Interesting ECE Research Globally

Happy Friday loves!

This week I challenged myself to be critical this week during this week's blog assisngment and found out I was pleasantly surprised. I chose http://www.eecera.org/ to analyze and comb through their website. What I found was surprising and enlightening to say the least.

For starters,  I enjoyed learning that they has Special Interest Groups nthatbwete dedicated towards researching a specific subject within the vast field of early childhood. I enjoyed that component due to the understanding that early childhood education is more than just the classroom experience but also the whole"child experience from their community to their home life.

A special interest group I found noteworthy was one where it highlighted holistic well-being of a child and how policy can best serve children in that aspect. It asked critical questions about whatis defined as well-being, how can it be measured, and if professionals across various fields define it the same; if not, how can legislation be inclusive of all perspectives. This is critical when discussing ECE and child development because the socioemotional components of education are often trivialized or forgotten and are not focused on. A child's emotional and mental well-being and health is just as important as their physical.

Another special interest group was one where it was dedicated to the inclusion and recruitment of male teachers on a female dominated field. With education being a historically female dominated profession, the diversifying of the workforce in gender is being investigated to show not only the children that there is male presence in education but deconstruct the stigma of males in education. I, also, found this important and beneficial to child development due to how American culture is nlbending towards more progressive learning practices that encompass all people from walks of life. This is necessary if we want a more reflective workforce to leave a more positive impression on our children.

These developments have me insight into the future of how we are viewing education and taking in consideration deliberate practices to become more tolerant to whole-chikd development as well as becoming.more reflective in our demographic whennit comes to teachers.

Research paved the way for my community

Happy Friday loves!

After a long week of teaching 2 year olds, I am excited for some adult conversation that does not begin and end with "No thank you" or "that is not a good choice". Lol.

This week is all about ethics and research abd one thing I love are a good controversies. A topic of discussion is examples of how research has been utilized as a positive impact on society and/or community.

I utilized my political-science background for this because what immediately came to mind was Brown v. Board of Education - the historic, landmark decision that desegregated public school across the nation. Now, I know what you are thinking and probably wondering why and how Brown v Board has anything to do with research. On the contrary, its jurisprudence lies within the monumental research of Kenneth and Mamie Clark's infamous "Doll Test".

Fun fact: Brown v Board was almost tossed out due to a lack of substantial evidence that supported the claim that segregated schooling was a violation of basic human rights and imposed harm to children of color. It wasn't until the Clark's conducted their doll test when The United States Supreme Court had to overturn the Plessy v Ferguson Decision of "Seperate but Equal" due to the proufound psychological effects found in the segregation children based on color. 👊👊👊🙌🙌🙌 (Thank you Professor McKenzie at University of Illinois at Chicago for giving me this information years ago during undergrad during my Law and Public Policy course 😘😘)

The court found that the research of The Clarks validated the claims that children of color would receive the harmful physical and psychological effects of segregation due to the seperate but equal legislation. The foll test concluded that Black children found themselves not only inferior to white children but viewed themselves as unequivocally comparable to white children in any degree. Buzz words such as "ugly", "bad", "mean" were used to describe themselves as "nice" "beautiful" and "kind" were used to describe the white dolls.

Basically, we have desegregated school (by law) due to research of two proud African American. *drops mic*



Bergner, G. (2009). Black children, White preference: Brown v. Board, the doll tests, and the politics of self-esteem. American Quarterly, 61(2), 299-332.

So....I think I want my PhD now....

Happy Thursday friends!

I am completing my blog a little early because I have a jammed pack weekend coming up and I want my time free.

With a new semester in full force, I find myself not only personally challeneged with this course but also professionally challenged. This is the first course at Walden where I am pushing beyond my limits and I'm impressed. Kudos to Walden 👊🙌🙌🙌

On another note, we have a research assignment that we are prepping for and it has officially sealed my ambitions on obtaining a PhD. I intend to enroll at Northwestern University in Chicago (my hometown) and obtain my PhD. in Human Development and Social Policy. I am HIGHLY intrigued by how social/public policy affects the overall development of a child.

Which leads me to my research subject of studying how Racisim and Systematic Oppression is the premise to the decreased life span of African-American youth. As a black woman, I know nothing but stress, struggle, poor life decisions, and broken homes/community. It is the unfortunate reality and truth to many of our inner-city African Americans in Urban communities.
Studying urban poverty by looking at social attitudes and policy is a unique way to analyze how these have detrimental, long term effects on the cognitive develooment of Black children as well as their Long term health.

