Author: mrsangielenaece

This is a picture of me and my husband. We met in the military and have been married for going on 16 years come April. This relationship is important to me because he is my life partner. He believes in what I do, cares for me and my children, and has a strong faith. He helps me to process my day by allowing me to come home and “download” the goings on of my day, and me him. He gives me advice and is a sounding board when I am in need of reflection for myself, my classroom, and my goals in life.

Below, from left to right and then bottom, you have my wonderful teammate in my classroom, Karina. our relationship is special because she keeps me sane throughout the school day! I prepare the lesson plan and she makes sure that I have the materials that I need to be successful implementing that plan. She helps me conduct small groups and maintains order while I lead whole group. Karina is that soft voice and comforting hand, which compliments my sometimes militant and straight forward style. The pic on the right was from a community visitor to our classroom from Indy’s professional hockey team. The team was spread throughout our school building, reading Dr. Seuss books during the first week of this month. Having a relationship with the community provides outside resources to strengthen our program, encourage the children and teach the students the value of giving back and being active as an adult in your community. The bottom and last pic is of one of my student’s parents sitting with their child on the bus as we headed to our field trip in February. The relationships with my parents are crucial to their child’s academic and social/emotional success in my room, as well as allowing me the openness with classroom expectations. I also value the parent-teacher relationship because of the resources that they bring into the classroom, be it through donations for the classroom, our class parties, field trips, or a problem solving partner in relations to their child’s success. As often as I can, I try and pass along child development information to them to help with the growing pains of being a parent.

I chose this photo/quote because it reminds me how academics are being pushed downward into years of a child’s exploratory gains, depriving them of experiencing the joy in trial and error, questioning and discovering…having fun.

Thank you to all of my classmates that visited and commented on my blog posts. Your comments were valued and truly appreciated. Be blessed in your continued, individual, academic journeys! 🙂

Personally, I believe that standardized tests should have alternative formats that cater to the varying learning styles of all. Some children/adults are audio learners; some visual; others kinesthetic. There are people that can talk you through a problem but when they find out its a test or they have to perform on paper or computer, they freeze or can’t hold their attention/focus. Just as they make accomodations  for students with special needs, according to our reading, it should be varying abilities, wouldn’t that then include the varying learning styles?

I chose Afghanistan simply because of my military background. Two education systems exist in parallel in Afghanistan. Religious education is the responsibility of clerics at mosques, while the government provides free academic education at state schools. From age 7 to age 13 pupils attend primary schools where they learn the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic and their national culture. In order for them to move on to secondary school after three years of middle school, they have to pass an examination if they wish to continue on.

Retrieved from: http://www.classbase.com/countries/Afghanistan/Education-System

On CNN, May 2016, there was a report regarding a teenage girl being raped by more than 30 men. One of the suspects was here own boyfriend, who allegedly planned the rape. She was drugged, pistol whipped and violated in several ways. National protest took place directly following the video that was taken and posted of the incident. Arrests have been slow because they only had the voices from the video and a couple of IP addresses to go by. Unfortunately, the victim has very little hope that justice will prevail in this matter due to the society being mainly patriarchal.

Funny how some people see the glass as half full (perfect family of a mom, dad, and children by the same partners) while others see the glass as half empty. That half empty glass was my take on our family. My mom and dad have been married now for almost 43 years. I’m the oldest of three and the only girl. My father came from a family of a mom, dad, and 10 siblings; my mother, a mom, dad and 9 siblings. My father is 9 1/2 years older than my mother. They met when he was 25 and she was 16. They had me when he was 27 and she was 19.

My dad was an excellent provider, retired now after working 34 years as a welder. Great pension. My mom was a housewife for a while, taking on night shift jobs here and there between night school. It wasn’t until I was 11 that she began working at the USPS and has since retired.

My dad’s thought, from how he was raised, was that you work hard…and get to play hard. According to my mother, he was a womanizer, a gambler and such, but the two things I knew him as were my daddy (total daddy’s girl) and an alcoholic. He could come home at 5:30am from a nights binge, but would get up on time to be out of the door by 6:30AM sharp, every day for 34 years. My mom, would get the brunt of his consequences; me and my brothers though would have to deal with much more.

During the time of my mother “finding herself”, leaving me and my brothers alone with me being in charge, neighbors kids or cousins taking care of us, I became the victim of a four year molestation by one cousin and a neighbor.

Now that I am older, reborn through Christ, and many sessions of various therapies, I can see the glass half full…because I am in control of my choices and what happens to me.

This week, we are to choose a topic regarding child development and public health. I have chosen to discuss the mental health of the mother/father and how it effects the infant/child. This topic is important to me because when I was a Family Support Worker for Healthy Families, I had several clients that had some mental health concerns. As a home visitor (FSW) I was to go and provide information and activities that encouraged the parent-child interaction and review child development, along with providing community resource information. One very notable difference that was noted was whether the father of the child was involved and present, just involved in the rearing to a degree, or not present nor involved at all. This effected the mother’s state of mind. Then there were other mental health concerns, such as clients that had a confirmed diagnosis if depression, anxiety of even schizophrenia. The mothers were experiencing feelings of inadequacy, hate, anger and resentment, often towards the child, especially of the father was not present. Then if the parents are not following through with the community resources that you connect them with or are not taking their needed medications, the environment can become unsafe for the infant/child. i would pray at times before visiting a home, that they were all okay and willing to open that door one more time, week after week and use the information and activities provided to make a difference in the life of their child.

According to author, Christian Nordqvist, of Medical News Today, South Africa has a high maternal death rate due to “the current lack and oversight and accountability for recurrent problems in the health system and abuses carried out by medical staff that is allowed to continue.” (Aug 8, 2011)

Some of these oversights include, but are not limited to:

women experiencing physical and verbal abuse
women in labor being turned away from the hospital
doctors and nurses soliciting bribes to deliver
mother and newborn not receiving medical care after birth
migrants undergoing C-sections without consent

Retrieved from: http://www.medical newstoday.com “The Shocking Truth About
South Africa”

I had three miscarriages before I was able to have my first live birth. She was 9 lbs and 12oz, born two weeks late, by emergency C-section. Linnell Georgia (named after my maternal and paternal grandmothers) is my Rainbow Baby (child born after a miscarriage) and well worth it. I had her in a military hospital on Fort Sill, OK in Reynolds Army Community Hospital. They tred to induce me for four days, even using seaweed sticks to try and get my cervix to open. Nothing worked. On the fourth day, they broke my water and noticed that Linnell had a bowel movement while inside of me…that’s when everything hit the fan. I ended up staying in the hospital for 9 days, septic. My other two births had to be by C-section because of previous trauma to my cervix, it wouldn’t open for birth. I have for a long time felt cheated and not a “real” woman for not being able to give birth naturally, but am thankful for the three beautiful children I did have. 🙂