Site Audit of Jacaranda Early Learning Centre - Sunnybank - Case Study Example

Name Course Lecturer Date Site Audit of Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank The current construction of childhood is constituted by certain kinds of discourses that can be seen in the environment where the children stay. Therefore, doing an audit of Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank site is a good move towards bringing out specific aspects and understandings of the children’s lives. The Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank has a lot of relevance concerning the auditing as demonstrated by the fact that the site presents an opportunity to the children to interact with their fellow children, community around them, and the caregivers. The location of the site of Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank is strategic as to give the children a very peaceful environment. Consequently, the facility is located in a serene, leafy modern suburb of Brisbane, which is currently a thriving community in Australia. The facility is also approximately fourteen kilometers from the Central Business District of Brisbane. Besides, Sunnybank boasts of its own railway station and private hospital. http://www.jacarandasunnybank.com.au/sunnybank-childcare-centre/ The centre offers a myriad of exciting activities and events to the kids. Among these events are the odd sock day whereby the children are taught how to color socks and recognize the patters, the Brett Campbell Show, the Old Macdonald’s Farm Animals, which is a day filled with fun, and St. Patrick day when the children are encouraged to go green. The outsiders are barred from wandering in to disturb the children. This is done through the fence that has been erected all round the yard. Inside the yard, different items that can be appropriate for children plays are present. These items are installed safely to ensure that the safety of the children is guaranteed. These items include the sandbox and several entertainment toys. These items are installed outside. However, in case of rainy days or when it comes to the preparation, serving and taking of meals, the house that has been built inside the yard serves these purposes. Rains will not in any way stop the children from playing considering the fact that there are the entertainment toys, children entertainment books, and games even inside the house. Therefore, in, the dominant constructions of children are well understood and given the maximum attention, they deserve. Consequently, the creation of enough gadgets for entertainment highlights the understanding that children are playful and active (Jones, 2002). At the same time, the special attention that is given to the environment is meant to capture the fact that children will take almost anything they find around them. in other words, they are consumers (Farrer, 2001). Depending on what the children grow up with, they can be a threat to the society (Norman, 2003). Therefore, the discourse understands them as vulnerable to conform to any negative thing they find on their way. Their steps are, as a result watched, and monitored in the Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank. In a way, when the children are brought into the fenced yard and their program is dictated by the adult caretakers, such a discourse inevitably cuts them off from the rest of the society and in one way or the other, they become marginalized. At the same time, they are deprived of their agency (Madden, 2002). On the other hand, the adults in this discourse are empowered to make decisions. Ultimately, considering the impact of such a discourse, it will be the interest, not of the children, but of the staff and more importantly, the owners of the childcare centre that would be served. When the children are not given time to find their own space in the society, and instead, are confined to a childcare centre, it is like spoon-feeding them. This has adverse consequences. The consequences include the failure of the children to learn about self-empowerment and self-identity. This is quite tragic to the future lives of these children. Sample Body Paragraph 1. Site is advertisement catalogue The images of the play and entertainment toys that were collected from the Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank highlight the way the discourse has taken the direction is such as to align the children along gender lines. The centre regards children as gendered beings. Consequently, this brings out the strong connection between what transpires in the real society and what takes place in the discourse. The society still put a lot of emphasis on the way roles, duties, and powers are supposed to be assigned or distributed in the society. Therefore, the expectations that are expected from boys, who are regarded as active and masculine, would be different from those expected from girls, who are regarded on the other hand as passive and feminine (Cartwright, 2004). As the boys in the childcare centre, embark on their daily activities, well clothed in superhero attire, we are not surprised. Out in the field, often, we will find their operations being suggestive of gender obligations in the society. In other words, it is as if the boys are playing with petrol tankers and car toys in preparation to face the task awaiting them ahead. This task is, in most cases, regarded as one, which requires tough, rough, and adventurous people. The boys therefore, have to; prepare to act actively in embracing risky and dangerous situations. The girls in the childcare centre on the other hand, receive different treatment. The discourse places them in a completely passive position of staying at home to take care of different home chores. Their assignments include being nurturers, mothers, while at all times refraining from participating in active responsibility in the society. theirs is to take care of the children. Therefore, when it comes to venturing into professional pursuits, leadership assignments and accomplishment of an involving task or a big responsibility in the society, women are sidelined since these big positions are reserved fo men (Grieshaber & Cannella, 2001). The origin of this could be traced back to the kind of upringing that the boys and girls had in the childcare