When I heard stress kills, I thought it was a metaphor. No, it LITERALLY KILLS. Research has shown that stress literally contributes to the deterioration of the human DNA through aging of cells (Needham, 2012).  Also, Black women are 2x more likely to experience premature birth, low birth weight, and/or fetal death due to factors of socioeconomic stress (Hogue, 2005).

As a mother that lost her son due to premature delivery, this hits home. I want to drive deeper into this subject and understand more of the root to offer a viable solution.

Resources for your consideration:

Hogue, C. J. R., & Bremner, J. D. (2005). Stress model for research into preterm delivery among black women. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology, 192(5), S47-S55.

Needham, B. L., Fernandez, J. R., Lin, J., Epel, E. S., & Blackburn, E. H. (2012). Socioeconomic status and cell aging in children. Social science & medicine, 74(12), 1948-1951.

International Education

Happy week 8 loves!

We made it *cheers*

As this semester comes to a close, I definitely wanted to touch on how international education and becoming more aware in the international community can extend our reservoir of knowledge while also allowing us opportunities to be our best selves.

I have attached 3 photos to what best portrays what international education and knowledge has the ability to do for ECE education:

These three pictures represent what international exposure is all about; giving us a glimpse into what we can accomplish with more communication and less domination.

Diversity is a beautful thing and if we allow our students to flourish and show their culture and background- along with their unique qualitiesle our,  we enabor our students to share their wealth of knowledge ans experience with the rest of tbejr2 enviornment. I hate saying "We are all one". No we arent and thats what makes the world beautiful. Allowing all of our differences to come together and create something beautiful is what international awareness and educstion on issues concerning other people outside of ourselves and communities is what enables us to bridge education barriers, language barriers, and social/cultural barriers that birth stereotype, bias, and fear.

Lastly, pushing ourselves out our comfort zone is imperative to extend ourselves and learn about our true strengths and gifts we bring to the world. Playing it safe and being comfortable doesnt show potential or room for improvement. Being the best at what we do means being exposed to all that we can be able to accomplish.

By tackling these international issues head on that affect children across all communities, we are pushing ourselves as educational advocates and professionals towards truly creating an enviornment that instill high quality education without barriers.

Illinois: SB1

Happy Friday loves!

I hope everyone had a great week. My week could have been better but I'm blessed to wake up and see another morning so I am nit too shabby.

With this week being a discussion about education and standards, I thought it be appropriate  to discuss the current political climate in my home, Chicago, Illinois.

*Drum roll* Allow me to introduce Illinois' latest disaster for equitable school funding- Senate Bill 1. There is a short video explaining logistics below

SB1 is a new bill introduced that our loveky governor endorses that restructures our educational funding model. Currently, Illinois ranks dead last in equitable school funding and SB1 is only making matters worse. *gasps* Shocker. -___-

As much as I love my city, my home town was built on racisim and outside of Chicago, you might as well consider it Hicksville because they literally HATE anything not drenched with vannila ice-cream, marshmallows, and mayo if you catch my drift.

Key points of SB1 include:
*shifting from a baseline funding model to an evidence based model
*creating four (4) tiers that dictate funding districts to the most "needy" schools
*taking in consideration of ALL funding options for ALL school districts

Now if you were me prior to research, you would say its not so bad. I'm a liberal of course but I am logical. But further research, I discovered that this is absolutely biased and (pardon my language) bullshyt of legislation.

So not only is Illinois the LEAST EQUITABLE EDUCATIONALLY FUNDED STATE IN THE COUNTRY, our political climate aims to make matters worse by furthering the education funding gap between low income students2 and students of wealthier districts.

Since race and economics are almost synonymous, you can only guess who gets the short end of the stick. Not only can wealthier districts lower their property taxes to meet minimums that make them eligible for state finding (a luxury
Kids from the south side wish we could afford) but it also takes ALL "forms of eligible funding" into consideration for dispersing state funding- *cough* block grants * cough* teacher pension *cough* Title 1 funds.

The kicker is that lower income students are put into smaller classroom sizes to improve academic performance. What this funding model sneaks in are terms of "Adequacy Levels". Meaning simply, funding will be given to school districts that have lower amounts of adequacy met. So if you already take grants and teacher pensions into funding account for lower income school children, AND decide to use their smaller classrom size as factors to display performance, then of course they won't qualify for the most funding!

In fact, coupled with property taxes and "other forms of eligible funding", these power income districts seem to be capable of "providing quality education". -____-

Quality education is coupled with equity because they go hand in hand. You cannot give 81 cents to every black and brown kids in Chicago for every dollar you give a white student and tell them to succeed. On top of that, you want to give wealthier districts more money and the OPTION to lower their gosh darn taxes in order to QUALIFY for state aide?

