Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

            My ideal research would be to conduct research on improving the school experience for African American boys.  It would be action research provided in a culturally responsive classroom that would address different learning styles, the home environment, and teaching teachers to be culturally sensitive to the needs of African American boys.  This is essential because African American males are being lost at alarming rates because of high suspension rates beginning at the preschool age and being subjected to negative stereotypes by school personnel and society.

            By conducting this much needed research I would be able to demonstrate the best practices for successfully educating young African American boys.  Hopefully I would create a paradigm shift that would change the way that educators treat African American boys and this would stop the preschool to prison pipeline.  I envision one day that more of these boys would be academically equipped to attend college and be successful contributors to society.  When children are surrounded in a culturally responsive environment where they see positive images of themselves and have teachers that care and hold high expectations, then failure is not an option!

The Research Process

My experience so far with the research process has been a bit challenging because there are many steps to creating a research plan.  The planning chart has been helpful in dissecting the different components of the research process and understanding what each step entails.  There is very little difference between African American children and Caucasian children at birth, but something happens in early childhood that causes African American children to fall behind academically between the ages of two and five.  It is my goal in life to increase the academic achievement of minority children using effective strategies.  So I must first construct a list of questions to research on this matter for instance:

1.     How do young children learn?

2.     How does poverty affect learning?

3.     How to increase literacy skills in minority children?

4.     How does culturally responsive teaching affect minority children?

This topic is of interest to me because I have experience in teaching in urban school settings and I am very concerned about the academic learning gap.  I have also witnessed very young African American boys being putting out of classrooms at the early age of three because of behavior.  These boys are feeling isolated at such a young age and this does not help them to like school or want to achieve, so I feel that the curriculum needs to be changed to be culturally responsive.  I am still trying to formulate a research question that will capture my concerns.

 

The Research Process



International Early Childhood Field

Three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field are being able to compare and contrast educational systems, discovering the economic plight of poor children globally, and increasing awareness of what immigrant families have experienced before coming to the US.   I have learned a wealth of information from the UNESCO (United Nations educational, Scientific, and cultural organization) website because they focus on providing quality early childhood programs and this has inspired me to take a critical eye when observing early childhood programs and policies.  The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) website provided a lot of information about how poor families struggle to survive in this country because of the lack of quality health care, housing, and quality education.  Not only did the CDF supply highly informative articles about the inequities of poor Black children and families but there was glaring statistical information to support the devastating stories.

All of this new information has impacted me greatly personally and professionally because I now have a better understanding of how the early childhood field is interconnected globally and I would like to create an international collaboration network to exchange ideas with other professionals in the field.  I have enjoyed learning from my classmates and imparting valuable information.  We can all learn from each other because the teaching career in the past was an isolating profession when teachers would just stay in the classroom and not communicate with other teachers to exchange information.  I am so much stronger and confident because of this learning experience and I plan to take this valuable information to the classroom and beyond.