centres. In conclusion, women are deprived by this discourse of their agency in the society. besides, they are sidelined and marginalized from the strong participation in the society. Sample body paragraph 2 (the site is Arthur’s Popular media culture ) In the Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank, the issue of popular media culture is also quite apparent. According to the Arthur’s arguments concerning the Popular media culture, children, while they are in their communities and their homes, they experience a wide spectrum of literacy practices. Unfortunately, the same practices would not be reflected during their early childhood settings. The use of the increasingly digitalized literacy experiences like television and computer games as the popular media culture in the Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank was detrimental to the children when they moved to the book-based educational settings, which excluded the popular media culture. The children were therefore, marginalized when quality children books in school replaced their literacy practices at Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank (Arthur, 2001). Sample Body Paragraph 3. ( Site is the Disney film, Pocahontas) Looking at the Disney corporation, it is clear that their role in shaping our culture is very influential. Regarding the children’s entertainment, the movies have played an almost monopolistic role. As the corporation grew, it can nolonger produce films alone but has extended into what is termed public pedagogy. According to Henry Giroux, the films bear a lot of legitimacy and cultural authority regarding the teaching of particular values, roles, and ideals. Therefore, in this way it offer competition to the traditional learning sites like religious institutions, public schools and family. however, some of the films bear quite controversial messages In Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank, the impact of Disney films which were screened to the kids while they were indoor is predominant. One such film was the Pocahontas. The film wasa about cross-cultural love story. Whiel the love story may have been praised, racism was deeply entrenched in the same movie. This is because, the terrible mistreatment of the Native Americans whereby millions of the Americans succumbed to genocide, as well as the colonial barbarism were covered in the movie by sentimental romance. The historical truths were therefore, covered int his movie. There was exploitation of the Native Americans for wealth by Hohn Smith who was a rude and imperialistic racist(Giroux, 2000). When the truth which was supposed to be filmed in the movie is stretched and turned into a good film, the innacurate depiction of Native America has some cultural implications that do not sent god message to the children. The film therefore, feeds the children with lies. When a child from Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank is asked to say something concerning thr Disney film, Pocahontas, the child will talk about the way the sentimental romance makes the film a beloved story. This means that the child will know very little of the truth behind the film. It is therefore, until the film is intrepreted t the child by either the teacher or the parents that he or she may understand of the social problems that were behind the movie(Giroux, 2000). In conclusion the Jacaranda Early Learning Centre – Sunnybank, according to the audit, provides a fair ground on which, the direction that the society takes with regards to who shall do what the society between in the boys and girls, is taken at some points. However, as the audit continues, it implies that if roles are shared equally, gender issue will not in any way abridge the accomplishment of the same roles. This can be exemplified by the way the seven year old girl managed to draw tho men in which one had shot the other in the stomach. Reference list Arthur, L. (2001). Popular culture and early literacy learning. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2(3), 295-308. Burr, C. (1997). A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation. New York, NY: Hyperion. Accessed from http://www.google.co.ke/search?hl=en&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Chandler+Burr%22&source=gbs_metadata_r&cad=8 on September 21,2011 Cartwright, L. (2008). Moral spectatorship: technologies of voice and affect in postwar representations of the child. New York, NY: Duke University Press.Accessed from http://www.google.co.ke/search?hl=en&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Lisa+Cartwright%22&source=gbs_metadata_r&cad=8 on September 21,2011. Farrer, J. (2002). Opening up: youth sex culture and market reform in Shanghai. New York, NY: University of Chicago Press.Accessed from http://www.google.co.ke/search?hl=en&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22James+C.+Farrer%22&source=gbs_metadata_r&cad=11 on September 21, 2011. Giroux, H. A. (2000). Are Disney Movies Good for Your Kids?. In Soto, L. D. The politics of early childhood education (pp.99-114). New York: P. Lang. Grieshaber, S. and Cannella G. (2001). Embracing identities in early childhood education: diversity and possibilities. Cambridge, CA: Teachers College Press.Accessed from http://www.google.co.ke/search?hl=en&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Susan+Grieshaber%22&source=gbs_metadata_r&cad=9 on September 21, 2011. http://www.jacarandasunnybank.com.au/sunnybank-childcare-centre/ Jones, S. (2002). Rereading the Harlem renaissance: race, class, and gender in the fiction of Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, and Dorothy West. New York, NY: Greenwood Publishing Group. Accessed from http://www.google.co.ke/search?hl=en&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Sharon+Lynette+Jones%22&source=gbs_metadata_r&cad=9 on September 21, 2011. Munhall, P., Madden E., and Fitzsimons M. (2002).The emergence of man into the 21st century: New York, NY: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Norman, T. (2003). A World of Baby Names. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. Accessed from http://www.google.co.ke/search?hl=en&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Teresa+Norman%22&source=gbs_metadata_r&cad=11 on September 21, 2011. Read More