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1. Self Introduction
2. My Learning Philosophy
3. Course Description's
4. Reflections (PLO's and SLO's)
5. Artifacts

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My name is Elizabeth Lara and I am a Human Development major. I transferred to PO Summer of 2018 and have had a very long and challenging learning journey. It has not been easy to juggle full time school, full time mom, full time girlfriend, and full time job but I made it to the end. I initially thought I wanted to become a teacher however as time passed I discovered a sub culture in the education field that was passionate for which is the foster youth population, I currently work as an outpatient mental health provider for DCFS cases and much of what I have learned in my area of concentration has been beneficial to my professional role as a mental health provider.

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My philosophy is that children are capable and competent individuals who are full of curiosity and ready to learn. I don’t see children as empty vessels needing knowledge to be poured onto them . Instead, I feel that each child has their own unique story which has been shaped by their environment and early learning experiences. Throughout the courses that I have taken during my time at PO. I’ve come to the realization that a child’s uniqueness is an attribute to the classroom and educators need to embrace those differences. My teaching approach is an anti bias one where the voice of each child counts and all children should be able to see a representation of themselves in their learning community.

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HD 300 Early Childhood Themes and Life Cycle Issues
My goal in taking this course was to understand children and their development better so that I could best support them. I learned about the different stages of child development and how crucial they are to developing autonomy and self sufficiency in young children. I feel I met my goal in this course only because I was able to not just help children but also educate parents on they how’s and why’s of child development. This class added the importance of the adult in children’s lives and how those immediate caregivers are so important in making those milestones happen. After taking this class I found myself feeling like an advocate for child development specially in the trust versus mistrust department. I work with foster youth and families most of the foster parents are burned out and feel that they aren’t a good fit for the children they foster. However, when I bring in my knowledge on theory and attachment styles I help these caregivers understand the youth more and it creates a positive change in the work I do.

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HD 361 Social and Political Contexts of Human Development
I had no initial goal when I took this course anything with the word “political” in it automatically causes me to disengage. To my surprise this course happened to be one of my top 3 favorites at PO. AS I went about my readings I was able to grasp a better understanding as how  our society shapes us. This was the course that helped me understand the importance of society norms and how they are internalized as we grow. I wrote a paper on gender biases for this course and it was a powerful one. It helped me empower other to challenges those societal norms and stereotypes that exists out there. I found myself challenging all children that I came in contact with and it was truly such an empowering course.

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HD 412 Working with Children and Families in a Diverse World
This course was about family diversity and the various struggles and different families face. I was excited about this class the minute I saw the textbooks that we would be reading. I have always wanted to get a better glance at what immigrant children deal with a lot with children of color and other sub groups. I wanted to gain more insight on the different sub cultures that exist and how children of those families learn and develop. I learned about the differences in discipline styles and how to engage with families who might not share my same learning philosophy. I was able to contribute a lot of my professional knowledge and shares some of my experiences in working with foster youth who receive mental health treatment. I was able to share just how little mental health professionals we currently have in schools and how badly we need them. What I found the most helpful about this course was the concept of how to engage with families who shares different cultural views.

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HD 459 Exploration and Application
This was was a difficult course on top of homework I also had to complete my fieldwork hours. My goal for this class was to simply pass an A or B because the workload was heavy. I managed to pass with the grade that I wanted and was also able to create a fieldwork project based on the needs and observations of the classroom community where I did my hours. I think I contributed tremendously to my fieldwork site because I was able to create a safe space for children to discuss family values and compare and contrast their families to their peers. This was no easy task specially when doing it with 4 years old’s.

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The four classes that I took away the most from were HD 380, HD 412, HD 335 and HD 497. I will start by saying that I never understood how important the elder years were and who this population also had its own milestones of development. In HD 335 I had to interview an elder and write a paper about it. I interviewed my grandmother and I broke down in tears as I wrote my paper. I felt like a whole new person after the interview because I learned so many things about her life and life in general form her story. It was honestly like an epiphany of life and how I had been taking it for granted. This class challenged me as well as my grandmother disclosed some painful family secrets that tore down biases and changed my entire outlook on my mother. I appreciated this course the most out of all the course I took here. I brought me closer to my loved ones and made me more open minded towards how experiences and environment mold people. HD 380 was an eye open of the different subcultures that exist out there. I read an autobiography about African American girls and how they experience the world. This class made me want to know more about other cultures and how their children grow. It was a course that awoke my cultural biases and make me seek other material on my own. I ended up researching on my own and came across a documentary called “Babies” which followed the up upbringing of children from different parts of the world. This course was so different in the sense that it allowed me to see life though the voice of the child depicting their own story rather than that of an adult narrating it.

HD 412 broke down all my stigmas and made me more accepting of others. At first the course made me uncomfortable because the readings talked about how as an educator you should feel comfortable approaching cultural differences. I did not feel comfortable it is one thing to be open minded and accept it, and another to be open minded and engage with the differences. This course embodied what inclusivity is all about. It was not my favorite of courses at first but it became the course that was the most helpful with my fieldwork site. Lastly HD 497 I will be honest and admit that at first glance my initial though PO just wants more money. I though this course was silly and pointless. All this work for a portfolio but after week two I started to understand why this course is required. It calls for the students to reflective cumulatively. Taking this course is like a pause and reflect moment for each class I have taken and it creates a sense of gratitude towards my professors and peers and helps me relate and reflect. Some of these courses seem like the happened a long time ago but when I go on by one it all comes back. This class the icing on the degree and I am now seeing the value of it.

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This is a picture of the only material I found that was family centered at my fieldwork site this inspired me to create my family collage with the children

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This little girl challenged many stigmas that I had about single parent household and she shared so much about her family with me she was by my side at all time during my internship hours.

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This is a picture of a DCFS office which I used as part of my power point presentation when I wrote about youth with mental health needs.

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These student portfolios where all that I had to work with at the start of my internship up until I was able to build rapport with the little ones.