My Early Childhood Contacts and the Impacts they have had on me as a Early Childhood Professional

For several weeks I have studied the website of an organization related to early childhood. I chose a few websites of a U.S.-based organization and an international one.  Thus, I would agree that I have learned a lot utilizing the World Wide Web as the sheer volume of information available on the Internet is impressive.   As I continued to explore the website and/or the e-newsletter this week, I took into consideration a few questions.

With that being said, the specific section(s) or information that seemed particularly relevant to my current professional development was, the amount of poverty in my immediate community, how it impacts the children’s learning ability, and what steps if any do I need to take to assist in the educational needs of the children and families dealing with issues of poverty.  By being made aware of the amount of poverty within my immediate community and the havoc that it initiates on a child’s education, I can be better prepared to work with and address concerns with parents as an early childhood professional.

The idea/statement/resource, either on the website or in an e-newsletter that I found controversial or made me think about an issue in new ways was should or is childhood now being considered as an investment opportunity.  I believe that you get what you pay for and since children need an education, I was at first for the idea of investing in the education of children even as an investment opportunity or means of recycling money to better the economy as suggested in, Early Childhood Education Has a High Rate of Return (2010).  However, with further thought and insight from colleagues, I believe that there are limits to anything and since I have always been told that nothing is free in life, I am sure this financial gain will come with a price.  Thus, I do not want that price to bring about havoc on the future of our children.  So, with that being said, this is a controversial issue.

The information the website or the e-newsletter contains that adds to my understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field is that they believe that any many aspects the early childhood field should be used as a financial means, especially to help rejuvenate the economy.  Many economists, neuroscientists, or politicians believe that since there are numerous grants and funding the Government offer for early childhood education, there is no reason that it should not be able to be organized much like a corporation. 

Some additional insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field that I gained from exploring a website or e-newsletter was that there is a tremendous amount of children around the United States impacted by the harshness of poverty.  Thus this has a great impact on the early childhood field as hunger, emotional and physical developmental issues, and etc… that come with poverty impact the learning of these children.  I have learned to be more involved in my own community as well as around the world because, as I was aware that poverty existed everywhere.  I was not aware that North Texas has a high amount of children impacted by poverty.

Reference:

Early Childhood Education Has a High Rate of Return, (2010). Retrieved from http://heckmanequation.org/content/resource/early-childhood-education-has-high-rate-return.