Create a new life!

 I can't believe this is my last blog post for this tutorial. Wow, I actually don't know where to start. I applied to this program to get a study abroad permit without resigning from my job as a government officer in Turkey. But unfortunately, I quit because I couldn't get permission. Exactly seven years ago, I was accepted to postgraduate education in Turkey. Then, my son was very young, and it was difficult for me to attend weekend classes with my two children, so I took a break. When I learned that I had been accepted, I was full of excitement. At the beginning of the first lesson and my excitement of learning, I had a tough time. Sometimes I took a break when I was tired, and it was a full 2.5 years. Since that day, my life has been full of ups and downs, but despite all this, I have kept my head high, I am hopeful, and I have dreams. It was a dream come true to enroll in a training program here. This program has taught me a lot about myself personally and professionall...

 Blog Assignment: Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: Internationally UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) works for every child's survival, protection, and development, especially those in the most challenging and outcast situations. It has a strong presence in 190 countries, with 156 Country Offices and 34 National Committees. In line with the Convention on the Right of the Child, ratified by the United Nations in 1989, UNICEF strives to ensure that the international community fulfills the promises made to children. It conducts long-term, international development programs aimed at seven main priorities: child health, education, child protection, mother-to-child diseases, access to clean water, nutrition, and enabling children to participate in decisions that affect their lives. It does humanitarian work, providing support and protection to children in crisis and emergency. UNICEF's work is supported by the voluntary contributions of individuals and institutions. Th...

This week, I searched three organizations' websites looking for information on job opportunities and requirements at the national level. NAEYC The first organization I chose was NAEYC. While starting my educational journey, I also met NAEYC. I signed up to access resources to support my assignments on early childhood education topics and educate myself through research-based work in the field. My membership-supported my professional career as it provided me with resources for young children and their families. It also provides opportunities for professional development, such as annual conferences and workshops. The organization's mission is to promote and accredit high-quality early learning through practice, policy, and research for children from birth to age eight (nd). UNICEF UNICEF's mission is to serve and strive to support all children in need worldwide through fundraising, advocacy, and education. I chose this organization because UNICEF is an organization ...

    Exploring Roles in the ECE Community:                 Local and State Levels           These courses and research work in early childhood education make me excited to expand and grow in my career and discover new things. After my master's education, I want my place in my working life to be in the administrative field. In this sense, this information is more valuable to me. Frankly, I don't belong to any particular app community in my state. Given the nature of the Early Childhood Education profession and responsibility, professionally belonging to a community of practice is an important, necessary skill. Exploring Roles in the ECE Community, seeing advocacy at Local and State Levels, I plan to join several interest groups to learn and follow issues and current trends and, most importantly, understand early childhood better.           Here are some local and state orga...

  As I was thinking about my personal and professional development in this lesson, I remembered your contributions to me again. I thank you all who shared this journey with me. Through our weekly discussion boards, I had the opportunity to implement some of the communication knowledge and skills I learned and even discover myself and apply my cultural sensitivity and communication skills. With your contributions, I had the opportunity to enrich my attitudes with your professional experience, expertise, and perspectives on diversity. Thank you for all your contributions. I wish each of you good luck in the future and look forward to collaborating again! Behice AKSOY

        It is often difficult for the group, we have formed the five stages of team development that I mentioned in the discussion platform this week to leave a high-performing group when it reaches the "adjourning" stage. In my personal experiences with the postponement phase of team development within the last group I was involved in, I feel that my feelings were affected several ways after adjourning the group. Building professional relationships in the group can create professional opportunities and broaden my perspective on professional issues and be meaningful. I think it is not easy to leave a group that has done successful work. I believe this situation, which is shaped depending on the type of group you are in, will not be the case for a challenging working group. I have been in many high-performance groups, and some were easy to leave; leaving the others was difficult.         While I was a school administrator; I w...

  O'Hair and Wiemann (2012) say conflict is "inevitable" (p. 220). Conflicts are something that happens in every communication, sometimes easily overcome or sometimes not resolved. The less fight in human life, the more peaceful it will be. Of course, it is almost impossible to avoid this. A conflict I have encountered recently may have some communication problems in my family with my teenage son. My 14-year-old son's school offers them virtual or in-person education. My son wants to participate in virtual learning activities from home some days. Some days, under our forcing, he goes to school and gets training face to face. We support him in getting an education by going to school so he can socialize at school. He has recently been volunteering to participate in virtual education because he can play online games during training breaks (lunch, physical education, recess). He cannot manage his time at all when he played computer games. I tried to explain this situa...

