Let’s look at what an ECE’s college career looks like: at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario, the ECE program is a 2 year program with 3 field placements. Throughout the program, the core courses are very much focussed on the educational experience of children, (Creative Expression, Health and Nutrition, Child development and Behaviour, etc.). ECE’s are taught how a child’s mind works, and how to connect the child’s mind with the teacher’s curriculum; beyond that they have very little expertise.

A CYW learns how to interact with children on a more emotional level. At the ages of 5 and 6 (kindergarten), children are very much governed by their emotions. They are not logical, they do not think methodically, in fact when something is going wrong at home, everything about their psyche is changed. For example, a young girl was notorious for suddenly “shutting down”. She would seem fine one minute, and for whatever reason, could at any moment be triggered to either hide, turn silent, or both. This sounds like something quite common in a kindergarten classroom. The typical response is constant questioning and encouragement to involve themselves in the class. Many teachers find it frustrating when they can’t break through the child’s shell and figure out what their trigger is. When an ECE gets involved and puts their methods to the test, how surprised would they be to find out they may never succeed? Why?… because this particular student happens to act this way as a result of deep seeded psychological disorders. I can say disorder because her actions were obviously a result of fear that is so extreme is isn’t just a fear, it is actually classified as a “phobia”. No ECE could come to such a conclusion, because in order to realize this child suffers from severe anxiety, you would have to understand the psychological and emotional causes for her behaviour.

To be crystal clear, I am by no means suggesting we ultimately “shrink” our kids on a daily basis. In fact CYW’s do not “counsel” in any way, they simply play the “big brother” role, and give children the life skills they need to effectively deal with emotional and psychological dilemmas. Not to mention the fact that if an issue becomes severe enough, CYW’s are learned in child and youth advocacy. That is to say, they have the connections both legally and clinically to direct children in to the appropriate channels.

School boards have definitely taken a step in the right direction. If they can bring the other foot forward, and combine the skills that both ECE’s and CYW’s have to offer, I feel that we would not only have created an ideal learning environment; but also the opportunity  to teach children the life skills to identify, deal with,and avoid behavioral, emotional, and mental triggers that would impede a child’s ability to learn.

~Tinatinks~

Here’s an example, the following picture is of a calla lily. This picture was used as the cover of a greeting card:

Now a lot of people would say that even though it is obvious that the lily was not found floating in a black background, crisp and perfectly on it’s side; the alteration is a form of art… making the image more pleasing to the eye. For many, this is ok. It is even ok for the following photo to be a representation of

the human take on nature today:

This picture was altered to make the tree look like it was swaying… the picture almost looks like a painting… but one that was never painted. This person used a photo of the mountains in the background and added everything else to it. Again, some would say it was art, and it acceptable to use as a cover for a magazine article in “New Internationalist” magazine. Yet when you show the public the difference in these two pictures of O.J Simpson printed in two seperate magazines, placed side by side in the shelves, a wole heap of controversy arises!

Both of these pictures started out exactly the same. Time Magazine decided to darken the image for artistic reasons. This brought on so any racial arguments and debate that Time Magazine had to publish an apology to the public! So when is it ok to alter a photo.. I personally think that as a photojournalist… the pictures should be of enough quality and substance to stand without alteration. I mean a photo is a moment in time, how can you possibly tell an accurate story with an altered picture?

Humans seem to accept the change in pictures of objects and nature, and see the issue only when it is their face on display. In the O.J case, it was mainly the African American community that disagreed with the alteration.

Yet, alterations happen so often, it’s hard to tell what really happened in each image we see. As a journalism student, that is alarming because our whole goal in what we do is to tell the story, the truth, the facts… it’s one thing to fix a personal camera mistake, like erasing your thumb from a picture. But then again… if it was a bad shot… why not just take the picture again? A good photojournalist should be able to see a “kodak moment” without the aid of alterations.

If changing the picture alters the perception of what actually happened in the picture, then it isn’t an accurate depiction… that’s my opinion. I know there are a massive amount of arguments to rebut my opinion, so… lemme have ‘em… let’s see what everyone else thinks!

Until next time, Keep Smilin’

Tinatinks

Not only did the city know, but the landlords were asked to fix it long ago, and they apparently told the city they were in the process of doing so. This is a pretty obvious question, but wouldn’t someone see the fruits of such labour if they were actually trying to fix the problem?

There were even tenants and citizens writing letters about the issue trying to get someone to get off their butts and do something about it!

Yet, despite the constant requests… the building practically collapsed and tenants had to flee the bulding with 10min. notice!

In the end, no one was fined for anything. The landlords were only expected to reimburse the tenants for lost posessions and damage and such.

Even though there were documents showing that someone was aware of the issue for so long, and complaints were steady, no one was fined!

I personally think there should have been more legal action. I live in an apartment building where I can see the remains of this fallen building, and from what I can see, there were major problems. I probably wouldn’t have known that it used to be an apartment building if I wasn’t told! It’s just a pile of rubble now!

So the results now are that the building department that the landlord was working for was reviewed, and told the landlords were responsible, yet no legal charge. Shouldn’t there have been something done?

Please feel free to comment, I’d like to see what other people would do if they were deciding the ruling for the landlords.

Let me first make it very clear that I am completely neutral in who I think should win the election; but I can’t help but notice how throughout their campaigns, the ancient issues of racism and sexism have been plastered throughout the media. Voters seem to be caught in a catch 22. Should people vote for Clinton to avoid feeling sexist, or should they vote for Obama to avoid the guilt of acting racist? It’s no secret that both parties have been playing the activist card. It seems people are choosing cause rathar than a President. I personally think that voters are forgetting what really matters at the polls. Rathar than focussing on what each candidate plans to do for their country as leader, it seems people are more concerned with their skin colour and gender. A lot of people would argue that American culture has gotten past the ideas of racism and sexism; but if that were true, would we be having the debate to begin with? I would be curious to see how many people would still honestly agree with keeping women in the kitchen, and Caucasian men in the White House. Maybe that’s why “Leave It To Beaver” was so popular for so long!!… Moving on… I think that emphasizing the fact that Obama is dark-skinned, or that Hilary is a woman is only endorsing the ideas that are supposed to be “American History”. Being a journalism student, that would further raise the question of whether or not it’s right for the media to highlight the controversy surrounding these two issues.

Now don’t get me wrong… no matter who wins, it will be a historical moment for America since both Hilary and Obama are the first of their “kind” (a woman or an African-American) to be president. I can’t help but find myself glued to the T.V to see who has the most votes where. I honestly haven’t even been following what either of them stands for, so I’m guilty of exactly what this blog is ranting about. Voters are so concerned with what really doesn’t matter when it comes to the best-suited candidate for President. The URL below is a blog that I found talking about racism and sexism in the election, and how it is more or less a battle of which community is more oppressed. There’s lots of discussion here so take a look and see what you think!! As always, I’m interested in anyone’s comments, so don’t be shy!! I’ve added the Movement Vision Lab blog on my blogroll for anyone who is interested in reading more opinions on this. http://www.movementvisionlab.org/blog/gender-race-and-the-presidential-election-a-response-to-gloria-steinemAn

on the side note:
I found this youtube video poking fun at Obama’s name… Honestly though, who could resist!?!?! Enjoy!!

Until next time… Keep smilin’
TinaTinks

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

This is the site that will explain your results further…

http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html