Educator’s Portfolio, Essay Example

Narrative

This particular child has expressed positive emotions throughout the year, especially when he is drawing and talking about the members of his family.  Expressing and sharing positive emotions is great for children, especially within education because the child opens his minds to innovative ideas from his educators.  Nevertheless, the positive emotion this child displays is based on particular activities that are done during class discussions.  In essence, this student isn’t always as positive as he should during all activities and lessons during the class.  For example, when he tries to demonstrate his motor skills with children, he immediately demonstrates negative and unenthusiastic behavior.  This is mainly because he is learning something that he isn’t great at; therefore he gives up before he starts.

However, it is extremely significant to focus his negativity on practicing and not giving up when he doesn’t accomplish an obstacle faster than the other children.  This is mainly because early childhood education can build and develop the child’s attitude and approach, regarding learning activities, for his future education.  Therefore, if he begins to display a negative attitude when he is unsure how to successfully complete a lesson, then he will continue this negative approach for years to come.

In one study, children whose preschools and parents provided them with child focused, developmentally appropriate experiences had more positive attitudes toward school at the end of kindergarten than children whose  families and preschools were more adult-directed and, at times pressured. Early childhood programs can build long-term dispositions to engage in challenging learning activities, to derive pleasure from mastering intellectual tasks, and to share knowledge and skill with others (Hyson 2005).

In essence, it is essential for educators to construct children that express any sense of negative emotions during learning exercises and activities because they will be able to control their negative attitude.  As an educator, it is significant to seek out learning activities and exercises that stimulate each child’s interest and demonstrates their mastery within the classroom.  However, it evident to see that this particular child becomes exciting with the work that is demonstrated through this portfolio, which is creative exercises.  As an educator, I am confident that, “as children develop, most of them will broaden their interests and extend them into areas that are important for later academic success ad full personal development (Hyson 2005).”  Therefore, I believe that his interests and positive emotions will begin to shift when he overcomes the obstacles that he is striving to prevail over.

Parent and/or Guardian Discussion

It is important to explain to his parents that education takes time, and though he excels in some learning activities, his negative attitude for the other activities doesn’t demonstrate long-term interest in education.  Therefore, it is significant to the parents and/or guardian to understand that practicing with their child after he has returned home from school is significantly important.  This is due to the fact that this child seeks approval from every individual around him, so he needs to understand that it isn’t a negative thing to fail or to struggle.  However, once he practices he can overcome any obstacles he is facing with time and effort.  This child has shown growth throughout the year, especially in projects that are creative based.  However, the child is having difficult with reading and writing, and is learning on a slower level than other kids within the class.  Overall, the child needs to work on more reading and writing activities in order to understand the how to correctly communicate.  This child, however, is extremely outgoing and cheerful to his classmates and others within the class.  He demonstrates blissful emotions when working on arts and crafts activities, as well as socializing with his fellow peers.

Social/Behavioral

This child has learned to socialize with every single peer within the classroom and has changed his shy personality to extremely outgoing.  Although, at times he can communicate a significant amount during classroom lectures, he will quickly learn to control his socializing once told.  During the beginning of the school year, this child was extremely shy and nervous to talk to other students.  However, he has become the student that communicates with every peer throughout class.

This child behaves well, however since he communicates with the students a lot he sometimes loses his focus on socializing.  Nevertheless, once told to settle down, he immediately returns to focusing on the objective of the day.

Communication

This student communicates above average.  He picks up words very fast and learns how to use these words in sentences faster than other students.  Also, he will use these words learned during class throughout time.  For example, during the third week we learned the definition of “comfort” in a book that we read called Ramona Forever.  However, during the eighth week of school, he surprised me with using the definition in a new lesson to describe his feelings about his home environment.

Motor Skills

This student has average motor skills, and in some areas displays above average motor skills.  With his gross motor skills, he experiences a phenomenal response to active movements, such as running, climbing, jumping, etc.  At times, he may display his gross motor skills too much throughout the classroom, instead of other playing areas.   Moving displays are inherently fascinating to children, especially this student in particular.  Every Thursday, the classroom and classroom 204 performs skits demonstrating the activities we have learned throughout the weekly assignments.  On this day, this student is always active and prepared to present dynamic and hyper skits for the other class to see.  Though, this could be because of his strong communication skills he demonstrates as well.  Nevertheless, he is always active and ready to demonstrate and active assistance for the weekly skits.  However, he is sometimes too active and hyper which can encourage him to be more adventurous than other students.  In essence, he develops active movements when the classroom is already settled down and ready to begin learning.  This displays a sense of struggle for myself, as an educator, because when it’s time to teach a lesson, he is too hyper to learn and becomes less interested.

His fine motor skills that he displays are lower than average.  At times he doesn’t like to move his fingers and hands in particular situations.  Majority of the students will practice tying their shoelaces and will grow a high interest and focus on learning how to tie them.  However, he becomes extremely frustrated and will give up faster than other students in the class.

Just as positive emotions support learning, negative emotions can interfere  with and even permanently disrupt normal intellectual development.  Children who seldom experience feelings of interest may fail to develop essential competencies because they lack the emotional foundations of exploration and practice.  Children who must complete academic tasks  because of fear of punishment or fear of failure may complete the tasks because they want to avoid embarrassment or punishment.  However, they  are likely to avoid similar tasks in the future, or they may go through the motions of completing the tasks while avoiding genuine engagement (Hyson 2005)

Also, it seems that he has trouble with his juice box during the day.  For example, when it is time for snack time, he will not open his juice box.  Instead he gives the juice box to another student or myself to open.  Therefore, I think he needs to work on his muscular control and his patience level because I don’t think they have fully developed.

Student’s Progress

Overall, the student is experiencing and adjusting well with particular areas throughout the classroom learning.  However, he needs to work on his muscular control, as well as his patience on particular things.  Also, his socializing level is much higher than other students, which sometimes can lose focus.  When he is reading or writing, he tries to rush through the process, which causes him to make mistakes that are overlooked.  I personally think all of this is based upon his patience level.  If he is learning something that he is afraid or worried about learning he tries to socialize over it, therefore he wont have to focus on the task at hand.  However, he needs to learn to balance work and socializing, as well as being patient in learning and not giving up.

We know from experience that feelings of anxiety limit our ability to focus attention and recall information.  The level of cognitive development that children attain is partly influenced by the sheer amount of time they are able to devote to what is called “epistemic activities”—exploration, imitation, and problem solving. Negative emotions such as anxiety may sharply reduce children’s investment in these kinds of intelligence-building activities (Hyson 2005.

The child’s parents should acknowledge his impatient characteristics and try to help him with his fine motor skills.  It is important to tell the parents that he is trying to socialize and communicate with other students rather than focus on practicing his fine motor skills.  The child’s parents should practice with him on tying his shoelaces, and maybe he won’t convey a discouraged attitude when the children in his class are practicing as well.  It seems as if the child doesn’t want to fail and is scared to let others down.  However, his parents should explain to him that practice makes perfect.  Also, with them telling him this, they should practice the objectives that are learned in class with him on a daily basis.

Works Cited

Hyson, Marilou. (2005).   The emotional Development of Young Children: Building an Emotion-Centered Curriculum. Teachers College Press: New York.