A Rainbow

Look at me, I’m black and beautiful.

Open your eyes you can see.

I also have a lot of brown pride.

It’s not hard to figure this out, it’s me.

Over and over again people say, “I’m white, that’s right.

Can’t you see all these things are true?

My eyes are shaped like an almond, and sometimes my skin is yellow.

And maybe just today, I’m a shade of blue.

I’ve been told, “Go home, we don’t want you here”!

But this is my home, can’t you see?

We can all live together.

We are all the same, under our skin, I won’t leave!

We are all born naked, with a brain.

Can’t you see, if we use our brain, it’s by choice?

We can live in ignorance or tolerance.

Just remember we all have a voice.

We will all leave this world the same way we came in.

Can’t you see it’s how we run life’s race?

In the end, it’s how we treat others.

Ask yourself, did I leave making this world a better place?

Today I’m a bright, glowing sun.

Can’t you see we are all brothers and sisters?

We are a rainbow of colors, purple, green and even red.

After all, we are human; we have no time for resisters.

Mixed Messages

   My husband has always called me “Big Mamma”. Well this created a very embarrassing moment at the grocery store when my daughter was very young. We were in the produce section minding our own business; my daughter was in the child seat part of the shopping cart when a large woman passed us by. My daughter said, “Hey”, “Look at that Big Mamma”, I got real embarrassed and I gave the lady a big smile hoping she did not hear what my daughter said. I quickly said to my daughter, in a tone of voice where the lady could hear me, just in case she heard what my daughter said, “Honey”, “I am the Big Mama and you should not call other people that because it is my nick name”.

   The mother in me and the educator in me found myself giving my daughter a lesson on what is appropriate to say and what is not. My daughter did not think there was anything wrong with saying this because she hears it everyday in our household as a term of endearment to me from my husband. I guess you could call it a “Pet name”. This was not an easy concept to teach my daughter because in our household it was a good name, but she could not call anyone else “Big Mamma”, and this confused her. This was definitely a “double-standard” moment.

   I know now that in Harro’s “Cycle of Socialization” the diagram shows the “First Socialization” as being the part of our lives where the trust and love is built, we are taught to play our roles and follow rules, we shape our self concepts, perceptions of us and others, values, expectations of future roles, and we get mixed messages and feelings and become guilty for not understanding because we are confused about these messages

Children's TV Shows and Gender

   I sat and watched a few different channels on the TV with my four-year-old grandson. I just observed while he watched and took notes. The channels were Nickelodeon, Disney Junior, and Nickelodeon Junior. I observed the following commercials:

1. Furreal Friends-this ad was selling furry bunnies and puppies. Its emphasis was on friends and pets. It stated that if the child were to have one of these furry pets they would always have a friend. It showed multiple children playing with these pests. It was also gender specific in the way it showed the girls playing with the cute, furry little rabbits, and the boys were playing with the small, rigged puppies.
2. Hot Wheels-this commercial was definitely gender related. This Hot Wheels commercial showed only boys playing with this toy, racing and jumping down the race track. It was cool and colorful, loud and fast. The message in this commercial was strictly geared towards boys only and made my grandson instantly want it. Buy this toy and you will have instant gratification playing with it.
3. Vaseline-they threw this one in between child advertising. This one showed very soft hands, rubbing the lotion onto the skin. I wondered why they threw this one in on a kid’s channel. But, soon I realized why, my grandson looked at me and said, “Grandma you need to buy some of that stuff, it will make you whole body smooth and soft”, I had to laugh because the commercial served its purpose. The message was loud and clear, use this product (for women) and you too can have soft smooth skin.
4. To Move or Not to Move-this was a commercial about advertising hidden exercising. It showed young children deciding what kind of play they wanted to do next. It showed children running, jumping, swimming, riding bikes and much more. It shoed all young children both boys and girls getting up and exercising through play.
5. Fish with no Water-this commercial was a very sad one. It showed a bright orange gold fish laying on a white table, out of water and trying to breath. It stated that a child with asthma often feels this way. It played on the children’s emotions, and makes them think, the point was made, loud and clear. It was educational, because my grandson wanted to know what asthma was and I explained it to him, he said, “how sad”. I think a child with asthma would appreciate this commercial because it allows other children to become aware of their condition.

Commercials are designed to be persuasive communication that offers information about products, ideas, and services that serve as messages to young children, they wish to deliver. TV commercials can affect children by increasing their food and beverage intakes, change their attitude, and make parents feel like they have to buy unnecessary things. I think the biggest influence commercials have on our young children is how each gender should behave. They create their ads to send a message about gender by using the norms society has known and reinforced. Most of the commercials represent how boys and girls should act.

An Ending is Always a New Beginning

Preschool and childcare are at critical time and age in their young developing lives. It is very valuable for us all the learn everything we can about child development, and to gain the knowledge to provide a warm, nurturing environment and teach age appropriate curriculum. I applaud all of the students in the Walden University Child Development program for taking the first step in gaining the knowledge needed for helping all young children to develop. Never lose the passion and yearning to be a child advocate. “Keep on teaching”.

