For decades people have fought for their rights: women, African Americans, Immigrants, LGBTQ, and disability to name a few. The struggle for rights or equality is never ending and should never halt.

Currently, I see huge debates about the word disability-whether it is okay to use it or if it is taboo; whether or not a person can be proud of their disability, even how to treat a person and regard their disability.

People wage wars over the issue and form coalitions. Identity is obviously extremely important to everyone. How do we take into account others thoughts?

Ask the person how they feel about the topic, how they wish to be addressed, how they wish to be treated. By doing this it take out the uncertainty of the situation and bring both parties to the same point.

From a personal perspective, I only use the word disability when an individual prefers that term, otherwise I tend to use diagnosed as a way to side step the stigma I see associated with disability. As disability means by definition a lack of ability, from initial contact it is generally negative.

So ask people how they identify and regard them in such a manner.

When teaching children or really any age-range of people, the use of touch or lack thereof is an effective way to show approval, understanding, or means by which to regaining one’s attention. Touching an individual under certain circumstances is appropriate and in other instances is not. Touching someone is almost never referred to as “touching,” unless that is by a child. The purpose of this short paragraph is to explain that there is a new four year old is my pre-k class who yells at nap time, “I JUST WANT YOU TO TOUCH ME!” if a teacher does not rub his back so he can sleep.

“Hey Kyle, so are you going to open up a child care center?”

“What?”

“Are you going to open up a child care center?”

“Uh, I don’t know that’s a lot of work. I just want to get a degree right now and then figure everything else out.”

This happened today, but somehow every Early Childhood Education major, 99% of whom are women in my area, ask me this question. Every time there is a situation in class where we have to play the parts of students, teacher, parents, or director, somehow I am always picked to be the highest qualified of the four. Every time there is a project I somehow get picked to do all the logistics and number crunching.

What I am really trying to say is that I feel kind of like I am being discriminated against for being a male in this field, that because I am a guy the only reason I could be doing this is to be a director. What if I am fine just being a teacher?

1) The look of astonishment on a child’s face when they do something they never thought was possible.

2) The conversations about anything and everything, in real and made-up languages.

3) The hugs.

During a workshop on Desired Results Developmental Profiles, mentor Director lady brought up a quote about teaching, “The quiet teacher wasn’t a good teacher for the loud and rowdy students because she couldn’t understand them, but give her a quiet child and she was the best teacher that child could hope for.”

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about that quote lately and have been trying to understand what type of teacher I am. I think I have figured it out. I am that quiet teacher, but I am also a teacher who has a deep passion for understanding each and every child which is probably why every child with a diagnosis of a special need or not, finds me at my center. I understand these children and I allow them to be themselves but still try to push them a little farther than they think they are capable, and try everything within my power to help them get tested and hopefully services. I want to expand be able to be a good teacher for the loud and rowdy as well but that isn’t a large part of my personality so I expect that to be a hard journey. Some days, like yesterday and today, I just know that I’m meant to be at the center right now, that this is, for lack of a better word, fate.

I came in early today and got to see half the children in my main class (right now it is inter-session and classes are merged and I work the afternoon instead of morning). So I walked in and sat down at circle time as different lead teacher is trying to read a story. All of my children recognize me, keep staring at me, and want to give me hugs, totally not overstating this either. One child, H, decided to sit in my lap and talk to me the whole time.

Later when H was leaving, he waved bye to me and said, “Bye Kyle!” His mom turned around with him to leave and started walking away and then she turned back around and said to me, “He just said ‘that’s my Kyle!’” We both laughed and H and his mom left.

The Curriculum Specialist at my school/center invented a new anecdotal/observation assessment intended to find the reason why a child plays a certain way or uses a certain thing or talks about anything, and a way in which that can be used to address potential issues in their life and teach a lesson plan on that subject. It was introduced two or three weeks back and everyone is required to do them for at least two children a week.

The CS went through all of the papers, wrote comments and then had short conferences regarding the assessments with each person. Today I had my mini-conference and thought I was in trouble for something. As it turns out, she was extremely happy with my thoughts and conclusions. She thought I was basically the only person of about thirty who actually understood what her goals were in the development of the assessment. She also told me I should consider being a child psychologist and I told her it is probably the end goal for me.

Oh yeah, she basically praised me every five to ten seconds and I responded awkwardly with half-smiles, nods, and the occasional thanks. I am bad at accepting compliments./first world problems

I came up with this concept on the spot in class weeks ago because I was frustrated at how loud the children were being at the lunch table. It has probably been done before numerous times so I hold no control over its name or use, it has just worked well for me.

