Final Blog Assignment

Three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field:

1.     It opened by eyes and mind to early childhood education in other parts of the world.  I really enjoyed watching videos of programs throughout the world and what those programs are doing to reach their children.    

2.     It provided me with an abundance of new resources concerning early childhood education throughout the world. 

3.     It also educated me on poverty throughout the world and how poverty in other parts of the world affects the education of their young children. 

My professional goal related to international awareness of issue and trends is to continue to visit these website and stay up to date on this information.  Many times I learn about great resources but I never seem to have the time to go back to these sources.  I want to continue to go back to these resources and gain more information from them. 

Getting To Know The UNESCO Early Childhood Care and Education Webpage

The UNESCO Early Childhood Care and Education website is a great resource for learning about early childhood education internationally.  One of my professional goals includes having helpful resources and this is a helpful resource for early childhood education in other countries.  Another one of my professional goals includes always being able to reflect on my teaching and experiences so that I can learn and grow from them.  On this website they have a section labeled Policy Reviews.  “The aim of ECCE policy reviews is to provide countries with an opportunity to review their early childhood policies, to highlight good practices and challenges and to identify concrete measures to improve their policies” (UNESCO, 2014).  I liked how they are encourages countries to do their own reflecting to improve their policies. 

This website also contained great videos that allowed you to look inside a few other early childhood programs around the world.  These videos are interesting because you can actually see what is available and what is not available in other countries. You can also see the great work they are accomplishing in other countries.  Watching the video about the early childhood program in Northern Kenya reminded me of how privileged we are here in the United States.  We need to be reminded that we do have a lot to be thankful for and that we are doing some really great things.  Then we can focus on continuing to improve the areas that need improvement.  I also enjoyed looking at the News section and reading about different information concerning early childhood education around the world.   

Reference

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2014).  Early Childhood Care and Education.  Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/

Sharing Web Resources

This week I explored an outside link that lead me to learn more about Harlem Children’s Zone.  Harlem Children’s Zone is doing some amazing things for children and families.  Their main goal is to give children the individual support they need to get to and through college and become productive, self-sustaining adults.  They do this by supporting the children and the families.  They have a pipeline of education that children go through.  “Our pipeline begins at birth and helps kids every step of the way until college graduation through exceptional education, social services, family support, health, and community-building programs” (Harlem Children’s Zone, 2014).

The first program they have is called Baby College and it is available so that from the time of birth babies can be immersed in a healthy and supportive environment.  “The Baby College gives expectant parents and parents of children ages 0-3 a strong understanding of child development and the skills to raise happy, healthy babies” (Harlem Children’s Zone, 2014).  To continue the parenting skills training from Baby College the Harlem Children’s Zone created the Three-Year-Old Journey Program.  “This 18-week program meets on Saturday mornings at a local public school. Parents participate in workshops, where they discuss discipline, developmental milestones, and age-appropriate activities to foster early literacy. Meanwhile, their three-year-olds play together in small and large groups under the guidance of trained staff, learning socialization skills and having fun singing, doing arts and crafts, and listening to stories” (Harlem Children’s Zone, 2014).  

Their pre-kindergarten program is called the Harlem Gems.  “Harlem Gems is the final step in our early childhood pipeline.  A top-notch, year-round, full-day pre-kindergarten program, Gems works with 240 children across four sites to ensure that each and every one enters kindergarten school-ready.  With five staff in each classroom, classes have a 4:1 child-to-adult ratio, allowing for more one-on-one work and ensuring that students receive the individualized attention they need.  Gems staff also encourage strong family involvement, engaging parents and caregivers in classroom activities and creating consistency between home and school” (Harlem Children’s Zone, 2014).  They continue to have programs all the way through college.  

It was amazing to read about and watch video on all the wonderful things this organization is doing for children, families and the Harlem community.  There is no way I could write in here all that they are doing.  You definitely should check out their website http://hcz.org/.

Reference

Harlem Children’s Zone (2014).  Retrieved from http://hcz.org/.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts - Part 2

This week I explored Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website.  I found the early childhood development project that they were doing in Zambia very interesting.  In Zambia there was an initiative to determine the effect of early childhood environment, health and education on children’s development.  For this project they created an assessment tool specifically for Zambia called the Zambian Child Assessment Tool (ZamCAT).  This tool was created to assess preschool aged children in a variety of domains.  Some of the domains were fine motor, language development, nonverbal reasoning, information processing, executive functioning, socio-emotional development, and task orientation.  I found this assessment interesting because many of the domains were the exact same domains we look at here in the United States but some of them were different.  One test that was interesting was the test for executive functioning: delayed gratification.  “For the ZamCAT delayed gratification task, the assessor offers the child a piece of candy and promises that, if the child waits to eat it until the assessor finishes speaking with the parent (typically 20- 30 minutes), then the child will get a second candy. The children are told that they can eat the candy right away, but if they decide to do so, they will not get a second piece of candy” (Center on the Developing Child, 2014).  This test is done because “children who are about to enter school need to be able to control impulses—they must pay attention in class, do their homework, and avoid disruptive behavior. Delayed gratification has been linked to current and future socio-emotional and cognitive development” (Center on the Developing Child, 2014).  Through this assessment process they are striving to increase the equity and excellence in their early childhood education.   

Another project I found interesting was “A Good Start” project in Santiago, Chile.  In this project they are helping to improve early childhood education through teacher professional development.  Their goal is to improve the quality of educational offerings for four to six year olds, particularly in the area of language development.  They hope to help improve school attendance, socio-emotional development and get children’s families involved in their education.  I found these goals and hopes interesting because they are some of the very goals we continue to work on at my school.  They too are trying to reach excellence for their students.  Another interesting resource on this site was there were many videos available that had been translated into Spanish and Portuguese. What a great resource available for families and teachers speaking these languages.    

Reference

Center on the Developing Child.  Harvard University (2014). Global Children’s Initiative.  Retrieved from

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/