Philosophy Assignment

• Question one 

1. My vision working with children is to be their support, a person they can always come to.
2. in three years, I see my greatest strengths with children to be more firm and positive 
3. I envision the early learning environment as, safe and nurturing 
4. I see children as smart individuals who observe everything we do, we should never take them for granted or underestimate them.
5. I view children’s families to be supportive, caring, safe and nurturing 
6. I suspect that cultural diversity will open my eyes more and help me see the world for a better place.
7. I envision my colleagues to have their own philosophy and to also make this safe caring nurturing environment 

• Question 2 

Step 1: Identify your values and beliefs:– we did not do a professional journal in this course – instead, reflect on your early answers to “A Reflective Moment”.

I believe that we should treat our children like our own children. I value trust, respect, honesty, support, I value reliability, positivity, I value safety and care. I believe every child should feel safe and like home when they come to daycare. We act as their second set of parents; they spend about 40 hours with us a week.  I believe children are smart, and I value individuality.

Step 2. Reflect – use all your course and program materials to review your values and beliefs, ie. Code of Ethics, all Certificate Program materials, Tree of Life, or guest speaker activities.  Reflect on why you have come to believe what you do.

 I think I have a good understanding of ethical responsibilities,  I feel like reading the code of Ethics is an important document. I believe it’s really important that every educator should have a code of ethics on them. I believe that children should feel at home because I value compassion, commitment, empathy, dependability, respect, reliability, and consistency. The code of ethics, says we should create and maintain safe and healthy environments for children. I believe this is something really important that educators should learn and do. It is our responsibility to foster all facets of development in the children in our care. Educators should provide children with experiences that build trust in many ways. We work to support all children as they experience different emotions and model acceptable ways of expressing emotions. Communicate with the children with their sharing interests. 

Step 3. Develop content for your philosophy statement – Update your responses to the 7 sentence starters in “A Reflective Moment”. For each refinement, write a paragraph in which you provide a quote and/or reference to support your philosophy. This is the written portion of the assignment. Please attach your early answers from Step 1

1. My vision working with children is to be their support, a person they can always come to, and provide them with experience to build trust and model healthy ways to navigate expressing emotions.  “Every day, in 100 small ways, our children ask, ‘Do you hear me? Do you see me? Do I matter?’ Their behavior often reflects our response.” ~ L.R. Knost. This important quote represents not only children but adults too. BLACK LIVES MATTER is a huge example of this quote, not only children were saying this, but their parents and other adults were saying it too! Doing my advocate paper, I chose my topic on mental health because I think it’s important that we should be educated on signs of mental illnesses and see how important it is and how every child and adult struggles.  For mental and emotional wellbeing, children must feel like they are being heard, seen, and that they matter to us. This is our responsibility. We must, as educators, be aware of the importance and impact of this responsibility and do our best to provide each child with the feeling that they are seen and heard and that they have great value. They should feel safe to come to us and express their emotions, they should trust us to validate their emotions and help them to learn how to manage big thoughts and feelings in healthy productive ways.

2. In three years, I see my greatest strengths with children to be more firm and positive, and better with problem-solving.  “Remember: everyone in the classroom has a story that leads to misbehavior or defiance. 9 times out of 10, the story behind the misbehavior won’t make you angry. It will break your heart.~ Annette Breaux. This quote touched me deeply. The reasoning for that is lately at work, I’ve been experiencing children with really bad behavior and it breaks my heart. The children aren’t acting this way on purpose, they’re seeing this behavior outside of the center and they’re thinking it’s normal to act like this. I can see parents who struggle with their relationships but try to make it work for the children, but sometimes adults don’t see that the child is picking up every behavior and then acting that out with their peers at the center. I see that my weakness is in problem-solving and that is where I want to succeed. When I succeed in this, it will be better for me, and also be better for the kids in my care.  I can then help children and parents navigate their problems. I think it all comes down to anxiety where I don’t believe in myself and I feel I’m constantly being judged if I say or do things wrong. To teach the children to be more courageous, I must model courage myself.

3. I envision the early learning environment as a safe and nurturing environment, and that children feel at home when they are in our care.  Educators have a responsibility to “respond appropriately to each child’s expression of need.” – Code of Ethics. I believe it’s important that when children come into our care, that they should feel at home. 90 percent of their time is spent with us, we’re basically their second families, they spend most of the week with us and it’s usually 7-10 hours a day. That’s why it’s so important for them to feel safe, and have a connection with us and with their other peers. They should feel loved and have a trust bond with you because you’re their other families. The parents trust us with their most loved human beings. I feel that some educators don’t take that into consideration and fully understand the implications of this. Being an educator is more than “just a job”, it’s a privilege and a deep responsibility.  

4. I see children as smart individuals who observe everything we do, we should never take them for granted or underestimate them. “Teaching is not about answering questions but about raising questions – opening doors for them in places that they could not imagine.” ~ Yawar Baig. I believe we should explore every child’s interests, and study what they are interested in. If you don’t have the knowledge or experience, then admit it, and then study the topic so that you gain the ability to teach them, and help them grow, and answer all the questions honestly. Children are very observant and some people don’t notice how observant they are; that’s when children pick up on things, think what you do is “normal” because that is what they see. We need to be their role models to teach them healthy ways of thinking, speaking, behaving, and processing their emotions. 

5. I view children’s families to be supportive, caring, safe, and nurturing; we should focus on this in the center and all family styles should be respected and honored in the learning environment. “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” – Richard Bach. I think this quote is really important because we live in a society where parents are gay, divorced, fostering, adopting, and otherwise building families that have nothing to do with blood ties. I think children need to see and understand that you don’t need to be blood to be family, to be respected, and to bring joy into each other’s lives. This quote also focuses on the importance that family should be the people who respect you and enjoy you as you are. 

6. I suspect that cultural diversity will open my eyes more and help me see the world for a better place, and learn new experiences and gain knowledge of different types of culture while increasing my empathy and compassion. “Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another’s uniqueness. – Ola Joseph” I really liked this quote because it shows children to accept everyone for who they are and where they come from. Diversity shows us that everyone has value. It teaches children to focus on accepting and understanding each other, instead of focusing on how we are different. We want children to create communities not divide themselves.

7. I envision my colleagues to have their own philosophy that works together as a team to make this a safe, caring, and nurturing environment. Quote from Code of Ethics “Early childhood educators demonstrate integrity in all of their professional relationships’ ‘ I believe this is an important belief, it’s really important to be able to work well as a team and have professional relationships with co-workers and families. When there’s no relationships or communications. It’ll make it harder for everyone to work as a team, especially working with the children as well. Children can pick up on vibes and energy and will call you on it. You think they don’t know what’s going on, but they do. That’s why it’s important to never underestimate children.