The Quiet Helmet is invisible, can be stored in any pocket or area, is completely weightless, can only be removed by the person who puts it on and is free. Use as needed.

lovetoteachece asked: What made you so interested in Early Childhood and Special Education?

This will probably very a decently long post so be warned.

I never attended preschool nor did either of my brothers or sister because my family could not afford it. Kindergarten is full of some great memories: having friends, my first crush, and learning to essentially be more independent.

First grade may very well have been my favorite grade. I remember being teased and picked on quite often, and had many family issues at the time. Two of which I will discuss. The first my mom had cartilage removed from her knee due to numerous reasons all stemming from a car accident when she was seven. This had a huge impact on me at the time involving a lot of stress, anxiety, and fear because I did not understand why everything was happening and was scared for her life. The other was financial problems which is a recurring theme throughout the course of my families existence. All that aside, I had probably the best, my most favorite-st, teacher ever. She helped me through all of those physically and emotionally draining times. She was such a warm, loving person, that I visited her every recess for years after I was out of her class. I would say she had huge sway in what I am currently doing. She taught me so much and every other child she had for over 40 years.

To address the special education part, it is numerous points that have brought me here. My would-be uncle, my mom’s brother who died numerous years before I was even a thought, lived his life in a wheelchair during the 60s and didn’t live far past them. He was diagnosed with some combination of Muscular Dystrophy and a muscular degenerative disease/disorder (he probably would have been diagnosed with Mitochondrial disease and potentially Autism today from what my mom has described to me). That being understood, I was raised on treating everyone equally and an extreme understanding that even is someone has a “handicap, disability, or disorder” that is does not make them any less of a person.

Last year after starting some Early Childhood Education classes, I was put into contact with my soon-to-be-Special-education/life mentor. She has gotten me involved in the local Autism Society working with teenagers and adults with Autism and Aspergers and even got me a job working one-on-one with a teenager with Autism and Epilepsy, who if I might add I love him and wish I could work with him more. I have also done some work with people who have Down Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol syndrome, and cognitive delays.

As of now I work in a state-funded preschool with a class that is considered mostly typical, however, it really should be considered an inclusion class. Many of the children (probably 10 or 11 out of 23) are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed and are in the process of being correctly diagnosed and receiving services.

Now, to honestly answer your question as to why I am so interested in ECE and special education, because I absolutely love every child, teenager, and adult I have worked with since I started on this path. I do get frustrated and sometimes do not like the way children or people act, but it is not the person themself that I do not like, it is their attitude and/or behavior.

Even if I can only make a difference in one person’s life until the day I no longer inhabit Earth, then that is all I need, then it is all I want.

read2mama asked: Do you think that 3 and 4 is too early to be reading? (That's what your most recent post seems to imply).

Personally and from research I have read, regarding most children, yes I believe it is too early. That said I know people who began reading very early. My oldest brother began reading at roughly 19 months and my little sister was reading at a third grade level by the time she was in Kindergarten. My older brother did not read until he was in fourth grade, and I did not start reading till I in second grade and had the help of a reading intervention specialist (by the start of third grade I was reading at a 6th to 8th grade level). All that said, my oldest brother being able to read at 19 months meant he could simply read. Due to “childhood amnesia” and the fact that his brain was not developed enough to actually understand what he was reading and he was not able to encode it into his brain, he simply learned by rote repetition to read which gave him no leg up on anyone in reality.

The push to begin reading and writing as early as possible has been pushed by the middle and lower class to have their children have as much opportunity as possible to get into the best schools and have a chance at success in life. I do not blame these parents for wanting to help their children, however, it undermines what their brains and bodies can handle in most cases and can sometimes actually be bad.

The post was about writing which involves different part of the brain and body to be carried out than reading. Cerebellum to control gross and motor movement of the arm, hand wrist and fingers; the eyes to be used in conjunction with the muscles movement of the arm and hand,the frontal cortex, and many other parts but this is a quick explanation so I’ll leave it at these. If you are pushed to write too early, when your muscles are not developed properly, your muscles may develop poorly (not enough or not strong enough tissue), or the muscles themselves can be strained.

Side note: when children scribble they are actually working on being able to write and read in the future.

Reading, requires eye-hand coordination to be able to track the letters or words, which generally should be started at the same time as writing. Motor movement might be involved if using your finger or a piece of paper to track as tracking with the eyes only is a higher level function that takes time to develop. Obviously many parts of the brain are involved to “translate” the information and so on. Can cause head aches, loss of interest, and other things if the child has trouble or cannot read.

Again, this is my opinion, based on brain research, that reading and writing should generally not be done at such a young age. Now, I am not saying do not read to children because that is not the correct answer. The correct answer is always read to your child from the time they are in your womb until forever. I hope this answered your question.