect the children physical/mental health, affect them to socialize, affect them academically, and their overall growth. I want everyone to know that a child that is healthy is a child that could accomplish anything and that our job is to make sure that our children are learning healthy skill to conquer the world.

Observing and Interacting With Professionals/Colleagues in Your Setting

I have been observing a first grade classroom at the public school next door to my house. This is a bilingual classroom where the teacher is able to teach in Spanish and English as needed. The students in the classroom speaks 90% or more in Spanish but when they encounter vocabulary in English the teacher makes the transition between languages to help students to understand learning concepts. But I believe that is wonderful for students to learn in their first language while acquiring English as the second language because the ability for students to maintain Spanish as their first language allow them to communicate with their families at the same time with the mainstream.

In the classroom the routine consist of different type of subjects during the day such as literacy, social studies, math, science, language, and more. The idea that I love from this host teacher is how she also integrate different subjects into another making the learning experience more profound. I had learned a lot of classroom management  such as how the host teacher divided the students into groups so they can learn and support each other, time to complete or extend activities, consequence of misbehavior, sense of classroom community, respect, and much more. At last, I had learn teaching strategies that would be with me during my teaching approach such as using different media to implement activities so everyone in the classroom would benefit and gain learning skills.

I considered that the challenge that I encounter related between my topic and the classroom that I observe is that most of the student are overweight or obesity. I’m not sure if the reason that most of the students are overweight or obese is cultural oriented or not because I haven’t found the opportunity to investigate more. I believe that before I begin to interrogate people or teachers I should be more cultural wise not to offend parents or the host teacher. Because I considered that the topic of my research could be offensive if is not well presented. In addition, I had observed that most of the parents are just obese or overweight as their children. Furthermore, I had noticed that most of the teachers are also obese or overweight therefore I considered this topic overwhelming to talk with other colleagues.

But when talking about that student just have physical education few days a week for a period of time the host teacher sounded disappointed making clear that students really need physical education just as they need any other subject for there development. According to the host teacher politician makes sometimes makes laws that are senseless cutting physical education is a big mistakes it could have at school. Because most students already have a sedentary life at home not all parents have the opportunity, time, or money to put their kids in sports and these two situations from school and home fail to give students the physical activities they need to be healthy adults.

Other topic that we talked was about the school nutrition. The teacher feel that the food is not the most healthy ones the school lunch pretty much consist in is pizza, macaroni cheese, BBQ chicken, cheese burgers, chicken nuggets, etc. the students don’t have a choice, the lunch is put in a tray for them. Most students eat their lunch because they don’t have any other option because they don’t bring food from home or at all due that this is a low income community. In addition, other students don’t eat because the disconnection between school and their culture food.

At last, I strongly considered advocating because of the damage we are doing to our future generations by cutting physical activities, lack of healthy food, and making students believe that is ok to be overweight or obese. I don’t think that is moral for us educator to let our students die by not making health and smart decision about their health. I firmly believe that being overweight or obese equal to diseases. Let makes our voice be heard that being overweight or obese is not about fashion is about being healthy and live a healthy life.

Interview

 My research paper will be done in health and the higher increase of children that are overweight or obesity. The three topics that I am planning to focus my research on would be overweight/obesity, nutrition, and physical activities. During these two interviews I have gained that other professionals also worry about the other diseases that come along with children that are overweight or obese. Plus my colleagues believed that is a big problem because the lack of teaching children healthy eating habits information or resources to pass on to parents. According to my colleagues other related topics are the lack of exercise, cultural believes food portions, and adults’ role model. These interviews just made me more intrigued to research on how to advocate for the children rights to live a healthy life by also helping parents understand the importance of eating and an exercise routine.

Introduction

Hello, I would be advocating the importance of Health in young children!