My Supports

When I think of support I think about someone or a group of people who stands behind you in a form of help and encouragement. When I think about the people who supports me in my daily life I have to say that my entire family play a major role. First my mother is there to support me spiritually, emotionally and physically. She helps me to make positive decisions in life that will allow me to prosper in life as an individual. My sister is a supportive person. She is always there to uplift and encourage others in a time of need. When I recently begin to suffer an illness she was there to comfort me and encourage me. She ensured me that I was no different than anyone else and that if physical change begins to appear I was still the same on the inside. My church supports me spiritually. I have gained so much from going to church and being encouraged by so many people. The church is an essential support in my daily life.

"MY CONNECTIONS TO PLAY"

Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.

-Kay Redfield Jamison

“The ability to play is one of the principal criteria of mental health.”

As a child I can remember how my parents encouraged us to play all the time. “Go outside and play” my mother would say to us. Getting together with the neighbors and riding up and down the neighborhood on our bikes and playing throw back football with the boys was the best time of my life. I don’t recall it being girl games and boy games. We would all play together and have a great time. I can say that playing with the kids in my neighborhood built great social skills for me as an adult. Playing is an essential part of life. Children learn with and from one another in a caring community, and that’s true of moral as well as academic learning. Interdependence counts at least as much as independence, so it follows that practices that pit students against one another in some kind of competition, thereby undermining a feeling of community, are deliberately avoided.(Kohn) The child’s love of learning is intimately linked with a zest for play. Whether children are working on new physical skills, social relations, or cognitive content, they approach life with a playful spirit.(Almon)

Relationship Reflection

The very first relationship one encounters is with a parent we look for our parents to be there for us to nurture and love us. We learn morals and values from our parents. My mother is still a positive factor in my life. She has taught me to be a positive role model to others. She would not allow me to hang out with friends of my choice. If she did not approve of them then I was not allowed to hang out with them. I come from large family. I enjoy the relationship that my family and I share. We have family cookouts every weekend. This is our way of staying connected with one another. My grandmother has a strong relationship with each of us. She knows when something is bothering us and has taught us to depend on each other for advice and support. Having a strong relationship with my family gives me a sense of security. I know that I can go to my family for support. I have no children of my own, but I have developed a special bond with young girl. Kimora is a five year old who I have known since she was born. We have a special bond with each other. I have had the opportunity to be in her life as a mother. She depends on me to be there for her emotionally and physically. A relationship ensures that you will have someone to comfort and care about you during times of discouragement or frustration and vice versa. Relationships teach you to have faith in others as well as faith in yourself. Here is a list of some benefits of having healthy relationships and characteristics associated with them:

• Increased self-esteem

• Increased sensitivity to one’s own and other’s emotions/feelings

• Increased ability to be more assertive

• Learn to be more cooperative with others

• Learn to be interdependent rather than totally independent or dependent

of others

Building a healthy relationship with others helps to develop a censure and kind individual.

Assessing Students

In the past the initial purpose of intelligence testing was to separate the high ability students from the lower ability. This was a was that educators could determine who receives high quality education Educators believed that students who scored high on the intelligence test had higher levels of thinking than those who scored at the lower levels. I believe that isolating high achieving students and low achieving students would develop unintended social roles in low achieving students. Is it really fair that students identified as having low ability are not given the opportunities of high quality education? Because of differences in learning materials students identified as low achievers will continue to perform poorly in school and students identified as high achievers will continue to succeed. The people who do poorly on IQ test may not always be the ones who need the help. The students that are improperly identified by the IQ test for the need of remedial help will likely fall behind peers as a result of the special education services. As a result students can never catch up to their peers and their lives would never be what it could have been. I found it impossible for a 30 minute test to determine the direction of a student’s life. Students that are improperly labeled as poor achievers by intelligence test become unmotivated to learn and act out in delinquent ways. I think that there are important long term consequences to such testing and that more research should be done before any decisions of value can be implemented.

Immunizations

Public Health refers to the welness on an entire populaion. Measles, whooping cough, pneumonia and other illnesses were once familiar chilhood killers. Children are now protected by immunizations which primes the body's immune system to resist a specific contagious disease. Immuizatons protects children not only from diseases but also from serious complicaions including deafness, blindness, sterility and meningitis. Each vacinated child stops the spead of the disease and helps protects others. Parents dont always make sure their children get vacciated on the recommended schedule.(Berger 2009)

In Japan it is recommended that in the first year you recieve six injections and only three more in the second year. While in the US it is recommended that you recieve 13 to 15 shots in the first year. Infants may recieve the third Hep B and the third IPV shot in the first year. Seven more shots are required in the second year. I strongly support the importance of immunizations. Its very essential to a childs health that they recieve proper immunizations on time.

References:
Berger, K. (2009). The developing person through childhood (5th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Retrieved September 20,2011