Final Blog - Consequences of learning

Over the course of the last eight weeks, I have learned a lot about early childhood education.  Especially the impact that poverty, language barriers, teacher readiness and family have on the impact of high quality education for children and early childhood educational programs.  Therefore, I believe it has been very helpful and productive for me to obtain international resources. Three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field for my professional and personal development is; First, I have developed an overall passion for children around the globe as opposed to my immediate community.  Secondly, it has broaden my views on the severity of the issues related to early childhood education. Lastly I have learned to appreciate and be humble to the abilities that were afforded to me as a female to be able to go to school as a child and as a grown up as I have often taken it for granted while you females around the globe are dying and getting hurt for the right to try to get a grade school education.  You never realize how easy you have it until you meet someone who doesn’t have what you have.

One goal for the field related to international awareness of issues and trends and the spirit of collegial relations is to actually make contact with an international contact that is an advocate for female rights and help aid in the fight for girls to be afforded the right to an education and job.

 

Neketha

Getting to Know Your International Contacts Part-3

Getting help in life can sometimes be a challenge.  However, it is a requirement in various aspects. Therefore, for the last seven weeks, we have been cultivating mutually fulfilling relationships with colleagues in attempts to build stronger bonds, share career tips/pointers, to strive to have a better network and source of assistance while working to change the early childhood.

With that being said, for this blog assignment # 7, I chose to go to the UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education webpage (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/). From this website, I learned that around the globe, everyone is preparing for or dealing with aspects of early childhood education.  In preparation for a high quality early childhood education program.  An insight that stuck out to me on the site was the subject about “the three most vital skills for childhood learning”.

Govind Singh, Council of Pacific Education, Fiji, states, “For a child to work across a huge spectrum of life, they will need life skills, core values and the opportunity to unlock the treasure within.” (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/).

Vutha Lay, NGO Education Partnership, Cambodia, suggested “They need soft skills to be good citizens, vocational skills for employment and basic education to equip them with knowledge.” (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/).

Lastly, Urvashi Sahni, Study Hall Education Foundation, India, suggested, “Children should be thinking critically about who they are and how they relate to their world around them, in a social and political perspective with a focus on peace, equity and sustainable development. They must be learning how to be literate and numerate, be problem solvers and be resilient.” (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/). 

I found all three of these suggestions to over insight on what children really need to learn through early childhood to assist with productivity later in life. Most important, I like that the three different views came from different nationalities, to continue to promote and encourage diversity because learning especially in early childhood education is a diverse concept.

Reference:

UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education” webpage (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/).

 

Neketha

Shared Web Resources Continued

For this blog for week six, it is safe to say that by now, I should be most likely adapt at navigating through the website of early childhood organizations that I selected to review at the beginning of the course. At this point, I should be ready to expand my research inquiry.  Therefore, I have selected an outside link that I have not yet explored.  The new link that I decided to explore is: Early Childhood Australia: The Australia Early Childhood Advocacy Organization http:// www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/.

The Australasian Journal of Early Childhood (AJEC) is Australasia’s foremost scholarly journal and the world’s longest-running major journal within the early childhood field. Published quarterly, AJEC offers evidence-based articles that are designed to impart new information and encourage the critical exchange of ideas among early childhood practitioners, academics and students.

I was first made aware of this site from a colleague’s (Teresa Motley) blog site.  After viewing and reading some of the informative information that Teresa learned from this site, I too felt intrigued and interested in learning more.  Therefore, I visited the site and it lead me to a report on Early Childhood Flexibility Patterns and practices.  The research report completed by AJEC talks about the pros and cons of having a flexible schedule and practices as it relates to the children.  The research further expresses the family and child centered benefits of having flexible learning schedules. The report also discusses and suggests that such childhood flexibility patterns and practices can also be beneficial to parents that have both parents in the home working to make ends meet but need flexible affordable child care.  Such a flexible school pattern and practices could allow the parents to better rotate their schedules and also be involved in the aspects of the children’s learning.

I receive an e-newsletter from The Global Fund for Children, and after following one of the various links related to an issue that I have been studying, I discovered that the First Lady Michele Obama, has a strong interest and belief in the Grassroots Initiative for educating girls worldwide and encouraging them to be leaders of tomorrow. This new information I found to be very helpful and informative especially since it emphasizes women empowerment. This movement is imperative since so many female children around the globe are not afforded the right to education simple because of their gender.

The AJEC website contained information which broaden my thoughts and added to my understanding of equity and excellence in early childhood care and education. The site opened up my thought process of other avenues for trying to bridge equity gaps in Early Childhood Education.

Other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field that I gained this week from exploring the website and/or the e-newsletter was the thought of introducing flexible practices and patterns into the aspects of early childcare and education.

 

Reference:

Early Childhood Australia: The Australia Early Childhood Advocacy Organization
http:// www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/

(Newsletter: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/contact_us/mailing_list.html

Neketha

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

For Blog assignment five, we have thought about and reviewed issues related to the excellence and equity in the early childhood field and how these issues and concerns foster various conversation topics.  I have explored and reviewed Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” and have discovered lots of new ideas and insights about early childhood systems around the globe.

Three issues that I found related to the excellence and equity in the early childhood field from the Howard University reading, “Global Children’s Initiative”, was the issue of social and economic indifferences and development, the issues and impact of language barriers, and the struggles and possible outcomes of poverty.  All of these issues that I read about from Howard University can wreak havoc on the excellence and equity of learning in the early childhood field.

To aid in the assistance of these problems around the globe, The Global Children’s Initiative (GCI), that was established in 2009, to advance center’s mission internationally through a collaborative, science based approve to trying to improve survival, health, learning and the behavior(s) of children facing significant adversities(http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/).  As a focal point to aiding in the three issues that I read about in the Howard University reading, “Global Children’s Initiative”, I found that since 2011, GCI has been involved in its first major programming effort in Brazil to help with the vulnerability of children around the globe lacking sustainable social and economic development. The readings also made me knowledgeable of the GCI’s efforts in Chile, China, Sierra Leone and Zambia to provide support, inform the natives of those countries about daily, basic survival skills necessary for low to middle income families as a preventative method of poverty which has a tremendous barring on the excellence and equity of early childhood learning and progression.  Lastly, from the readings I was made aware of the GCI, initiative to assist in bridging the communication gaps around the globe.  GCI, with the help of contributors has been able to convert several of the centers learning videos into Portuguese and Spanish as English is not common to many countries around the globe thus making it difficult for learning if teachers and video learning are solely taught in the English language.

In conclusion, I found the reading to be very informative and productive.  Therefore, I signed up to receive electronic updates from the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child.

 

Neketha

Reference:

Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/)

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