Final assignment - Reflection

Over the past eight weeks we have been learning about a few of the issues and trends that are a part of the early childhood field.  We have learned from international websites as well as websites of local organizations.  Since I never made contact with an early childhood professional from another country, I spent time listening to the pod-casts and the from that experience I would have to say that the first thing I gained was some perspective.

The issues and trends we have here in the US are very different from some of the issues other countries face.  We may worry about hungry or poor children in out country but our children do not have to sell themselves to get money for their families.  We may want every child to have a safe, high-quality environment for our children to learn in but we do not have ten year old girls, afraid to walk home by themselves for fear of being raped because it is rumored that their bodies will cure AIDS.  We have issues of our own and they are important because we want what is best for our children, but I am grateful for those issues after seeing the issues other places around the world face.

Perspective, appreciation for our own issues here in the US, and lastly I would say my understanding of using other professionals in the field as resources has been deepened and solidified more in me after this class.  Just this past week I was at a party for my son's new soccer team and I met a woman who was from China and I actually saw her as a resource to help me develop more cultural awareness for a little boy in my class.  Her English was really good and she was gracious enough to help me understand a little bit about the Chinese culture.  If I had not taken this class I am not sure I would have viewed her as a resource and even talked to her about her culture.

A goal I would set for myself, related to the field, is to continue to learn from the resources we have used through this course.  These blog assignments seem like busy work at times but I am grateful to have the links posted here forever even after I have finished this class.

Thank you to those of you who read my posts and for the comments.  I look forward to seeing some of you in the next class!  Keep up the good work and good luck!

UNESCO - Week 7

This week I explored the UNESCO website.  UNESCO stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the link to their site is:
http://www.unesco.org
I learned many things from this website.  As I looked under Early Education, the tabs that are there are Access, Quality, Investment and Governance which are some of the issues we have been learning about in this course.  A few specific things this site taught me that I did not know:

1 - In the developing world, 10.5 million children under 5 die from preventable diseases every year. (UNESCO)

2 - UNESCO believes that everyone has the right to an education and that education should not be a privilege that is only for a few.
3 - 69 million children are out of school world-wide


One major insight I have gained this week is that the issues about the field of EC that baffle me, also seem to baffle other professionals, not only in the US, but worldwide.  I feel I have so much more to learn but I am grateful for the many things this class has taught me.

Children's Defense Fund - week 6

The Children's Defense Fund website has many useful links.  This week I followed the "Take Action" tab.  Under this tab was suggestions for how to take action from your home or in your community.  Under the subtitle "Advocacy that Works", there are suggestions for how to advocate for children's policies that work.  Under this tab there are links with instructions on how to e-mail, call or send a letter to our elected officials.  If you keep following those prompts, they allow you to choose an issue and then they give you a template for a letter that you can personalize and then send to your senator.  I also am signed up for the newsletters but I did not receive one this week.

As far as our topic for this week of availability, accessibility and affordability of care, I was able to find a section called Early Learning Challenge Fund which is one of the CDF's policy priorities.  This website continues to be very informative and interesting.  I enjoy spending the time getting to know more about specific topics.  I am still pleased with this site as a choice.  The more I learn about this organization the more I like it and would want to be a supporter of it in the future.

Here's the link:

http://www.childrensdefense.org/

International Issues in EC

Having not heard from any professionals over seas, I was back to web research for international issues pertaining to Early Childhood.  After looking through the Harvard website on the developing child, I was drawn to an article focusing on a member of their faculty named Gunther Fink.  He is a health economist who was interested in discovering how the use of anti-malaria nets over time, may effect child development in Zambia.  In order to track the children's development, they needed to create new instruments of measurement because the methods used for measurement were not helpful in providing the information needed to see a result.

What was interesting to me also is that Gunther said at the end of the article that with out good information, they can not prove that they need funding.  This sounds similar to us here in the states.  We also may need to create new instruments of measurement as we continue forward and as the field here in the US changes and we try to balance play and academics for children in school.  As we grow and change over the next however many years, we will have to change many things.  First we have to change our thinking.  Once we do that, we can make the changes needed to truly benefit the children involved.

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/faculty_and_partners/faculty/faculty_spotlights/faculty_spotlight_fink/