Final Blog Assignment

I was really excited to learn about the international early childhood field. With that being said, the consequences of learning about the international early childhood field that could and may affect my personal and professional development is that for one, international early childhood field needs more awareness and attention than the US early childhood field. The issues are more sensitive internationally, and more emphasis needs to be made on the trends and issues that are going on internationally. Secondly, with the scope of the US and international issues and trends in early childhood education, the scope is much bigger than anticipated, and more people need to be involved to advocate the needs for children and their families. Lastly, it makes me appreciate my own educational experiences, which is a positive, but as a consequence, I may not truly be able to understand the strife on children and families going through the struggle, both In the US and internationally. Even though I have been a witness to the issues and trends presented in the course, I have not personally gone through it, so it makes me feel somewhat inadequate to make pure assumptions or opinions. When I looked into poverty this week, I have had family members in my extended family, as well as close friends go through the struggle of poverty, and not being able to afford the quality education for their children, and I empathize as well as sympathize and can understand it from a research and an associative view, but not to the point where I can understand it as an individual that has gone through it. Personal assumptions and biases can be a consequence in my personal development, but I can change that.

One main goal for the field in relation to international awareness of the issues and trends is to make sure to I volunteer in a country where I can help, and then bring back what I have experienced, witnessed, and learned to others in the field, and try to make sure I present the information in a way that brings awareness, humbles me even more, as well as touch one EC professional. I also want to bring the awareness to my classroom, and incorporate what I have learned to show the children what a gift education is.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

I have not heard anything from my international contact as of yet, but we still have one more week. When i visited the website http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education, I studied what the mission of the organization is and how what I have gained from the website coincide with my goals as a professional. The mission has four points, but the points that stuck out to me were:

• provide international leadership to create learning societies with educational opportunities for all populations.
• provide expertise and foster partnerships to strengthen national educational leadership and the capacity of countries to offer quality education for all.

• work as an intellectual leader, an honest broker and clearing house for ideas, propelling both countries and the international community to accelerate progress towards these goals.

These points are basically how I feel about being an educator. I want to make sure I can do all that I can to provide education and leadership to all children, regardless of race, social economic status.
All families deserve to get access to quality education, and this organization is committed to helping reach this goal on a global level.

Another insight that grabbed my attention was the UNESCO holds an annual conference in a location around the world to bring awareness to making sure that quality education is given to all children around the world. This is such a great way to spread awareness to others in such a dramatic way. The Conference will be held in Japan this year in November.

The last insight that was important to me was the fact that they have global networks in the Caribbeans, Africa, Asia and Pacific, and Latin America. The global networks have leaders speak on topics like AIDS awareness, to green-jobs and inclusive education in Brazil.

Reference:
 http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/worldwide/

Sharing Web Resources

After exploring the National Black Child Development Institute’s website, I started to look more into the resources and articles. There has not been any newsletters sent out as of yet, but I did find articles with different headings, such as health, policy and advocacy, early care and education, family engagement and literacy.  I looked into the policy and advocacy resources, as well as early care and education. I chose these to links because I wanted to find out if they discussed the issues for the week of equity of education in regards access and availability. These resources gave me a better understanding of the need for excellence in early care and education because it advocating for the awareness of these issues of affordability and access to children and their families. When I explored the policy and advocacy, the article discusses how policies are being put into place to make sure that children and their families are getting help to afford quality education by including subsidies given for families are financially challenged. The article also goes into detail on the benefits of having quality and affordable child care is beneficial not only to the families as a whole, but on the developing child. The main insight I have gained is the global awareness that nationally accredited groups are making available to the masses to explain the need for advocacy. I love the fact that more and more individuals are trying to aid in the advocacy for children and their families to stay healthy not just physically, but mentally and educationally. The realization is that it takes a village to help nurture and educate the children of society, and we as a society have to join forces to make sure that the equity of education is available, accessible, and affordable to all children and families, regardless of socio-economic status.

Resources:

http://www.nbcdi.org/resources-page/from-nbcdi

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

I have not heard from my resources outside of the U.S. as of yet, but I am still hopeful. I did go to http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/ website to listen to some videos and conversations about educating young children. While I was researching different videos, I found a video that truly struck me as important. The name of the video was Building Adult Capabilities to Improve Child Outcomes:
A Theory of Change.  One insight that I gathered from this was that when thinking of a child and the most important years of learning, which is between birth and 5, if a child misses the proper developmental needs that should be met from parents and caregivers, the brain has the ability to develop flexibility and plasticity to learn skills to the age of 30. It is amazing that even if children do not gain the skills needed due to toxic stressors early in life that they can still learn how to cope and important analytical skills later in life up to the age of 30.  Another insight is the fact that in order to be stable and great role models for children, parents and caregivers have to be able to have the necessary skills to maintain order, how to plan, have executive functioning and self-regulation, as well as being able to work in teams are all essential skills that adults need to have in order to be stable enough to teach and mentor children. When we have those skill sets, we can run a well-regulated home and school environment. What is also so interesting is that the Harvard website understands that in order to be effective in teaching, there needs to be a certain level of commitment by the professionals who educate children. Educators and parents may need coaching, mentoring, and training to be able to execute skills that are necessary to our youth. When it comes to equity and excellence, we as educators are accountable in how we teach children in our care, and we have to make sure that we are fair and uphold the best educational practices.

Resources:

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/