Adjourning Stage

   The final stage “adjourning”-means the project is coming to an end and the team members are starting to go their separate ways. They celebrate the teams efforts and learn from what they have accomplished (Abudi, 2010). The adjourning stage is a difficult, but important stage in the team process because it is the stage when everyone says their good-byes and move onto other projects. I have mixed feelings on this stage because it is quite a relief to accomplish what a group sets out to do and a relief when it is over. The group can go over things they have learned and what things they might do differently the next time. This is the celebrating stage. This is also the time when all involved will go their separate ways.

   In the past I have not had many opportunities to be part of a team that would demonstrate changes; the teams I have been a part of would be for arranging events, party’s’.  Nonetheless, we did go through the fives stages of team development, but I was not aware of the stages before this course.

1. The “forming” stage-this is when a team first meets each other and introductions are made. The members of the team share information about themselves and they are finding out information about others and how they feel they will work together (Abudi, 2010).
2. A the team works together they get into the “storming” stage-in this stage the team members compete for status and acceptance(Abudi, 2010). The team leader must guide the team so that conflict is solved together and introduce the win/win approach and try to change the conflict from adversarial attack and defense, to co-operation (www.crnhq.org).
3. In the third stage “norming”-the team begins to work together more efficiently as a team. They are focusing on goals together, not individual goals. This is where the trust takes place of the progress begins.
4. The “performing” stage-this is where the team focuses on the goal. The team knows each other, trusts each other, and they rely on each other. At this point the team works with no guidance, and the team works together as a group.
5. The final stage “adjourning”-means the project is coming to an end and the team members are starting to go their separate ways. They celebrate the teams efforts and learn from what they have accomplished (Abudi, 2010).

   When this course is over everyone will be missed. The bright sides of things are that we always run into familiar people in the next course and the course after that. When we are totally finished with the program, we will be so elated we are finished; this emotion will take over any other emotions.

  

References

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from    http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

Hand Washing, “To Do or Not To Do”

   About four weeks ago, when I was working in an early head start center we had a discussion about hand washing. We have a bathroom in the hall way and the director came from the bathroom in the hallway directly into the center. To get into the center you must open the door with your keys and enter the center. I was told on day one when you enter the center you are directly in the classroom and you must wash your hands again before you touch anything. This is what most of us did, and I actually thought everyone involved also did, but this was not the case. We are all trying to catch the director doing something out of protocol because it is fun when the tables have turned.

   This opened up a big discussion over “Do we wash our hands again, after we just did so in the bathroom. We all had our input and at times the discussion did get very serious because we all wanted to express our opinions.

   This discussion turned into a power struggle and what needed to be done is change the agenda to make it a win/win situation for everyone involved. The strategies of a win/win approach is to go back to the underlying needs, recognize the individual needs of the persons involved, remain open to adapt to the different positions, share information and attitudes, and attack the problem not the people involved (www.crnhq.org). We all wanted to be heard. The approach we should have taken was to come to a resolution by using the Third Side approach because it is a systematic approach to handling a conflict (www.thirdside.org). We should have listened all sides of the conflict, encourage the process of cooperative negotiation, and support a solution to fairly meet the needs of all sides involved. By taking the Third Side this will gives the opportunity to transform the conflict from being destructive into constructive change. When there is a situation such as this one, there is no need to take sides nor do you have to be neutral, what you want to do is seek to understand all sides and come to an amicable agreement that meets the needs of all sides involved. The goal in communication is transform a challenge or destructive conversation into a constructive or negotiable way to settle things peacefully.

  We all agreed, when in doubt, wash your hands. The director was going to look it up in the operations manual and get back to us in the next monthly meeting.

References

Conflict Resolution Network. (n.d.). CR kit. Retrieved from    http://www.crnhq.org/pages.php?pID=12#skill_3

The Third Side. (n.d.). The third side. Retrieved from http://www.thirdside.org/

Communication Evaluation

   I enjoyed learning about my self and what others think of me when it comes to communication. These assessments have made me very aware of the communication skills I need to work on and the areas I need to become more effective when communicating. I need to learn to be less aggressive in my verbal style of communication. I do not want to come across as being argumentative or attack anyone in the communication process. This is not good because I do not want nor intend to offend anyone and I need to improve on my verbal style of communication. I also need to improve on becoming comfortable when talking in meetings or conferences’. I have always had communication anxiety when having formal meetings with strangers. I become much more at ease when I get to know the people involved, so I need to learn how to get rid of this communication anxiety. Lastly, I need to improve on my listen style because I do not want people to take advantage of me because I have poor judgment. However, I do want to maintain relationships and be an empathetic listener because I do care. I do not want to come across as being intimidating and hurt the feelings of my sensitive listeners. Again, I am more comfortable in a classroom with children rather than a conference room with strangers so I do see the need to get to know the parents, stakeholders and all involved to become a good listener and verbal communicator and try and work on limiting the anxiety when it comes to all forms of communication.