Child Psychology PowerPoint!!!

AJ Khan

Child Development

Final Project

Dr.Pa Her

Due: 12/19/13

 

                                    Project #4: Design A Public Service Campaign

 

            Bringing a positive change in children’s behavior within my community of target

will be beneficial in the environment. The change will occur in understanding the

difference between being a bully and a friend. The target communities are the children of

lower working class families in the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown

Heights, and Brownsville. The age group ranges from 2 years old to 5 years old and they

are African-American. I am personally doing my internship at an early learning center

which is part of the Brooklyn Community Service. The name of the agency is known as

The AtlanticAvenueEarlyLearningCenter and it provides service to families that are

under the poverty line and are on government assistance program. For the project, I will

be working with the children to improve their understanding regarding their surrounding

and help them develop skills such as making friends and saying no to bullying. My

primary target are the children that are currently attending the early learning center, and

hopefully will move beyond that.

 

            According to Olweus (1993), “School bullying is defined as a repeated negative,

ill-intentioned behavior by one or more students directed against a student who has

difficulty defending himself or herself. Most bullying occurs without any apparent

provocation on the part of the student who is exposed”. From spending my time with

these children aged 2 years to 5 years old, males and female, African-American, in the

learning center, I began to realize that even without their knowledge, what they were

doing in their break time and in classroom describe a typical bully. Being said that, I

observed name calling in the classroom and playground, the teachers did explain that

name calling is bad and they will not tolerate it in the classroom. I also observed boys

loves to rough-house, a term I got it from a teacher, describing that sometimes they

would get rough and drag and shove a fellow classmate onto the ground. I consider this to

be a bully-like behavior because when two larger kids teams up to show superiority over

the smaller child, this is a classic definition of a bully.

 

            Bullying in early childhood can occur as early as 2-3 years of age. Children as

young as three take participation in bullying. Most bullying develops in early school

setting such as the daycare, preschool, and playground. So preventing bullying at this

early stage can be helpful to the children. In order to do that, I must first apply proper

knowledge to the children regarding the topic of bullying, and prepare activities such as

videos and role playing to get their attention.

 

            Theories learned in classroom can be used to related to this project and be applied

into the project to get the desired outcome. One such theory is the “Social Learning

Theory”, which is related to the theorist Albert Bandura. This theory is about learning and

development, and suggests that people can learn new information and behaviors by

watching other people. Learning by observation and modeling can applied here with

young children regarding the cause and effect of bullying, children sees bullying and they

take participation in it and does not prevent it. A live model [being myself and class

teachers] can demonstrate and/or act out a behavior relating to bullying, I will be the

person that will say things and act out the attitude of a bully and the teacher will act the

part of a child that is being bullied and what that child needs to do. Later, in the verbal

instructional model, we would describe and explain the behavior that was just

demonstrated to them and why they should not do it and prevent it from making it part of

their behavior. Lastly, the symbolic model, videos and books will be used to show non-

fictional character applying such behaviors of a bully.

 

This will be kept age appropriate as there are many animated clips of bullying and

the role of a bully in YouTube and educational videos. The video will be fictional and

intended for young children and will not by any mean demonstrate real event. I choose

this type of strategy because watching videos helps putting the information into our

memory. For example, being told and being showed is totally different, what is being told

might be forgotten, but being showed will stick out in the brain primarily. For effective

modeling, there are 4 key areas such as Attention, Retention, Reproduction, and

Motivation. My project intervention will focus on the motivation aspect. Having a good

reason to imitate a positive behavior will be the key. The children aged 2 to 5 will be

motivated to show and demonstrate positive behavior in school setting.

             The main theory will be Behavioral approach, B.F. Skinner’s operant

conditioning. Reinforcement can be either positive or negative. Punishment weakens the

behavior while rewards enforce more positive reaction. An example of positive

reinforcement is allowing the child to pick his own activity during free-play period, while

the negative reinforcement will be not having a say in which activity the child would like

to participate in. This is relate to the topic of bullying because when you decide to use

power over someone else, you will lose your saying [power] when it comes to play

activities and the child that shows understanding in this matter will be able to have the

power to pick their own activity. If you are being a bully and it is caught by a teacher,

you will have no saying in any of the group participations.

 

            My goals will be to show video clips of different example of bullying, and use the

modeling invention of motivation to encourage standing up to the bully. The children will

understand the need to be more compassionate with each others and making friendship as

well as saying no to bullying.

 

            The steps I will take to reach that goal are:

 

1-      Pick a classroom that is related to early childhood bullying. [Age 2 ½ – 3 plus] I will find out which class is best for the campaign because I know in which class I see such behavior being demonstrated by the children.

 

2-      Let them know what is going to happen from now on. [The topic of bullying and why it is not tolerated, and there will be rewards given to children that can learn how to prevent bullying and negative punishment to ones that keep showing the same bullying behavior such as phone calls to parents and time outs.]

 

3-      Reading stories to them during story time about bullying.

 

4-      Showing them videos about bullying and friendship. [Videos are the perfect tools to show the difference of two things. The videos will show the effect of bullying and then later friendship]

 

5-      Help demonstrate to them how to react to certain events.

 

6-      Encourage them to change any negative behavior. [It will be done by me, that days I am with them, the teachers, and parents at home]

 

7-      Use Reinforcement to help them make development. [Extrinsic reinforcement is better here because it’s a motivation that comes from the outside, and from one’s internal thinking.]

 

8-      Hopefully, get them to stay with their new behavior and prevent bullying. [Expecting the children to learn from the modeling, videos, and demonstration to prevent bullying and showcase positive behavior]

 

The children will develop what will happen when they display a positive and

negative behaviors. Going back to the modeling process of Bandura’s Social-Learning

Theory, the children will learn to pay attention to this matter, retain the information

relating to this subject, and produce positive behavior in classroom and playground

setting. There will be no teaming up in the playground to fight or lay down someone in

the ground by the means of pushing or holding and dropping. In the classroom, there will

be no teasing or name calling or using words to negatively affect another from expressing

him or herself in the classroom.

 

            This project will help increase the development of the target community by the

means of preventing them from bad behavior such as bullying in a school setting. This is

will lead them to be more compassionate to each others and express positive feeling and

behaviors. The limitation will be in their home setting, as I can not prevent them from

doing activities that will encourage their negative behavior. My suggestion will be for the

parents to observe their child and help use theories to establish a positive reaction.

 

            A research that can be used to show any such method can work is the “Steps to

Respect” program, in which certain schools took a part in participating in the bullying

prevention for elementary school. In the May 2009 issue of the Journals of Educational

psychology, the study found a 31 percent decline in bullying in steps to respect schools.

This program helps teachers create a lesson plan and children/student can begin learning

about how to make friends, recognize and deal with bullying, refuse to take part of it, understand

other’s feelings, and report bullying.