  Thinking and studying the assignment this week, I have noticed that my perception of what a good communicator should be has expanded. It allowed me to see my communication skills with other people and how people perceive me. My awareness of being a competent communicator emphasized, thanks to the differences between my score and others' scores. I first made the three evaluations for myself and then compared the results to my ex-colleague and brother's result. What surprised me most was that I am in group 1, for all three assessment scores in listening styles. The way I listen to empathy and emotion helps me build relationships, but it reflects that it can interfere with judging correctly. However, I had thought that my listening styles in my professional life tend to be action-oriented or content-oriented (Rubin et al., 2009). When I took the Communication anxiety inventory results are, I expected it to be much higher. My results were moderate, indicating that I was somew...

     Communication means for people to convey, receive information, and transfer it on to others. Understandability is essential in communication. I use active listening skills to make sure I understand and the other person understands me. I am careful about getting a clue in their feedback to know that the recipient has adequately received the conversation's information. In intercultural communication, I excite when trying to communicate with someone who can have the knowledge, understanding, and different values, beliefs, and perceptions about life. I try to understand the differences between communication content with people from the opposite culture and their non-verbal communication. I pay attention to being attentive and aware of my communication.     Communicating between different cultures is a situation that requires conscious and empathetic behavior. Being empathetic and understanding and using polite language shows our genuine interest in the conversa...

         The program I chose to watch was a TV Show on cable TV. There were a store manager and staffers in this series called "Superstore." In episode S4, E9, which I chose at random. I watched the show with the sound turned off and then with the sound turned on.           I saw a female employee stayed half-opened the door, poking her head inside, and said something before entering the room. An older man sitting at the table turned to the woman from the computer screen and conversed with him using the gesture. Although the woman was standing inside the room, the conversation continued, smiling with contented expressions. The woman was standing and talking calmly. The woman sometimes spoke with an embarrassed expression, as if she wanted something. The man was shocked and looked around. Like looking for someone else… then he showed himself with his hand. The man continued to speak in exaggerated gestures. Frankly, I could not understand...

    For your blog this week, think of someone (e.g., family member, celebrity, politician, friend, or professor) who demonstrates competent communication within a particular context. What behaviors does this person exhibit that make him or her effective? Would you want to model some of your own communication behaviors after this person? Why or why not?      When I think of someone who demonstrated competent communication skills, my husband was the first thing to come to mind. That figure out is "A transactional model of communication in which communicators send and receive messages simultaneously within relational, situational, and cultural contexts" (O'Hair et al., 2018). O'Hair et al. (2018) stated that communication is an ongoing process with feedback in the model of competent communication. Everyone is connected and affected.      My husband's name is Kursat; he has been working for nearly 20 years at the same company as a senior manager. He r...

     When I consider working with children and their families from different backgrounds, I hope to design educational environments to make them feel welcomed and included, understood. I definitely hope that I will not micro-aggression any individual and respect their individuality with my words and actions.        My purpose for the early childhood field related to diversity, equality, and social justice is to provide an educational environment without prejudice. While they receive early childhood education, children's culture, languages, colors, and behaviors must respect.      I gained different kind points of perspective from my classmates the posts and comments. It was important for my development to follow discussion groups, understand them, and be informed of different experiences. I appreciate everyone for this.  Dr. McCarty! I would like to especially thank you for your understanding. I wish you a happy and peaceful 2021. ...

The country that caught my attention while I was navigating the world map. I found it interesting when I examined its history and culture. Surinam , officially known as the Republic of Suriname , is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. French Guiana bordered it to the east, Guyana to the west, and Brazil to the sou th.               It is the smallest sovereign country in South America at just under 165,000 square kilometers. Suriname has a population of approximately 575,990, most of whom live on the country's north coast, in and around the capital and largest city, Paramaribo. Suriname is the only sovereign nation outside Europe where Dutch is the official and current government, business, media, and education language. The country has rainforests located in the tropical climate zone. As I prepare to invite the family to the class, I explain to them that I would like to ask the family a few quest...

• What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression? Keep in mind that one can encounter such incidents in real contexts, including online environments, as well as in fictional ones, such as movies, books, television shows, and the like. The English trailer link is here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xB3_v09vuw . I want to introduce the much-discussed scenario in a Netflix series, which showed in Turkey in November. Fahri Karataş comments on this series as follows (2020) "Ethos is one of the most insightful and nuanced representations of the diverse segments of contemporary Turkish society we have watched. When you go deep into the psyche of each individual — with the trappings and the biases — you reach universal themes of alienation and trauma, arrogance and othering, as well as healing and mutual understanding." "Meryem, performed by Öyk...

