I was thinking about the 5 stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. When thinking about all the groups I’ve been apart of there’s one that stands out that was the hardest to say goodbye to. The group is my first Head Start Center I worked at for 6 years it was 10 of us who worked there and we grew to be very close with each other. We were a team that would help each other out no matter what situation came our way. Not only were we a close team at work, but we were a close group of friends outside of work. We spent everyday at work together and had seen each of us grow, some of us had children for the first time, got married , got divorced you name it we had seen each other grow. It wasn’t till May of 2009 that our company lost their Head Start grant and we would not be coming back to work in August of 2009. So May was our last month we would be working together, and on the last day of May in 2009 was the hardest goodbye I had to do. It was so emotional when it came for us to close our center that day. We all cried and promised to keep in touch with each other. I don’t think I had ever had a hard good-bye since leaving my Head Start group in 2009.
Author: Stacy Almendarez
Strategies Used To Resolve Conflict or Disagreements
So I was thinking of disagreements, and conflicts I’m currently experiencing for this week’s assignment and only one came into mind, which is my conflict with my husband on helping me more with house duties and taking children to sports practice. My husband is a truck driver, and his route just changed from going to work at 5am to being at work at 3am till 4pm, which I totally understand is tiring for someone. Not only can it be exhausting for him, but I can see how when he gets home he just wants to shower and go to sleep or lay down and rest, but myself a working wife as a Head Start director for two sites with many responsibilities, a mother of two that are involved in many sports they are dedicated to, which means mom is taking them to their practices, and mommy also in school for her master’s degree, so many late nights of homework. So I too struggle with being tired, and exhausted from work, running around with the children, staying up late doing my online classes and having to be up early open centers at 7:15 am, and let’s not forget kids ready for school and pickup from grandma. So yes housework, cleaning, washing clothes, and grocery shopping etc. gets overwhelming for me and as much as I would love to come home sleep, relax, and watch television it’s just not that easy for me. So this is a conflict my husband and I were having that not only is it tiring for him to do all he does, but it is tiring for me as well to do all I do, and that I needed for us to come to some type of compromise on how we can help each other out with all the errands, housework, cleaning etc. and most importantly being there for our children. So I suggested that we split everything in half , I’ll take our daughter to gymnastics classes and softball practices, and he take our son to basketball practices and his conditioning workouts, also I’ll do the washing, dinner, sweeping and mopping, and he will do the folding, putting the clothes away, and ironing the kids clothes for school. And pretty much I’ll do the rest. Although we both were on different paths we spoke to each other with respect, and listened to what each of us had to say. Our communication let to a solution, and because we respect each other we were able to make things work for us, and help each other out with all our daily routines in our daily lives, and our family life.
Week 4 Blog Assignment: Myself as A Communicator
I evaluated myself as a communicator and surprisingly I found myself to have good eye contact, tone of voice would change depending who I was talking to, and what the subject was about. I did notice I use my hands a whole lot when I’m talking and I have never really paid attention to how much I use my hands when I’m speaking. And when I asked my son to evaluate me he said I used my hands so much that after a while he caught himself just focusing on my hands rather than making eye contact with me. This surprised me a whole lot because there have been times I say to myself after I have spoken to someone “They never made eye contact with me” but now I’m starting to wonder if they were focused on my hands. I have learned so much about communication and this week I learned how people can look at someone and have so many different perceptions about the person. I am now aware how perceptions are important when it comes to communication.
Who demonstrates competent communication?
This weeks blog I was asked to think of someone who demonstrates competent communication within a particular context. After thinking about it I had so many people come to mind, but the one who sticks out is my best friend Nichole. Nichole is always so confident when she speaks. She is such a great communicator with everyone especially when she is talking to large groups. Nichole is always the first one to give her opinion to others without worrying about what they will think or say to her. Her vocabulary is so intellectual, and she can speak in front of people so comfortably without getting nervous. When having to give speeches, or having to speak to people about something she will speak to everyone professionally, making eye contact to her audience, but most importantly she is calm and clear. Although her and I both are educated, and love to voice our opinions it seems I’m the one who starts getting nervous when it’s my turn to speak to others. I get so nervous to speak in front of large audiences, and start forgetting what I wanted to say or forget my speech. I wish I had Nichole’s confidence to stand in front of others and speak so comfortably making eye contact to my audience, and being able to communicate so professionally. I see how her being confident in herself helps her be able to voice her mind with communication. I too would love to be able to do this without getting nervous, stuttering, looking down when communicating to others, but most importantly I want to have her confidence.
When I Think of Research…
Research! Wow, I have a new view on it. I can honestly say after taking ” Building Research Competencies” class I have a good idea how to conduct a research study by planning and designing it.This course has made me aware of what goes into a research study, and how important it is to think about what you want your study to focus on. I have learned many lessons about planning, designing, and conducting research in early childhood, one being how important the families, legal guardians, and children understand what they are giving consent to, so making sure all paperwork, and conversations are in the home language of the children, families, and legal guardians. Most importantly everyone must be respected, and treated equally when conducting the research. I did face some challenges, those challenges were learning what Qualitative Approaches, Quantitative Approaches, and Triangulation were all about when it came to research. I found it challenging to learn about how to choose which one of these would be apart of research.
