Final Blog Assignment

Three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field:

 

• I learned a different perspective to early childhood education and the rolls that this education does for a child in the future in different parts of the world.
• I learned about different ways diverse students learn the content we are teaching them.  This is a great thing for diverse students in our classrooms.
• I learned that education around the world is so different but all share a common goal, to make children successful.  The schools internationally teach a lot differently that I am use to but seeing and hearing about their lessons brought new ideas for my teaching.  Differentiation is important in the classroom and was evident internationally.

 

A goal for our field in relation to international awareness would be to continue our education through more research and talking with professionals internationally.  I never realized the impact this would have on my teaching and my classroom.  It is true we learn from others and gaining perspective from international professionals would be a great goal to continue throughout our teaching.

Getting to know your International Contacts-Part 3 (Week 7)

I have not received any communication for the podcast professionals so I went to http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood  and did some exploring on the content of this website.

 

One new insight that I gained from this website was that this website offers a wide range of information about equity in education. One interesting fact that I read about this concept what the role of the central government in making this issue less of a deal in the classroom.  The central government must ensure a equitable distribution of resources throughout all the population and especially those that live in struggling areas.

 

Another idea that I read on this website that I have known about but was reassured about was the idea of lack of resources in the classroom.  The lack of investment and funds in schools causes less resources and tools for students and in turn effects their learning greatly.  It was mentioned this is especially true for struggling regions across the world and the negative impact on children it is making.

 

The last thing I found on this website to be interesting was an article about Singapore and their policy on early childhood education.  They have partnered with non public actors to make a difference in the education in this region.  The government gave up ownership do to lack of funds and the costly aspect of education which gave the non public actor to take control.  They introduced a cost recovery option and saw immediate improvement in the overall education system.

Sharing Web Resources-Week 6

http://www.naecte.org/

 

As I explored some of the outside links they lead me to many different sites.  Many of these sites were linked to different early childhood organizations and other resources.  Some of the links were about teachers in different countries who offer insight on what they are doing with their early childhood students.   Another link was about the requirements for the fifty different states in relation to early childhood education.

 

One early of the site that I thoroughly looked through this week was the link to the online journal. This link took me to loads of information from real teachers around the world.  Anyone who teaches can add to this journal and gives positive ideas and feedbacks for other teachers.  This could be a great resource for new teachers and teachers who are struggling with teaching something or reaching a student.

 

I have no received a newsletter recently but went back and looked into older newsletters on their website.  One new insight that I learned was that this organization put together small tours to go to New Zealand to look at the astonishing teaching of early childhood.  Teachers from around the Untied States get to go to this country and bring back wonderful resources and tools for other early childhood educators.

 

I did not see anything relating to this week learning about equity and excellence in education besides the fact that many states are now requiring the same thing for early childhood as they would in older grades.  This is to assure that everyone is getting quality education and experiencing high level learning.

 

Another trend that I found through my research of the website this week was about research for the early childhood educator.  There was a section in one of the recent newsletters about the importance of this in teaching.  It goes on to show that through research current and past teachers will find much information they may have not thought was available.  This organization promotes its members to do research and provides links and resources to encourage teachers to research while teaching to make their teaching more effective and motivating.

Getting to know contacts-part 2 (week 5)

From the podcast this week I listened to the podcast featuring Barbara Jones.  She founded a school in Maine and is celebrating the 25^th anniversary of the opening.  This is a Monsey school.  She knew that this school was of something different and decided to try it out.  She was excited about the challenge but nervous about the new adventure.  After working in a few schools, she found a vacant building and decided to buy it.  She opened up a private child development program in this building.  After renovating the building and getting it prepared for children, she felt at home and ready.

 

From the Harvard website, I found there to be a lot of information available.  One new insight I found was that this program works outside of the United States and focuses on the science of child health and development to guide stronger policies and larger investments to benefit and families and children in Brazil.  Another insight that I gained was that this program has a plan in place that focuses on building the capabilities of caregivers and strengthening the communities that in turn with benefit the children learning, health, and behavior.  The last insight that I learned was that this program is dedicated to the why and what of why investment matter in early childhood education. They have a whole section outlining this with many resources available to look at.

