Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

After exploring the site thoroughly there were many insightful ideas internationally as it related to  early childhood education and my professional goals, starting with the UNESCO which is expected to implement a stronger and better targeted strategy to build peace, eradicate poverty, and achieve inclusive sustainable development by improving the quality, equity and relevance of education.(UNESCO 2009-2014), by eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality. The UNESCO are making strides to expand learning opportunities particular for girls and woman, which I believe as an early childhood professional is an goal to achieve, girls and woman around the world deserve to have access to quality education. What a joy it is to know that there are others around the world that have the same interested in bettering the lives of young girls and woman. Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality. Gender-based discrimination in education has both cause and sequentially will continue to cause poverty. Given the opportunity for girls and woman to advance academically allows everyone around the world to raise out of poverty. Gender must therefore be integrated at all levels of education, from early childhood to higher education, in formal and non-formal settings and from planning infrastructure to training teachers. Countries often promote alternative services for poor children with limited or no access to mainstream early childhood services which can be cost-effective and pedagogically innovative, but often raise concerns about sustainability and quality, this information I find every insightful, how countries believe that because it is cost-effective it is efficient, if these children are not exposed to high quality education how will they come out of the poverty in which they were born into.  

 

Reference:

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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While searching outside links I was lead to an article titled " Report: U.S. should focus on equity in education" which suggests that  Identifying and publicly reporting the teaching staff, programs and services needed to provide a meaningful educational opportunity to all students of every race and income level, including English-language learners and students with disabilities, based on evidence of effective education practices. Adopt and implement a school finance system that will provide equitable and sufficient funding for all students to achieve state content and performance standards.To ensure meaningful and fair evaluations, evidence of student learning should not rely solely on standardized tests. 

This newsletter contains several pieces of important information. And adds to my understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education, for example  Equitable resources may in some cases mean more than equal investment; as is often the case in other advanced nations, it includes the provision of additional resources to address the academic and other needs of low-income students, students with disabilities and English language learners, and for districts and schools serving large concentrations of low-income students and those in remote areas. 

Reference
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/19/report-u-s-should-focus-on-equity-in-education/

Getting to Know Your International Contact

While exploring the Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website the new ideas and insight I gained about early childhood system around the globe is that as much as we find early childhood education to be vital in the development for children many around the world are believing it to be true as well. Canada has developed a program that nurtures and protects early brain development in the first 1000 days of child’s life. Seeking to improve outcomes for children living in poverty. The program brings together mentors and experts in the fields of early childhood development, innovation systems, and learning communities.

Brazil is taking great strides to ensure that their young learners have life-long success. The NCPI Program is preparing leaders to leverage the science of healthy development in the design and implementation of innovative policies and programs that reduce preventable disparities and promote greater well-being for all Brazilian children and is Building a Brazilian scientific community around early childhood development. NCPI is committed to Building a unified science of child development to explain the early roots of lifelong health, learning, and behavior in Brazil.

Additional information about issues of equity and excellence I acquired from your international sources, is what we do or don't do as individuals, educators, and collectively as society can impede a child's success in learning. These national organizations call for schooling to place greater emphasis on: Active, hands-on learning Conceptual learning that leads to understanding along with acquisition of basic skill Meaningful, relevant learning experiences Interactive teaching and cooperative learning, A broad range of relevant content, integrated across traditional subject matter divisions At the same time, these national organizations unanimously criticize rote memorization, drill and practice on isolated academic skills, teacher lecture, and repetitive seatwork (S. Bredekamp, R.A. Knuth, L.G. Kunesh, and D.D. Shulman 1992) .

Reference:

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

http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/teaching/eecd/Curriculum/Planning/edudev_art_00421_081806.html

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While reading Financial Solutions for Sending and Keeping Children in School, I realized that it is relevant to my current professional development because it represents a sustained vision for the early childhood field and more specifically for the programs that prepare children for future success. The Article speaks about strategies to bring targeted financial services into the field of education. Opportunity international's goal is to impact the education of 2 million children in marginalized countries. The organization offers school improvement loans which made me think, if the organization is offering school loans to low-quality schools in order to improve the quality of education, how the school will pay back the money. The insight I gained is that the Early Childhood Education is a major issue in other countries and it sounds as though organizations are going to making major investments in Early Childhood Education. When understanding how economists, neurosciences, or politicians support the early childhood field the information I gather was that this organization does realize that it takes resources to fund such a huge project and use several unique strategies to fund and preserve funding.   New insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field I gained from exploring the website or e-newsletter, is that poverty and low quality education go hand in hand if we can invest in developing better quality schools, give our children an opportunity to rise against poverty.

Reference

http://issuu.com/opportunity/docs/financial-solutions-for-sending-and_0b7928fa2f90f8

Getting to Know international contacts

Bangui, Central Africa Republic

 

 

Is an area where one child out of five dies before reaching the age of five. Children's health and education is often neglected because families are forced to work long hours looking for diamonds. Bangui has the lowest school enrollment rate, while food prices continue to rise. Basic need and this poor children are suffering, often going without eating for more than 24 hours. After researching Bangui a little further I found out that there is a great amount of violence there, mainly children being targeted, due families faith. 





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American School Board Journal: http://www.asbj.com/TopicsArchive/ImmigrationandDiversity/Promoting-Diversity-in-Your-Schools.html

Title of Article Promoting Diversity in your School

This article caught my eye because all week we have been focusing on the importance of diversity and demographics. This article talks about what diversity is and why It should be promoted in our school. The articles definition of Diversity is a multidimensional, broadly inclusive concept that acknowledges and embraces the richness of human differences. It is vital that a school board define diversity with sufficient clarity, given the inherent ambiguity of the term and the frequently ill-informed debates that surround it.  Community involvement is key in this article stating "No serious discussion of diversity in our public schools can or should take place without community involvement. Practices at the school complement and reinforce the policy through curricular and extracurricular offerings and student services that acknowledge and celebrate student differences. steps to ensure that it is legally sustainable:

• Connect the use of race to educational goals, not just district demographics (which could result in an impermissible quota system).
• Review social science research that examines the interplay between racial diversity and academic achievement or other educational benefits, and apply that research to the district’s context.
• Clearly articulate how and when race is employed to assign students. Avoid using blunt categories that ignore important racial and ethnic nuances within a student population, reflecting “a limited notion of diversity” (e.g., “white” and “nonwhite”).
• Ensure the use of race or ethnicity in student assignment is necessary to realize a discernable effect on student assignment.
• Consider and, where appropriate, try race-neutral alternatives first

My Support

Factors within my daily environment that are supportive to me are my friends and family they provide support in my daily environment by being great cheerleaders in providing me with guidance as well, when it is needed. If my family and friends were not a part of my life I don't think I would not be the person I am today. Factors within my work environment that are supportive to me, is that my work environment is transparent with open communication. I feel that at work my feelings are valued, and we have a give and take system, we work as a team to get goals and tasks accomplished with strong team spirit, we praise each other for a good job and well done. I also find a great amount of support in my local church, my fellow church member encourage me to live out my purpose and to live according to my faith. 

A challenge that comes to mind when I think of support, is feeling like you have to live up to your supporters expectations and feeling as if you are a failure when those expectation are not meet. The benefits to having supports makes you feel as if someone is in your corner, providing praise and recognition for goals or tasks you have accomplished. If my supporters were not apart of my life I do not think I would have made it thus far. There has been time when I felt like giving up, and not finishing something I have started it was my supporters who encouraged me to with stand the course and continue on.