Picture from The Wall Street Journal ( Aug. 9, 2020)        In the summer of 2017, my two sons and I were returning to the US together. We were confused during the New York JFK airport passport, and security transition noticed and decided to seek help from an employee. I asked my questions to the security guard, who African-American woman, and I added that I am still learning English and sometimes have difficulty understanding. The guards made a different facial gesture, then turned to me and said, "You don't know English, so why are you coming here?" said. It was a long question for me, and no needed to answer it. My children and I were able to look at each other and just said okay. Then, without changing her tone, she said something to me with some gestures and turned away without even looking back. When I asked what she said to us, my son said that I felt very distressed. We never talked about that issue again with my children, and frankly, we pretended not to hav...

Culture:  The coexistence of relations and values ​​of a group of people who share the same language, religion, customs, traditions, or, in simpler terms, food, music, or general beliefs in life.  Diversity is  colors made up of the cultures displayed by people from different lifestyles. Like my neighbor in the neighborhood where I live, wearing an Indian outfit on the street, my Muslim neighbor wearing a veil, or my American neighbor walking to the mailbox barefoot. My friend's recipe, a teacher, is the same as the recipe for the culture taught to us in schools. When defining Culture and Diversity, it can be inferred that different groups have people from different social and ethnic backgrounds together. Culture is a broad definition of traditions, social behavior, and norms in a specific country. It is not static and changes for a long time based on the learnings and influences coming from different cultures. Human beings born in that culture grew up as a robot of that...

     I witnessed close to the migration of refugees from Syria to Turkey, starting in 2015.  I know when those desperate people who escape the war crossed the border with a suitcase or with sacks on their backs, and the Turkish people opened their doors and hosted them. I can remember what those people passed through and the suffering of the refugee children in our school.      I can understand migration and the difficulties of migration as an immigrant. When I moved to the USA in 2016, I had the chance to carry all my home and personal belongings, and I could bring everything I valued here.       Therefore, I could only take three things with me made me think more and more about the importance of those things. If I had to move in this way, I would take my family's photo album with me because I would explain that my family is essential to me and that I want to keep them with me wherever I go.       The other thin...

     My research simulation is about the positive impact of child-centered education approaches applied in early childhood education on children's social, emotional, mental, language, and cognitive development. This is important in the early childhood education field, as many schools use a child-centered curriculum. Most parents also prefer this kind of education.      I think that a quality, well-prepared early childhood education has a strong effect on children's development and learning. I can see in my literature reviews that there are severe studies on this subject. Many international studies reveal that child-centered early childhood education and care are beneficial for developing language, reading, mathematics, and socio-emotional skills that form the basis for later school success. These data indicate that practices that will support children's development and learning are directly related to qualified early childhood education.     ...

       For this week's blog post, I chose to explore ChildResearch.Net , a Japan-based child research web site. Obviously, websites from many different parts of the world, especially from Europe, have been my favorite, but it will be the first time I will have examined such a site. As with every site, there are the most up-to-date articles and papers on Child Health, Children, Pregnants, and Newborns effects of COVID-19 . I have accessed some specific resources on Early Childhood Education and Care, early childhood advocacy. Although there are documents related to Asia and Japan, information is also very intense worldwide. In the section entitled ECEC worldwide, reports on different geographies can found. Children's "Learning Attitudes to Learn," Reports and primary data from around the world are available. • Japan • Asia • Africa • Europe • North America • Latin America • Oceania      Although I found the website's content full and dense, I saw t...

  RESEARCH THAT BENEFITS CHILDREN AND FAMILIES—UPLIFTING STORIES      Early childhood education given to children covers the years that the child spends from birth until the day it starts primary school, provides rich, stimulating environment opportunities suitable for children's development levels and individual characteristics; supports their mental, physical, social, and emotional development; guides them in the best way in line with the cultural values ​​of the society. It is an education process included in the fundamental education integrity and prepares it for primary education.      It is a known fact that learning begins with birth. Therefore, it is essential to be aware that first education starts with a child's birth. Since most of the cognitive and affective development is complete when the child begins school, age 6-7 is considered too late to address their learning needs. Education to be given at an early age provides a basis for the chil...