My Support

Family, is my  most important part of my life. My mother always told me, that I  should support my brother and sister's through-out their life. I always remember to relay this message to my own children. My husband is my back bone just as if I am his back bone and our children and grandchildren is our life support. I give thanks to God every morning to be able to wake up and see my family again. Especially my parents who supports me and my own family. We are such a close knit family if someone get sick we all take turn to take care of that person. My brother and sister's children are my children just as if my children are my brother and sister's children.

Belief:                                                    

Our Mosque is part of my support, we pray there and it also part of our community. Without the support of my mosque I think my life and my family life would be different. The support from the families that go to the mosque helps our community in many different ways. The support they have given to me and my family I couldn't ask God for better group of people. I don't now what I would do without my religion or belief. I truly thank God for keeps my family together. We always take time aleast once a week to have family dinner and during that time we pray together because we believe that if a family pray together stays together.

 

My Connection to Play

"Play is our brain's favorite way of learning."

Diane Ackerman www.thestrong.org/about-play/play-quotes

"Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity."

Kay Redfield Jamison www.thestrong.org/about-play/play-quotes

I can remember growing up in the 70's and 80's and playing outside with all my friends after school. We would play hide and see everyday. Play was different when I was growing up. We didn't have any elctronic we had dress-up clothes and bikes and playdoo and different color chalk to draw in the street. We played Old Maid cards when it was a rainy day and told funny stories.
I wish kid's today had the opportunity to run and play like we did in the 70's. The feeling of being free for those couple of hours everyday taught me to be creative and very independent. Children today are glue to a video game or some type of electronics. My grandchildren hate to walk outside especially when I take them to Smithville Historic Park. We learn about historic event and all kind of nature walks. My grandson Jayden cries its boring there are no video games and to many people. I always tell him to go and meet some friends maybe you can see if they live near us and invite them  to Galloway Community movies at the Park.
Children today are not interest in creative play they are so different from when I grew-up. I remember being out-side until the sunset and I had so many friends on my block my mom couldn't remember everyones name. Today society children don't have that many friends if so its on Facebook and there is no real connection beside looking at someone picture and texting. My friend are still my play friends because we still get together once in a while and play cards have a barberque and do the soul-train dance. These are my playing friends forever. Today Children's social development is lacking that true meaning of play.

"When children pretend, they’re using their imaginations to move beyond the bounds of reality. A stick can be a magic wand. A sock can be a puppet. A small child can be a superhero."

Fred Rogers:  www.thestrong.org/about-play/play-quotes

Relationship Reflection

My Grandchildren

Thye are my life. We enjoy spending time especially just talking to each other. Tom hanks  famous qoute on relationship "Truth is, I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour."
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tomhanks415422.html#OTuR0YE48OquEgmH.99

Remember my grand children our my partner in life because they learn from me and I learn from them. The love I have for them is unexplainable  and unconditional.

Eventhoughmy grandchildren are my life. My passion have always been to teach children. Sometimes when I have a child in my class who don't have jacket or new school uniform. I will go and buy it. I always think if I didn't have the extra money to buy for my grandchildren would someone help me?

Thanks To All My Colleagues

                        Thanks to everyone through this great journey. I enjoy everyones response during discussion. I have learned so much about empathy and resilience and how to really take a step back and analyze children emotional and cognitive development. Therefore with my new ways of thinking I am able to support children with new ways of social skills
                              
                                            

A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/oliverwend135058.html#VSUZGHjCmrYY04JG.99

 

 Our greatest national resource is the minds of our children. ~ Walt Disney

 

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. ~ Margaret Mead

 

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. ~ Albert Einstein

                          http://www.sniblit.com/Quotes-About-Children.html
 

 

Testing for Intelligence

Studing children holistically should be based on unnderstand the young child from a holistic perspective with an emphasis upon the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains - as well as the child's environment. The reason why these assestment are important because we must understand each child as a individual. Their environment plays a very important part in their lifes. If we don't understand their environment than we will not understand the child. However their  cognitive and psychomotor domain influences their well-being. Therefore this will affect each child developement.

                                  Children Assessed in the Middle East
For many of years there has alway been turmoil about education in the middle eastern part of the world especially for women. Young people – especially young women – have been politically, economically and socially disenfranchised, growing up in largely opportunity-scarce settings. Moreover, the Middle East Region continues to have the highest rates of youth inactivity in the world, especially among young women who are neither studying nor employed.
The rollout of global Child Friendly School (CFS) training in 2010 has significantly boosted implementation of the CFS framework as the centrepiece of quality education interventions across Middle East Region. Therefore this give young women a opporunity to go to school and learn new technology. This give young women in these countries a far better opportunity to be education with the help of many organization. However many assessment have shown these children or young women econinomic and social enviroment have change in the past couple of years. Being able to be educated given them a opportunity to get a job and to be part of their society.
This great news make me not only happy but maybe one day I can return to my fathers' country and beable to teach at their schools.
Reference:
www.unicef.org/about/.../files/2010_MENA_RAR_for_the_Web.pdf

RACISM

I have always lived on the east coast of United States.My father is from the middle east countries and my mom half white and black and was  born United States. We are a minority family who lived in a white neighborhood. This was a tough time for me and my sibling. Racism is still here and very much alive in America. I though it was tough time when I was growing up but today I feel United States have been more divide during the election of President Obama.

I took a course in my undergraduate years called "Black Power" which made me understand about racism in United States and around the world. We are not born with racism we are taught how to be prejudice. Young children will mimic their parents or their caregivers.

However, I would love to travel to South Africa and visit Nelson Mandela and tell him thank you for all his struggles. Even to this today racism is still strong in South Africa just as it is in the United States. Even though there has been many attempts to control the deadly spread of racism  in South Africa but there is always one group people who would like to keep it alive.

When will the children feel safe will they every understand that racism do not exist with everyone.

Reference:

The Guesome reality of racist South Africa
pagemag.com/2013/.../the-gruesome-reality-of-racist-south-africa

Image Isn't Everything: Contemporary Systemic Racism and Antiracism in the Age of Obama
By: Ostertag, Stephen F.; Armaline, William T. Humanity & Society. Aug2011, Vol. 35 Issue 3, p261-289. 29p.

IMMUNIZATION //// PROTECT OUR CHILDREN

Immunization is a proven tool for controlling and eliminating life-threatening infectious diseases and is estimated to avert between 2 and 3 million deaths each year. In order to protect our children we must make sure immunization is part of the process. Many parts of the world children are not as lucky to have immunization as part of their proctecting tools.  Public Health being one of my majors in undergraduate school. I conducted a research on Polio and how it is still killing our children in different parts of the world.The United Nations Foundation has just launched a specials appeal to American parents called “Shot at Life.” The campaign’s intent is to help trigger advocacy and raise funds that would go toward providing greater access to vaccines against polio, measles, diarrhea and pneumonia in developing countries. This will help to stop the spread of many diseases and save the life of many of children. I feel that the younger generation of parents do not know how deadly these diseases can become for our children. In the early 1900's million of our children died because of the spread of Polio and chicken pox and many other diseases. If we can start a herd community it will stop the spread of Polio in other countries. Because my father is  from Morocco and my husband side of the family is from the Middle East. We visit our relative every other year and recently I was inform that Polio is on the rises in the Middle East. I support the WHO foundation every year to help many sick babies in the Middle East. Because immunization is very much needed for all children all over the world. I hope one day there will be no more Polio or smal pox or measles. Therefor, I always spread the word about how important it is to vaccinated your children in my community.

Reference:

D'Arcy, Janice: World Immunization Week: The Vaccine debate looks different abroadd 2012 1-2