I find that there are three consequences of
learning about the international early childhood field. First, there is the consequence of realizing
accountability that you have as a professional in the Early Childhood field to
keep up with current programs and practices that are being used
internationally. By doing so, the
professional can bring new and fresh ideas that are relevant to the field in
his or her field. Next, I find another
consequence in learning about the early childhood field internationally is
realizing the responsibility we have as professionals to the issues like
poverty, quality in child care, and diversity.
When we can take into account the different backgrounds, the lack of money
parents are working for to provide for his or her children and the type of
educational programming that is being taught an early childcare center. Finally,
there is idea of what it means to be a professional. Being a professional means learning to grow
through knowledge, flexibility, and collaboration with other professional. If I can promote one goal for the Early
Childhood field would be professional development implemented in Early
Childhood programs to collaborate with coworkers. This way, professionals can grow and learn
new ideas to teach children.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
The HECDI and Unifying Goals for Early Childhood
The United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization in conjunction with Bernard van Leer Foundation, Un Kilo de Ayuda (Mexico), Save
the Children, UNICEF, the WFP, the WHO and the World Bank have come up with the
Holistic Early Childhood Developmental Index (HECDI). HECDI was created in December 2010, and
wants to promote a more cohesive approach to monitoring children from prenatal
development to the age of eight. The
goals of the HECDI are to measure the aspects of ECCE policy and programming at a national and subnational level,
legal protection of children, social protection and child welfare, social-emotional
and cognitive development, access and quality of early childhood care and
education, and health/nutrition.
These
are all important factors for the educator in me to see being measured because
it will allow us to provide a more standard form of policy and programming. For
me that is one of the biggest problems I see in the EC field right now. For instance, certain centers are trying to
follow standards while other are not. This
provides a problem for children who are not going to be prepared for
Kindergarten. I would like to see area
centers get on the same page as to what is being taught to Pre-K children so children
could be more on the same page before entering Kindergarten. I also feel it is important to have Pre-K programs
also screen for learning disabilities for children that way Kindergarten
teachers are able to provide interventions the moment the child comes into his
or her classroom.
Resource
Saturday, December 8, 2012
"National Pyjama Day" in Ireland
The links on the Early Childhood Ireland
website take me to several places. One leads
me to the really awesome day of service for Early Childhood is known as Pajama
Day, except in Ireland it is spelled “Pyjama Day”. On Friday, March 23, 2012, children in Early
Childhood centers around Ireland wear “pyjamas” to help raise money for the
specific charity of their choice. To
further expand on this day the website has a link to the Irish Hospice Foundation, which provides children with a terminal illness
a chance to live out his or her final days at home. Children who helped sponsor the
Irish Hospice Foundation, which has only been involved with “Pyjama Day” for
two years, raised €224,337.47 ($289978.61). The
link provided the amount of total Euros that “’Pyjama Day” has raised in its
nine years of existence, which was 1.5 million in Euros. The website also stated that, “In Ireland today it is estimated that 1,400 children are
living with life-limiting illness in Ireland. There are about 350 child deaths
every year – the majority in the first year of life.” (Early Childhood
Ireland, 2012) As a result of the IHF and “Pyjama Day” the IHF
has been able to 5 out of 8 outreach nurses that are needed to provide support
for the families and children suffering with a terminal illness. Donations are still accepted for “Pyjama Day”
six months after the actual service day.
For more information on “Pyjama Day” go to http://www.tv3.ie/3player/show/184/46659/1/ for coverage of “National Pyjama Day”.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Global Children's Initiative
I reviewed the website
about Harvard’s Global Children’s Initiative.
Three big goals of the Global Children’s Initiative are as follows:
1.
Reframe the discourse around child health and
development.
2.
Support innovative, multi-disciplinary research
and demonstration projects.
3.
Build leadership capacity in child development
research and policy.
Through
the three main focuses of early childhood development, child mental health, and
children in crisis and conflict situation, The Global Health Initiative wants
to reframe health care and development by, “educating high-level decision-makers about the underlying
science of learning, behavior, and health, beginning in the earliest years of
life.” Next, supporting research and demonstration projects require, “to expand global understanding of how
healthy development happens, how it can be derailed, and how to get it back on
track.” Finally, there is the need for
leadership in child development and research and policy by, “focused on both
individuals and institutions—in low- and middle-income countries to increase
the number and influence of diverse voices and perspectives that are
contributing to the growing global movement on behalf of young children.”
These needs are great, especially for children in
third-world country, because there is no standard form of early child
development and education. This article
gives reports of the contributions of the Zambian Early Childhood Development
and the Mother Child Initiative from the Turkey Early Childhood Development. The site also features spotlights on faculty
promoting early childhood policy and counties like Brazil trying to implement
new policy on early childhood.
Resource:
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