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ADVOCACY
SOCIALEMOTIONALDEVELOPMENT
BY
MARIAIVEZAJ
ProfessorTiffanyOfeimu
ECE1515
11/30/16
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL 2
Introduction
The National Association for the Education of Young Children has outlined ten standards
that any early childhood program is required to meet as a way of helping families to make
decisions pertaining to which preschool, kindergarten, or childcare center their children should
join. These standards guide the NAEYC accreditation system for early child hood programs and
it requires programs to meet all the standards to earn accreditation. More specifically, NAEYC 2
dictates that an education program should implement a curriculum that promotes learning and
social, emotional, physical, cognitive, and language development. The benefit of a well-written
or planned curriculum is that it acts as a guide for administrators and teachers and it helps them
to collaborate and use different approaches and activities to maximize a childs learning and
development. The curriculum should outline activities linked to goals for the learning content,
material to be used in the learning process and daily schedules and routines (Chandler, Lynette,
et al, p 52-63). However, NAEYC does not narrow down to which specific curriculums that a
program must adopt. The education program has the responsibility of designing a unique
curriculum or adopts a commercial available curriculum that meets all the ten NAEYC standards.
Education Systems
The NAEYC expects that childhood care providers provide multicultural and diverse
experiences in learning and development of children. However, these children have been raised
in families and communities and their parents choose to take them to early childhood centers and
childcare homes that are similar to the childs background. Parents have a tendency to choose
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early education programs that match their personal views of discipline and education. They
prefer their children to learn in an environment where education providers share the same
language or religion.
language, ethnicity, and socio economic status. Challenges arise when traditional early childhood
education systems are expected to offer the children with learning and development experiences
outside their race as well as teach them to be respectful and accepting of racial, religious, and
economic differences. The early childhood education system is also faced with inappropriate
approaches that have created bias, inequality and past injustices (Brink, Sonja, pp 1-5). As much
as the socio political constructs are beyond the control of young children, children are unable to
cope in the unfair education system, which consequently increases the rates of dropouts and
juvenile delinquency.
There are many important stakeholders in the early childhood education namely teachers,
policy makers, parents and the children. Early childhood teachers are often under-paid, under
resourced and most people do not give them the recognition they deserve. Early childhood
educators develop schedules and enforce routines that foster learning, allow time for
unstructured outside play and rest. Preschool teachers ensures that the childs environment is safe
using encouraging words that boosts confidence and ensure that equipment and toys used to learn
do not pose a threat to the children. A preschool teacher also provides age appropriate discipline
and supervision, plans, and implements play experiences and lessons, observe and communicate
behavior to parents, and address any cultural or special needs (Haskins, Ron, pp 1-3). For
example, if a child belongs to a culture that does not allow him to celebrate a holiday, the teacher
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must respect the childs background and make an alternative play or learning activity for the
child.
Parents have an important role to play in early childhood education. Parents should be
more involved in their childrens learning because it helps to extend teaching beyond the
confines of the classroom. Parent engagement creates a more positive experience for children,
helps a parent to gain a sense of childs competency and weaknesses (Brink, Sonja, pp 6-8). The
parent is then able to extend the structured and play experiences of child to real world activities
that occur at home with the aim of improving a childs ability and confidence.