Research Around The World
Early Childhood Education in Africa is still an ongoing challenge for educators and policymakers in Africa. One of Africa’s current international research topics is Africa thriving to implement early childhood development programs throughout the region to help children who live in poverty, and suffer from poverty by getting too little mental stimulation in their early years of life. After exploring websites from Africa on this issue I found it interesting that if Africa can implement more early childhood programs, then the rate will go up in children enrolling in primary schools. A lot of children do not attend primary schools, because of poverty, and having to help their families. What I found promising to resolve this issue is Africa is launching platform to enhance collaboration with other countries for delivery of quality Early Childhood Development programs in order to help the country offer a good start in life for children who live in Africa.
References
http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php
Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories
Research is amazing when it can help children and families. I found a great article on the effects of adolescent parenting, and how it affects children, families, and the community. I wanted to share this article, because I’m a believer on how young parents need guidance on parenting skills, and what they do can affect everyone in their life, and around them. This article gives the reader an insight from their research on how adolescent parenting is so important, and how others can help guide, and stop other adolescent parents from making mistakes that can affect all who surround them. This research article opened my eyes, and hopefully teach you new information on adolescent parenting.
Final Blog Assignment For Issues & Trends in the Early Childhood Field
During the course I had the pleasure of learning about the international early childhood field in Australia. As I communicated with my Early Childhood educator from Australia I learned that Early Childhood Education is important over there as it is here in the United States. As the weeks went by my communication with my contact was very interesting, and educational. I learned that the Early Childhood field needs to have more high quality programs, teachers, staff, buildings, materials, and funding. It seems that not only here in the U.S. is funding an issue, but countries suffer with having the funds to provide high quality care. Not only just from my contact, but reading my classmate’s blog post with their contacts. It saddens me that many children are not getting the Early Childhood education needed to give them that head start due to funding playing a huge part in that. I now have a goal to educate others on the importance of providing high quality education in the Early Childhood field, and helping local community Early Childhood Centers, and programs find resources that can help them with funding to turn their centers, and programs into high quality Early Childhood programs.
Getting Ready Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources
There are different ways to establish contacts with early childhood professionals around the world. This past week my challenge came from my “Issues and Trends in the Early Childhood Field” course. I was to seek contact from two early childhood professionals outside the United States. And my gosh was this a challenge! I thought it would be a piece a cake, but it was much harder than I thought. As I explored different websites I found WoFoNet on World Forum Foundation’s website. This website was a great resource, it had the WoFoNet that consisted of signing up to be apart of a great network of Early Childhood professionals from all over the world. Another thing that was great is you get to send messages to each other, and add friends to your list. As I explored the network I sent two messages to early childhood professionals one from Nigeria, and another from Australia. I truly hope I get a response from one of them soon.
I was also challenged to immerse myself in one early childhood organization’s website in order to get to know specific ways in which the organization supports the early childhood community and the resources it offers. I searched organizations, and decided to follow the National Head Start Association. The reason for choosing the website is because I work for a Head Start program, and I know everything my program does within my agency, and I would love to learn what the association does for all Head Start Programs, and learn about how I can better my program by learning their expectations in the early childhood field.
” My Supports “
Support is such a powerful word to me. I see myself surrounded with support from loved ones, friends, co-workers, school, and even a system. In my daily environment support surrounds me in every direction. Support from my husband is ongoing in my everyday life activities, starting from supporting my job, and all the long hours it sometimes takes away from my family. My husband is my biggest supporter when it comes to furthering my education. I have gotten all my degrees while I was already a mother, and wife , so my challenges to go back to school were not easy, but my husband has always, and still continues to support me through school. He takes over my mom duties, and allows me to concentrate on school work ,and whatever else is needed to accomplish my education goals. I’m now in my Master’s program, and the support is still being provided by my husband. So many benefits come out from my husbands support. Some of the benefits are confidence in myself , having someone cheer me on when I’m feeling doubt, stress free environment, and the endless love. Without him I could not have gotten as far as I have in School. I would not have been able to juggle school, mommy duties, work duties, and school. I would be so lost without my husband, he is my biggest supporter in anything I do. Another huge supporter in my life is my mother , she helps me with my children everyday . She is the one who picks up my children every morning for school, she picks them up from school, and attends school activities with them. Without her support I would not be able to take on my supervisor position at work, due to having to open at 7:00 am , and not able to take off for all my children’s events at school, but most importantly I wouldn’t have someone by myside, and children’s side when it comes to involvement in my child’s school activities. Without her I have no idea how I would manage work , and mommy duties. And my forever supporters who show me they love me unconditionally , though good times, and bad times my children. My children always support me with their love, and who could ask for more. My life would be over if I didn’t have them, I could not go on in life without my babies, because they are my life.
A challenge I chose to imagine is opening my own non-profit organization that supports, and educates teen parents on parenting skills. I would need a whole team of supporters such as financial grant support, resource support, parent teens support, family support, employee support, and support from the community. The financial grant support would help me the money I would need to open the non-profit organization, the resource support would help me with guidance on opening a non-profit organization, my family would support me during , and after my organization opens, employees would support me in taking on the duties to educate the teen parents, and provide the services needed, the teen parents would support my organization by attending classes on teen parenting, and lastly I would need the community to support me by being involved with my program by telling others about my program, or being guest speakers at my classes, and the list goes on. Without any of these support groups I would not be able to open up my own non-profit organization.
Stacy D. Almendarez 