Time Well Spent

I found out language is so limited to express my feelings now. I have started my learning in Walden university from October 27th, 2014, and all 11 courses will be finished on October 23rd, 2016. And what a productive, suffering but exciting journey it is.

I have learnt so many things including knowledge, skills and others from the learning, and I grow up from someone who know nothing in early childhood education to an educator who definitely know something and would like to continue to learn in the filed. To pick up three things, I will choose as following:

1. children development. This is the basic for children, but for me, it is new. I have learnt the developmental stages and what should pay attention to during the learning.

2. Issues in the filed. Biases, culture, poverty, etc. are the global issues we all face no matter which country you are living in. The discussions and learnings of these issues open my eyes, and I have a lot of Aha moments.

3. Leadership and communication skills. These skills are so important no matter in what field. In ECE field, if you want to move forward, and be the advocate for the change, you have to influence people to follow you, these skills are so important.

My long term goal are to develop a teacher training program and build up an institution for children, for example a kindergarten (year 2 - 6). I do have the dream and will try to realize it.

It's not easy to say goodbye to all the professors and my colleagues in Walden. All of you are so fantastic that inspire me to learn, to grow, all of you are the models I want to learn from, and I hope we can meet again somewhere in some way.

If you have any interest in working in China or would like to join me for the teacher training program for Chinese educators or want to open a kindergarten in China, please please contact me. My email add. is: bjsummerli@hotmail.com. Hope we can keep in touch any way...

Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: Internationally

The first website I open is http://www.unicef.org, and on their first page, I found out they have a promise to provide fair chances to every child, especially the children from poor families. Equity in education in China is one of my dream and desire to explore and achieve, the belief of UNICEF makes me feel comfortable to be with them. I like to work in their education department and help the children from poor families to have a fair start like others. I checked their job openings, and I like this one http://www.unicef.cn/en/career/4949.html. I have the love for children, the passion to achieve equity, and have a background of working in international education for so many years, I believe I am capable in this work

The second one I choose is http://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKIXMGIpI4E/b.6146405/k.C7E9/About_Us.htm. "Save the Children invests in childhood – every day, in times of crisis and for our future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. By transforming children's lives now, we change the course of their future and ours. "

A healthy start of the child is every parent's dream and for the children, with a healthy start, they can be better prepared for their own life and future. Children are fragile, they need help and protection. They don't have a job opening yet, but I love to be part of it as a individual sponsor.


The third one is http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-are/introducing-unesco/
"UNESCO works to create the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based upon respect for commonly shared values. It is through this dialogue that the world can achieve global visions of sustainable development encompassing observance of human rights, mutual respect and the alleviation of poverty, all of which are at the heart of UNESCO’S mission and activities.".
Right now in China, sustainable development is a very hot words because people are aware a lot about the air and water pollutions, people leave their home to work in the big cities for making a living etc. How to keep a sustainable society is a vital questions nowadays for every Chinese. And education definitely is a primal way to share the concepts and educate our young generation to be responsible for it.
I may choose to be a program coordinator responsible for education filed to achieve the goal.

three roles in national level

The first job I’d like to have is the chief of the ministry of Education in China. I care children, and I have a solid education philosophies and I am open-minded to know the things happened in the world, and I believe for 21^st century, what the children need most is holistic education. They need to develop their character education, and their skills to survive and thrive. With the power of making policies for all the children in China, it definitely will help me to supervise the implementation of what I desire. http://www.moe.gov.cn

Second job I am interested in the national level is the prime minister of China. I will do the best to improve the education equity of everywhere in China, especially the rural area, and give the children from poor families better chances to live their life. http://www.gov.cn

The third might be the vice prime minister who is responsible for the education in China. As this role, I will do more practical things like hiring more qualified teachers, to give them more professional development chances, provide more resources to the children ect. http://www.gov.cn

Exploring Roles in ECE field

1）         I’d like to choose a kindergarten section of an international school in Beijing and would like to be the director of it. To be the director, I need to further explore the management skills in such an organization, get myself familiar to the curriculum, and the concepts and best practices of international education. To my understanding, international education doesn’t mean how many foreign children we have or how many languages we provide in the kindergarten, it is more than to cultivate the students to be international mindedness, to become a global citizen, and they understand their own culture well.

2）         Second choice is to fin a role of being a coordinator or manager of a teacher training program for the national educational department in early childhood education. As I know, the general quality of the practitioners in this filed is not high, and there is a big needs for teacher training. I love to coordinate such a program to get more and more people benefit from it, and the children and their families will benefit from it.