Policy makers are very significant stakeholders in early childhood education because they
have the power to influence how other stakeholders interact. Therefore, before a policy maker
transformations in the society and families with young children. There has been an increase in
the amount of effort and time put in by parents at work, which has resulted in children getting
into the childcare system from a very tender age. Despite the strong economy, economic
hardships prevail as well as other factors such as social and financial disparities, which affect the
choice of early education programs and schools. Policy makers have the responsibility of putting
into consideration transformations in the society when developing policies aimed at improving
parent engagement, developing holistic curriculums and increasing resources to fund learning
Literature Review
Americas commitment to core family values of primacy and privacy has contributed to
the problem of inequity of opportunity and outcome. Normally, inequity is linked to a childs
socio-economic status, home language, or race. These factors contribute to restriction of access
to ECD services, quality of services, quality and competency of the educators, the nature and
instructions, and quality and thoroughness of expectations. These inequalities also begin before
the school starting age. Studies by child psychologists reveal that a childs home environment
influences a childs development and her readiness for school, which creates disparities that
families that receive welfare have half the vocabulary that their peers from rich families. The
difference in the vocabulary growth among the three year olds is accounted for the quantity and
quality of vocabulary used by their parents (Haskins, Ron, pp 3-5). Most associations between
poor academic performance and low economic status are explained by the poor quality of home
learning environments. Low socio economic status affects achievement and ability measures but
not behavioral, physical and mental health measures. Once the children enter school, those from
poor families display substantial gaps in academic and cognitive competencies compared to their
advantaged peers. Socio economic status of families account for more variations in cognitive
skills compared to other factors such as ethnicity, access to childcare, home reading and
television habits.
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Social economic factors are largely intertwined with ethnicity where Hispanic and
African American children perform lower than their Caucasian counterparts are. The average
math achievement is 21% and 19% lower for African American and Hispanic than white
children. Most of the achievement gap was observed between children of color and whites began
at entry level into kindergarten (Haskins, Ron, pp 5-8). The data is an indication that children
from low-income families fall behind in their performance at school from a very early age.
American early childhood education is funded from state contributions, federal programs,
corporate sponsorships, and parental fees. Federal support for early care an education emanates
from other organizations such as Child Care and Development Fund, Temporary Assistance to
Needy Families, and No Child Left Behind initiative. The latter supports education for special
needs students at each level of education. In theory, federal funding is driven and dispersed
according to the greatest need. However, there are major discrepancies when it comes to how
much money is allocated to early childhood education. For example, Head Start Bureau allocate
$9,016 per child to Washington while Oklahoma got $5,809. Variations in state is attributed to
the fact that the grant is a fraction of the state median income which varies from state to state.
Therefore, poor families in poor states are less likely to receive childcare subsidies unlike poor
families living in wealthy states. A lot of discretion has been left to states when it comes to
controlling federal funds, which has created major discrepancies for TANF, NCLB, and special
investments. Texas spends $478 million, New York spends $246 million while states such as
South Dakota and Utah do not have state funded kindergarten plans (Coltrane, Scott, and
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investments because most of these funds are vulnerable to funding cuts. Funding cuts indicate
guarantee for early childhood programs. These inconsistencies cause problems for policy makers
and implementers because limited funds force them to turn full time teaching to half time jobs at
minimum wage. A reduction in funding has increased child teacher ratio, forced elimination of
school trips, limitation of the arts curriculum as well as purchase of fewer learning materials and
children education have compromised the quality that the children receive.
The equity challenge has prevailed in early childhood education because of problematic
infrastructure that supports ECD. Policy makers are more willing to support direct services to
children with more gains because they are visible to the public. However, policy makers remain
reluctant to support the ECD infrastructure. They give more attention to funding and less to
matters of governance, regulation, and accountability, which leaves ECD programs with limited
support. ECDE lacks local or state boards to support and govern programs, lacks consistency in
teacher certificate requirements, lacks a comprehensive accountability system, and even a quasi-
mechanism that facilitates consistent and durable funding to ECD schools (pp 427). Lack of
attention to the ECD infrastructure jeopardizes the equality and quality of the education
programs.
However, there is need to create long-term visions to maximize the efficiency of public and
parental resources as the ECD expand. Governance entities from different regions should
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develop approaches such as establishment of a state level board of ECE that corresponds to the
state education board. States should establish private and public partnerships to handle education
program coordination. These governance entities vary considerably across states and they vary in
Regulation is a process where a nation assures its citizens a minimum standard of quality
in childcare centers. Enforcement of childcare regulations is important because they are directly
linked guidelines to program quality, which is linked to child outcomes (pp 429-432). States
refuses to make the regulations stricter in cases where they exist. In fact, some states have
exemptions provisions for early childhood education systems and special education settings.
