Week 8 Final Blog

Through this course I have learned so much. The consequences from learning about issues and trends in other countries are beneficial to my studies. Connecting with teachers and other early childhood professionals is a great resource to find out some of their ways of teaching and how they solve the problems in their country. Learning about the struggles in South Africa was really heart breaking. Children that want to learn cannot because they have to take care of their younger siblings or work because there isn’t enough money for them to provide for their families. Together working with other professionals locally and globally we can work together to better the children through communication. I enjoyed learning about how other early childhood programs work. Through communication we can discuss ideas on how to make programs and curriculum work. Throughout this course I had a chance to meet great classmates and other professionals. I wish everybody good luck through the rest of your journey.

International Contacts Part 3

While exploring the site UNESCO, we seem to share a lot of views. I looked into their quality tab. I believe the same as they do as far as high quality childcare for children from disadvantage backgrounds. The UNESCO believes that high quality childcare promotes motivation, confidence, good cognitive and linguistic development and school readiness (www.unesco.org); which are characteristics I feel will make a high quality childcare. I looked deeper in the section for Africa, and how they determine a high quality teacher. I listened to their staff interview on the website. I have copied the url so that you can listen in as well.   The website is http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qWdZm7KhvVw. In Africa, they celebrated their world teachers’ day and that is when they set up interviews for teachers. This website is incredible and full of information. I plan on being the best child advocate I can be and to educate other teachers so they can reach their goals.

 

Sharing Web Resources Week 6

The website I chose to explore more is http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc. It provides so much information about the function of head start programs. However due to the government shutdown there were some areas that were not updated. I explored the tab titled school readiness and the first thing that caught my eye was the title Raising Quality in Head Start. I researched the Use of Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) in Head Start. It provides a list of frequently asked questions and the use and importance of the assessment system. As I continued to look through the website there are a lot of useful and resourceful information for professionals in the early childhood field to gain more knowledge.

Reference

http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/

Getting To Know Your International Connections Part 2

I explored http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative for this week’s blog. I only focused on three new ideas/ insights that I gained about early childhood systems around the globe.

For example, according to Global Children’s Initiative they view healthy child development as the foundation of economic prosperity, strong communities, and a just society, and our mission is to advance that vision by using science to enhance child well-being through innovations in policy and practices. The Global Children’s Initiative is focused on three strategic objectives:

 To reframe public discourse about the early childhood period by educating high-level decision-makers about the common underlying science of learning, behavior, and health;

 To support innovative, multidisciplinary research and demonstration projects in selected countries or regions to expand global understanding of how healthy development happens, how it can be derailed, and how to get it back on track; and

 To build leadership capacity in child development research and policy among individuals and institutions in low- and middle-income countries in order to increase the number and influence of diverse

perspectives that are contributing to the global movement on behalf of young children.  

As an advocate of early childhood and children everywhere, it is great to see that universities and countries across the world are doing their part in trying to ensure the overall healthy development both physical and mental as well as the well-being and safety of children so that they can grow into productive adults.

Reference

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