3）         The third choice is to open a kindergarten as I like. I can realize my own educational philosophies and understandings through operation. It needs me to know better how to motivate people and work for the same goal.

Many thanks to all the colleagues and the professor

Dear professor and all colleagues,

Many thanks for your support during my learning in this course. All your discussion posts, the examples and the analysis in it give me quite lots of information to digest, and make me have profound understandings to the topic. Besides this, all your attitude to education, the love to the children make me feel very warm.

Thank you all and hope you all the best with the next course, and all the best to your professionals.

Team Adjourning Stage

When I led the teacher’s professional development team for 3 years, it was difficult for me to say good-bye to my team members. We had clear goals of operating the program, we had high standard of daily work, and we were very happy with each other and trusted each other a lot when we worked together.

When I started the master’s degree, the professor and the colleagues are very inclusive, they know English is not my mother tongue, and they encourage me to share my opinions and my culture, I think I am important part of the learning journey. They are very open to share ideas, and I have learnt a lot from them.

Adjourning is essential since through this stage, we can remember those happy moments, the successful parts, the friendship and trust. We learn from our experience. All these are precious to everyone.

Using NVC to resolve conflict

I recently had a big conflict with a colleague. The scenario is like the following: It was a Sunday afternoon, and we finished a lecture to about 500 parents. A participant Mr. Li talked to me for a while about something, and I know him for a time period already. A colleague came to me and dragged a little far from Mr. Li, and challenged me: ”Why don’t you go to help Cindy to move the materials but talking to this man?” I was very angry and felt losing face in front of Mr. Li, then I told her I was busy and couldn’t do it. She became angry too.

If Using NVC to resolve the conflict, I would tell her that her tones at that time before Mr. Li was criticizing, and it made me feel angry. My needs were to be respected and I also need autonomy. So I would have requested her to leave me, and I would decide how to do.  

For two strategies, I could tell her if Cindy needs help, she can come to me directly. And second, I would ask Cindy to discuss with me when to move the materials, I can arrange more people to help.

personal communication skills

What surprised me most is the anxiety inventory test. I do think I am very nervous and not capable of speaking in front of many people like in meetings. I also feel I lose all the logic and don’t know how to organize my language, my brain in in blank at those time, and my heart beats very quickly, I feel very worried. But my colleague and my husband think I have low anxiety inventory, they think I can express myself very well in public. This is very important for me to know because I am responsible for the marketing and communications of the school, there must be some situations that I have to speak out.

For the listening skills, I felt I have good listening skills, but sometimes, I overestimate my capability. Sometimes I really want to fix things or make things happen soon instead of caring people’s thoughts and emotions. This is another insight this week. I would like to slow down and understand people better.

improving communication skills

There is no same leaf in the world. I do communicate differently with people. My value, my belief are mine, and my words and behaviors are different from others.

I want to develop my communication skills with others in few areas as following:

1.                   Continue to learn knowledge about their cultures, background, hobbies, etc. to understand people’s preference in communication. Sometimes,

2.                   Appreciate the differences, be tolerant of uncertainty and to avoid knee-jerk negative evaluations of others. Sometimes, if you face strangers or uncertain situations, we may be afraid of control or no idea how to be with them. It is good that we take it easy and enjoy the uncertainty.

3.                   Develop communication skills, especially in how to ask good questions, and listening skills. Asking good questions is a crucial skill of getting information, listening skills make the others feel you are on the same ground as them, and we invite people to work with us friendly.

TV show

I watched a film on TV called “Xue Hua Mi Shan”(Snow Flower) with sound turning off, I saw the actress Li Bingbing was talking something with a foreigner, they sttod very close to each other face to face, they looked not so friendly with each other, I thought they are lovers quarreling. When I turned on the sound, they were talking about the man’s girlfriend, and Li Bingbing is a good friend of his girlfriend.

It would be more correct if I have seen the show before.

Competent Communicator

This assignment let me think about two colleagues. They are men, one is 50 and the other is 51 years. Let’s call them A and B.

Both of them are very talkative, they smile to people when they talk. But they are very different. A always talks thing he concerns and likes, no matter if the listener likes it or not. He can talk very long about one simple thing, and make people feel very bored. The other one is also very talkative, but he knows to encourage listener to give response, and tell the listener their idea is great. His tone always change when he talks, and he is humorous. B is obviously a better communicator than A. The colleagues like to be with him and avoid to be with A.

I would like to learn the communication ability from B, especially his humor and how to make people relaxed.