Gender, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

Children’s books, movies, toys, stores, schools and the culture of early childhood centers are largely heterosexual.  In books and in movies the parents are almost always a man and a woman.  Girls are the princesses and boys dress only in clothes that would be considered boy clothes.  If you viewed most children’s books, movies, toys and schools you would believe a relationship should be between a girl and boy.   You would think girls like pink, purple, dolls, and Barbie’s.  You would think boys like guns, superheroes, trucks and dinosaurs.  In reality my daughter’s favorite color is blue and the child in my preschool who loves dinosaurs the most in a wonderful little girl.  In stores the toys are usually separated into boys toys and girls toys by having a boy isle and a girl isle.  When my daughter was two years old she wanted Spiderman underwear because her brother l oved Spiderman and so did she.  I ended up having to buy her boy’s underwear because they did not have Spiderman underwear for girls.  My daughter now wants superhero underwear and I am afraid I will probably have to do the same thing.  She of course also loves to wear her Frozen underwear!    

I believe it can be very difficult to address gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues in an early childhood center.  I know I currently have parents in my preschool that would adamantly refuse to have books in the preschool that depict gay or lesbian individuals or families.  These are strong Christian families and it would be difficult for me to go against what they believe.  I currently have a student who comes from a strong Christian home and this student has said before during play or conversations with students that God does not say it is ok for boys to marry boys or girls to marry girls.  I do not feel I have the right to challenge the religious beliefs his family has taught him.  On the other hand if I had a student that came from a family who had parents that were gay or lesbian I definitely would do all I could to make that child feel welcome. 

A few years ago I actually had two sisters that were one year apart.  When the older sister was in my preschool the mother was pregnant and in a relationship with the father.  When the younger sister was in my preschool the mother was in a relationship with another woman.  The child referred to her mother as her mom and to her mother’s partner as her dad.  I believe the child was very comfortable with the situation and comfortable in our classroom regarding the situation.  Even thought this was the life this little girl lived I believe she felt accepted in my classroom without me having to educate the other children about the issue of gay or lesbians.  Both of these girls still come back to my classroom regularly at the end of the school day to give me hugs goodbye! 

This is one subject I have a difficult time believing it is my right to educate my preschoolers on.  All families believe differently and have different expectations on what they want their children to know about this subject and it is difficult to know what is acceptable to teach.  I definitely would not shy away from the subject if there was a situation concerning this issue in my classroom but I also do not specifically teach about this issue.  In my preschool we currently have no books depicting gay or lesbian individuals or families and if I did have any of these books I believe it would definitely create a problem from many parents.   

Blog Assignment 6

The team I participated on that was hardest to leave was my basketball team I played on in high school.  In seventh grade my family and I moved to a town of about 10,000 people.  From that time I started playing basketball with a group of girls.  We continued to play together until we graduated high school.  We did not win any championships or anything but I spent a lot of time with this group of girls.  We spent many hours working together on our basketball skills at practice and a variety of camps.  We also spent many hours together outside of basketball.  We had the opportunity to travel together and form strong relationships with each other.  We watched each other grow up and mature throughout the years.  I felt many emotions when the basketball season was over my senior year.  A part of me was excited for the new advantages that were ahead for me but I was also sad because I was not going to have these same experiences with these same people ever again.  I guess graduation was the closing ritual for this group of girls but it would have been fun to take a trip together before we all went our separate ways. Now with Facebook I am able to stay in touch with many of these ladies and I enjoy seeing their families and what they have done with their lives. 

I believe the hardest groups to leave are the ones where you have made close relationships with the group members, you have worked hard together to meet accomplishments and you have been a part of the team or group for a long time.  I imagine I will adjourn from the group of colleagues here at Walden by posting thank you and well wishes on their individual blogs.  I believe adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork because it brings closer to the process and experience.  It allows people to acknowledge their group accomplishments and look forward to what is in store for each person in the future.

                         

Blog Assignment Week 5

           In my second year of teaching preschool I had a young boy in my class that had never had any type of structure in his life.  After being in preschool for a week or so he started acting out.  He started by refusing to follow our classroom rules and routines.  When he did not want to do something he would hide under the table, try and leave the classroom, scream and yell or throw different objects in the classroom.  I talked to his mother about his behavior and I started trying different strategies to help him in the classroom.  His mother was very young and in denial of her son’s behavior.  One day she would come to school and talk about how he does this same behavior at home and the next day his behavior in the classroom would be my entire fault. 

Finally, one day she came to pick him up and he was hiding under the table.  We were talking about how he did that day at school and all of a sudden she lost it.  She said she wanted to speak to my supervisor.  I said ok I would go get my principal and she started saying no I know there is someone higher then her and I want to talk to that person.  I said I had no idea who that would be and I went and got my principal.  When my principal came in the mother started telling her how it was not ok all of the problems he was having at school and if we couldn’t figure it out she would pull him out of our school.  At that time I was extremely pregnant, very emotional and frankly when she said that I thought to myself oh please do!  I know this wasn’t the right attitude but I also knew she wasn’t going to take him out of our school.  Right away my principal used a very calm voice, acknowledged the mother’s concerns and started asking the mother questions.  First she asked, “What do you do when your son displays this behavior at home?”  The mother went on to answer my principal’s questions.  By the time the mother left that day she was calm and more willing to work with us to help her son.  A few months later this mother actually came up to me after school one day and thanked me for all I was doing for her son.  She said she had noticed a big change at home in his behavior since he had been learning in school. 

