Early Childhood Education Course Analysis

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I have come a long way in two weeks since I wrote my first paper for this class. I know that seems like a strange thing to say but it's true. During that time I have caught up on all my reading for the course, watched a large portion of the class I missed last week, and not only thought about the ways that the information in this course has made me look deeper at what I do in education, but also make others question what is going on in their school (I will delve deeper into this later in the paper). In my first paper I looked personally at gender and sexual diversity in my early life, when I taught and coached, and then in my life as a parent. I expressed that I had little experience dealing with different aspects but I always tried to …show more content…

I coached every year that I taught in middle school with the exception of one year and it is something that I can say I honestly miss about teaching. For me it is not a question about if I will go back to coaching at some point, it is more a question about when. With two kids I feel there will be plenty of opportunity for me to be potentially involved in coaching if they get into sports. Before I get into discussing that part, I did want to discuss one section that Bryan (2012) outlined in her book about GSD in Early Childhood and Elementary Education. Bryan talks a lot about communication and how it can be key to helping students who maybe getting mixed signals between home and school. There is a strong need to keep lines of communication open and create partnerships with schools and home even if the teacher believes this could be trouble. “Yet asking parents to be informed and participate in these conversations with their children can only be positive for the learning process, even when kids are hearing different messages at home than the ones at school” (p. 157). The connection I have to this is the story that she uses to articulate this point deals with a girl on the school wrestling team and the disapproval from the parent of one fourth grade student. This story held a lot of meaning for me as I dealt with this in my time coaching wrestling and I had to send home lots of …show more content…

I plan to focus really on my teaching at the collegiate level. I teach a course on video games in America and we look at the historical, cultural, and social impact of video games. One of the social aspects that we discuss is the concept of gender and gender roles in video games. I actually discuss the concept of a gamer girl versus a girl gamer and see what kind of discussion we get out of this. I spend time reviewing information from the Feminist Frequency, a feminist blog that has really put out a lot of videos and articles about gender roles in video games as well as looking at the Gamergate controversy. This controversy dealt with the issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture as well as the harassment of journalist (especially female journalists) in the video game industry. Bryan states: “To deeply question heteronormative standards may lead right into the fray of conflicting cultural norms and values. For example, if upholding traditional gender roles is viewed as unquestioned in a particular ethnic group, the classroom teacher who supports a more expansive interpretation of gender roles and expression may be seen as disrespecting one set of cultural beliefs while acknowledging another” (pp.

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