Blog #1: How can experience as a young child change the way we teach young children?

While I was reading chapter 7 New Possiblities for Early Childhood Education by Susan Bernheimer I found out that the author of the book talked about her past experience as a fifth grader and that teachers play a powerful role to teach their students. As she talked about making her ashtray it made me think about my past experience when I was a fourth grader. For example, I had to tear pieces of paper in the shape of the Hawaiian Islands and I picked up the wrong colored paper to tear. The teacher told me "How come your not following directions?" after that happened I felt embarrassed in front of my classmates. Now that I'm a preschool teacher it made me think about other children and how they must feel when they get embarrassed or upset in front of their classmates. In this chapter, I thought the author was well discriptive about her personal experieces as an educator when she was teaching the english language to college students and how she got her students involved with discussions and topics. This made me think about what I'm trying to teach children, When I teach children I try to come up with different activities that will help them learn and have fun, which is also developmentally age approriate.

My Steps in Life...

Hi everyone! My name is Dawn, when I was a high school student I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do or become, I was mostly the shy and quiet one compared to my twin sister whom is the more talkative one. During the summer when I didn't have school my mom thought it would be a good idea if I volunteered at Wailuku Hongwanji Preschool, which was the same preschool I went to when I was four years old. So I decided to take my mom's advice and help out during the summer. After I volunteered at the preschool I relized that working with young children was the field I wanted to pursue. In 2005 I graduated from Baldwin High School and the same year I went to Maui Community Collage. This was also the same year I became a part-time teacher's aide at WHP. I remember when I took my first practicum class at MCC because it made me realize there was a lot more to this job than I thought. During the beginning of the course it was quite a challenge of getting used to the standards, learning about approriate and inappropriate practices, and strategies while working with young children. It took me about four years to get my AS degree in ECE and this is my second semester and second online class with UHWO. I have been working at the same preschool for about four years and this would be my first year as a teacher. Overall, I hope to learn more and gain more experience and information in ECED.