 

 

World Forum Foundation:  World Forum Radio.   Retrieved from http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/current-work/world-forum-radio/

 

Center on the Developing Child:  Harvard University.  Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/topics/understanding_intervention/

Sharing Web Resources-Week 4

I found that the section that contained a link to journals written by members of the NAECTE to be relevant to my current professional development.  This is because the current journals offer a variety of information about the current issues and trends in Early Childhood Education along with current research based practices to use in the classrooms.  Some of the journals are from the perspective of a current teacher as she explores teaching.

 

The newsletters made me think of the early childhood field in different ways because sometimes as a teacher we forget the details that go into making early childhood successful and thrive in all areas.  We do our jobs as teachers but the newsletters for this organization made me feel like these people are working hard to make it more successful for everyone involved.  They are constantly holding conferences and fundraisers to help the education in general.  This is an issue many districts are facing, shortage of money and organizations like this are trying to help these districts.  This also adds to my understanding of economists in relation to the education.  I think it also deepens my understanding of the way politicians relate to the education field because some of the newsletters talk about the mayor of the cities and other politicians and their impact for this organization.

 

I also learned from this site that there are many teachers world wide trying to make a difference in education.  From shortage of supplies to larger classroom sizes, these teachers are working together to come up with the best solutions possible.  This site even has a forum for teachers to communicate in about current issues and trends in the field and this alone has taught me the wide amount of issues that take place world wide in education.

Getting to know international contact

to listen to the podcast featuring Delfana Mitchell from http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/current-work/world-forum-radio/.  She discussed her work with her organization housing children and how the area she is from; Belize City is the number one area for child abuse. Her organization houses these children.  She discussed a child who came to her after not talking for a year from the physical and mental abuse he faced.  They began by home schooling him and finding things he likes even though it was difficult for him to understand what they were doing.  One day while they were horse back riding he started talking about the abuse he faced as a child.  This was the beginning of him starting to talk again.  Although he would go in and out of talking throughout this time, he eventually was starting to talk non stop!

 

The country from the website that I picked was India.  I found out that India has the second largest population in the world and out of that population, 260.2 million people are living in poverty.  Of these people in poverty, many of them are children and sadly they live very rough lives.  It states, Almost half of all children (about 62 million) under the age of five are malnourished and 34 percent of new-borns are significantly underweight.⁸ Important achievements have been made in health and education” (Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre).  There are programs in place that are run by the local government.  They are based on food needs, employment, and children needs.  These focus on getting the children the nutrition and living needs that they need to survive better in this struggling country.

 

These issues go along with the overall consensus that children are the ones who are truly struggling when it comes to poverty.  They come from families that live in poverty and are being malnutrition and are struggling with their everyday life.  Their futures are impacted greatly by the negative effects poverty has on one individual.  It is true that poverty is everywhere and especially evident in countries outside of the United States where a dollar is a lot of money to some of those people.

 

 

World Forum Foundation.  (n.d.).  Retrieved from http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/current-work/world-forum-radio/.

 

Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre (CHIP). (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/

Sharing Web Resources

I subscribed to the newsletter for the organization that I picked, National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators.  The newsletter starts by giving an award to the teacher educator for the month, someone who made a difference or did something remarkable for their organization.  The president of the organization then gives details on ways to become more active in the association.  One topic or issue they bring up in the newsletter is that of a fund raiser to help the children in education.  They talk about needing more fund to be able to bring more people into the organization to make that difference.  It then lists four tasks that were thought to need more work in the coming months.  Those included more research based practices, establish the NAECTC as an expert source for educators, highlight highly effective teachers, and revising a position statement to include more.

 

I don’t think that this newsletter touches on the diversity and demographics this week but I do think it touches on the idea.  The idea behind the fund raising event is to recognize those people that may not have a lot or need more in terms of education.  I think this could include many that are diverse and struggling in life.  They have 47 members and have a goal to get up to 60 for this event.