Allow me to colloquialy express my concern with: "Where they do dat at?" 😒😒😒😒

How can we discuss quality education when we can't even fund our schools and pay our teachers a suitable wage?! How can we as Illinois discuss equity when property taxes in itself are determinants to 55% of the school funding model- putting Black and Brown students at a disadvantage ALREADY based on their zip code?

To answer the question of my professional goals and aspirations, I ansewer simply:

Graduate 2018 with this Masters in Early Childhood Education.

2020: Run for public office

Chanel West for Chicago Public Schools Board of Education 😎

Exploring NBCDI

Hello loves!

Happt Thursday! I am completing my blog a little early because this weekend is Chicago's "Slut Walk" and I will be very active in that march and activities. As a survivor of sexual assault, it is imperative I make my voice heard and reclaim myself and feminine sexuality.

On another note, this week are are exploring our websites we chose earlier in the semester. I chose the National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI) and have fell in love with the organization.

NBCDI focuses solely on the advancement if the overall well-being of African-Americans and their children. African-American are in a distadvantage due to being in social and political systems that perpetuate poverty and classisim. As we know, the effects if poverty creates toxic stress, emotional deregulation, delayed cognitive and psychosocial development, as well as serves as a barrier perpetuates generational poverty.

NBCDI uses its partnerships with local, state, and federal programs to bring knowkedge and social services to African-American communties while also focusing on strengthening African-American families. Upon exploration, a bulk if their efforts is into strengthening perception and image of Black children-especially Black males.

Initiatives were brought forth on how to better involve Black males into the academic enviornment and undo the desensitization of the Black male body and image. Efforts to increase positive interaction and discipline, academic curriculum that encourages critical thinking, as well as the projection of goals that push beyond stereotypical inclined achievement are just a few of thise goals.

Also, efforts to take control of the narrative and image of the Black family has been executed in the form of community workshops open for all backgrounds while also the implementation of a calender. The calendar is photographs of African-American families that are submitted by members of their network- prltraying happy children, two-parent households, and variations of the African diaspora.

Lastly, their annual conference is next month in Atlanta, Georgia; featuring key note speakers such as Iyana Vanzant while discussing issues within policy, health/nutrition, family, educstion, and advocacy that affect the African American family and child in panels and seminar.

Overall, the NBCDI website is filled with new information that gives me insight into how active organizations are within the Black community to better impact our communities and alleviate these pressing issues.

New Insights

Happy Saturday loves!

Hope every one is off to a good start to their weekend.

This week is all about new insights into our resources and what we have learned from them both personally and professionally.
This week I utilized Harvard's Global Children's Initiative to learn more about the collaborations within early childhood.

Although it is (now) common knowledge that early childhood education involves fields from all disciplines, the diversity and partnerships between different fields in order to collaborate in doing the most good to strengthen early childhood is mind-blowing.

Partnerships between Harvard University and Brazil's Health Care Network are used to promote better policy towards early childhood education and development. This is done through creating a cohort of 40-45 Brazilian policy makers  in a week-long training at Harvard's campus. These trainings then involve a complex array of opportunities for hands-on, engaging learning that applies broad ideas into concrete planning. These policy makers then are allowed to go and implement these strategies in their respective neighborhoods in Brazil.

This was most intrigung to me as it bridges the gap between policy and science. Anyone can read a news brief or an article but to actually apply data, concepts, and ideas to a miniature version of the problem and/or area that is in need of assistance is taking it a step further. This not only gives policy makers insight into the first-hand  experiences of the population they serve but also new knowledge into the problems and their long-term effects of mental health.

Next insights are both the science of early childhood brain development as well as their preventative strategies. Early Childhood brain development is complex, intense, and beautiful. Enviornmental factors such as poverty, parental practices, violence, and constant stress can begin to delay and/or degrade brain architecture; leaving the mind suceptible to toxic stress, limited prefrontal cortex control (emotional regulation), and serve and return functions that build upon in social and emotional development.

Although these effects can occur to any population or demographic, strategies to prevent these delays and/or issues vary from each demographic. One strategy of increasing the funding for overall education for one group may not have the same effects as a group that needs more strategies to educate parents on creating healthy attachments with their kids.

Understanding these new insights have piqued my interest to know more about Early Childhood Development as well their effects in young children of color within my own backyard. As an educator that has intentions to go into policy, understanding the weight of what my decisions may hold gives new perspective into what implementations of policy and adjustments that can be created for my own community.

What may work for the Latino community may not be able to be transferred to the African-American community. Understanding that there is no one size fits all model allows me to better observe and undertand my students, their families, and their backgrounds to best assist their development inside and outside the classroom.