Other states allow exemption of programs from licensure if they operate half day, which
excludes most ECDE programs. States differ in how they enforce and monitor regulations where
most states enforce regulations intermittently because of shortage of staff. Most of the
monitoring staff have limited training on their role. Regulation affects quality of ECDE programs
because the irregular coverage, inconsistent monitoring, and enforcement create equity and
Policy makers want to be certain that their investments pay off in terms of childrens
readiness and learning outcomes given the fact that so much ECDE funding comes from the
states. Therefore, accountability has become a new requirement for ECDE through early learning
standards. However, early learning standards vary from state to state where some states place
emphasis on language and cognition while others focus on holistic sectors such as physical and
socio-emotional development. Differences of the state standards reflect the different expectation
for children, which creates a challenge to promoting equity. An accountability system should also
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL 9
collect relevant data and use it in the decision making process (pp 435-37). If used efficiently, the
accountability system promotes more outcomes that are positive for preschool children and
differences in state assessments and expectations only exacerbate inequities depending on the
Plan of Action
children and teachers in the classroom wearing costumes or enacting cultural experiences. Policy
makers should recognize that multicultural education helps to reduce the impact of racial and
continuous approach to working with teachers, parents and children that helps children to learn
about their background and those of children who are different from them. Multicultural
education allows children to view the education center as a representation of their families and
communities. The most important factor in diversity learning is constant exposure to experiences
and activities that destroys stereotypes, helps the children to enjoy differences, build tolerance
and acceptance, and create many methods to complete a task or solve a problem.
Policy makers should allow educators to design education activities that includes the
community and allows the children to be involved in the community (Murray, PP 89-103). This
helps to identify and develop their identities in a diverse and tolerant community.
Policy makers and curriculum designers have a limitation in funding and are likely to
revert to learning experiences that require limited resources. For example, teachers should be
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL 10
allowed to include walks in the community as part of the curriculum where children collect
natural objects, observe traffic signs and names of buildings, and create art work inspired by the
community. The school should equip the teacher with a camera that can be instrumental in taking
photos, which are later to be developed to create articles and pictures in the parents newsletter
The school should organize an annual career day where the parents speak about their
professions to the children. Alternatively, the policy makers fund the school to facilitate a
visit to the parents places of work. Such programs expand a childs view of the community
while at the same time create a sense of belonging and pride when they talk about their
parents professions. When children visit their parents places of work, they develop a
community map of work locations. Students can later make presentations on what they aspire
to become in the future which creates a sense of purpose in their learning process.
The teacher should plan and receive resources from policy makers and school
administration to familiarize the students with community resources such as parks, farms,
zoos and museums to expand the childrens world at their different developmental levels. The
school should plan at least one field visit that complements a curriculum unit every month.
For example, if a curriculum is titled caring for the environment, the teacher and school
administrators should organize a field trip to a park where the children learn about the
different species of plants and animals. Field trips create concrete and meaningful
experiences, knowledge, and skills in young learners. After the field trips, there should be
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL 11
open discussions about what the children learned as well as visual tests where they match
The school administration and preschool teachers should develop collective responsibility
plans once per term where the children participate in activities such as picking trash and
planting flowers. To reward all the students, they should host events that provide collective
achievements the student have done as a whole. This does not single a child out or reward
Conclusion
Given the uncertainty in policy making and funding, it is important that the school
administration and policy makers develop early childhood education programs that are
inexpensive (Brink, Sonja, pp 8-11). However, these programs should not compromise the
quality of education but instead improve learning experiences of the young learners as well as
make them feel good about themselves and help them embrace their differences. Learning
experiences should challenge stereotypical thinking and they should be implemented within the
References
(2016): 1-11.
Chandler, Lynette K., et al. "The alignment of CEC/DEC and NAEYC personnel preparation
Coltrane, Scott, and Andrew Behnke. "Fatherhood and family policies." Handbook of father
Haskins, Ron. "American policy on early childhood education & development: Many programs,
great hopes, modest impacts." Behavioral Science & Policy 2.1 (2016): 1-8.
Murray, Jaclyn. "Learning to live together: an exploration and analysis of managing cultural