When I look back at this situation I see that my principal did a good job staying calm and using probing to get answers from the mom.  This calmed the mom down and helped her look at both sides of the situation.  I also know I could have shown more compassion for this mother.  From the beginning she was not very nice to me and I did let her attitude towards me affect my feelings towards her.  I needed to make sure I was using more compassion in my communication with this mother.  In the end things worked out well but I did learn a lot from that interaction.  I do have and show more compassion for parents who have a child who is struggling with their behavior and I also ask the parents more questions.  I believe by asking the parents questions it makes them feel much more involved in helping their child in and outside of the classroom.  Has anyone else had a parent get upset with you for his or her child’s inappropriate behavior?  If so, how did you handle the situation?

Blog Assignment Week 4

I chose my husband, Danny, and my preschool assistant, Marilyn, to take the three tests this week.  The communication anxiety inventory was the test where our scores differed the most.  I scored in the moderate level, Danny scored me in the elevated level and Marilyn scored me in the low level.  I found these results very interesting because I believe your answers to the questions really depend on what situations you see me interact in.  I know I am not very comfortable in public speaking situations but I also feel that I do a pretty good job in these situations if I am knowledgeable about the information I am presenting.  Marilyn sees me often interact with parents and feels that in those interactions I seem confident and comfortable in my communication with them.  I would agree that usually this is comfortable for me because we are discussing information I feel knowledgeable in. 

            Danny knows me better outside of the working environment and sees my communication anxiety when it comes to talking to people I do not know or about information I am not as confident in knowing.  Danny is also the one I talk to when I know I am going to have to give a group presentation.  He then gets to hear about my discomfort of talking in front of groups. 

            In regards to the verbal aggressiveness scale Marilyn and I scored in the moderate level and Danny scored me in the significant level.  These results did not surprise me because I feel in my professional life I do a better job of maintaining a good balance between respect and consideration for others’ viewpoints.  At home I am sure there are times when Danny does not believe I do a good job of respecting and considering others’ viewpoints. 

            This week I found it interesting how your self-concept shapes your communication with others.  Your self-concept “can shape what you think of other people because your perception of others is related to how you view yourself” (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012, p. 47).  I believe all of our personalities played a role in the scores.

             

Reference

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Blog Week 3

Throughout the years I know I have found myself communicating differently with people from different groups and cultures.  “When we communicate with people who have different cultural backgrounds than our own, we tend to share less information with them than we do with people who share our cultural heritage” (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011, p. 97).  I know there have been times when I haven’t communicated as much with a parent because of a language barrier or cultural differences.  There are parents that I make stronger connections with each school year and some of it probably has to do with the similarities in our cultures. 

  

One strategy I could use to help communicate with people from different cultures is to ask questions and listen effectively.  I know that when I ask questions I do learn more about a person and their culture.  I did this last year with a parent from Honduras and it was interesting to learn about her and her life in Honduras.  I need to remember to do this with all of my parents not just the ones from a different country.  Most importantly I need to make sure I am listening effectively when we are communicating.

A second strategy I could use to help communicate with people from different cultures is to avoid negative judgments.  I believe this is true no matter who you are communicating with.  You are going to be a more productive, happy person if you avoid negative judgments and more people are going to want to communicate with you.

A third strategy I could use to help communicate with people from different cultures is to become more other-oriented.  I would like to say I always think of others before myself but that is not true.  Being other-oriented can help you be a better communicator but also just a better person.

Reference

Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2011). Interpersonal communication: Relating to others (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Blog Week 2

I chose to watch “Parenthood.”  I have heard people talk about watching this show but I personally have never watched this show.  I started watching the episode with no sound and it was difficult for me to figure out what was going on.  I could mostly tell if people were family members and watching their facial expressions gave me ideas about how they were feeling.  Watching the body language was helpful to see if they liked the people they were around or to see if they were upset with someone. 

I watched about half of the episode and then I decided to watch it again with the sound on.  I found out that some of the ways that I thought people were feeling was correct but then other times I was not correct.  When I watched with the sound off I thought Max was upset with his dad and did not want him to talk to the person on the phone.  When I watched with the sound on I found out that Max was super excited about getting the job of photographer at his uncle’s wedding and he wanted to tell his dad about it.  Even thought I could get a pretty good idea about what how a person was feeling when I watched the show with no sound it was much more enjoyable to watch with sound.  I definitely had a better understanding of what was happening in the show when the sound was on.  I also found myself getting more emotional about certain parts when the sound was on. 

I believe if this show had been a show I was familiar with it would have been easier to understand what was going on even when there was no sound.  For example, had this show been “Friends” I probably could have understood it pretty well even with the sound off.

One thing that was eye opening for me was once I begin to understand a little bit of the story of the show it was easier to understand what was going on even when there was no verbal communication.  There was a wedding part and a part at the end of the show that just played music while everyone continued acting.  It was easy for me to understand what was going on during this time once I had a little bit of an understanding of what was happening in the show.

Blog Assignment Week 1

The person I chose to write about is actually my husband.  My husband’s name is Danny and he is a division chief for our local fire department.  One of the most important components of his job is having good communication skills.  He spends a lot of his time communicating in person, over the phone, through emails and through text messages.  He is an effective communicator because he is very knowledge about the issues he is discussing and he is also a good listener.  He listens, processes his thoughts and then expresses what he is thinking.  When he is talking to you in person he has good eye contact, a positive attitude and is approachable.  He is great on picking up how a person is really feeling.  There have been times when our nanny has come over in the morning and Danny can tell right away if something is wrong.  Danny will ask her about it and usually there is something going on at home or with someone she knows that she would like to talk about. 

I hope I do model a positive attitude and that I am approachable like my husband.  I would like to become a better listener because there are times where people will be talking to me but I am totally thinking about something else.   I would also like to learn to be a better communicator when it comes to using technology.  Sometimes I worry that my email or text message might not be sending the right message or have the right tone that I am trying to portray.