Week 8 - Final Blog Assignment

During the past 8 weeks, I’ve learned a lot from my classmates whom have been in the field of early childhood education; however I can say I learned the most from reading about and discussing issues and trends that are happening in other countries besides the United States. Although I never made contact with any of my international contacts, reading about different issues has opened my eyes on many different levels. These weekly readings have increased my knowledge, changed my mind on different beliefs, and have molded me to be a better educator in the future.  Having this knowledge will help me to pay closer attention to a child and their families to see if they need help, with not only in the education area, but perhaps with household situations, such as having comfort because they may have cultural differences, language barriers or needing help providing necessities. I have also learned that what I may see or hear in the United States has become an even bigger issue in other countries.

My overall goal in regards to international awareness is to be more of an advocate for these families, regardless of cultural background. I believe that we all can use someone to lean on every now and then, and I do not mind being that person. Although I cannot speak other languages fluently, I would not mind being able to see that the family gets the proper help from someone who does. Coming into this field of study, I had a passion to help and I plan on seeing that plan through to the end.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts - Part 3

Still haven’t heard anything from my international contacts as of yet, I decided to do the alternative blog assignment this week. In doing so, I visited UNESCO’s Early Childhood Care and Education webpage. UNESCO advocates for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programs that attend to health, nutrition, security and learning and which provide for children’s holistic development. It organized the first World Conference on ECCE in September 2010, which culminated in the adoption of a global action agenda for ECCE called Moscow Framework for Action and Cooperation: Harnessing the Wealth of Nations (UNESCO, 2012).

UNESCO focuses on High quality childcare, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, promotes motivation, confidence, good cognitive and linguistic development and school readiness (UNESCO, 2012). Because there are no universally agreed criteria for quantifying ECCE quality, the useful factors to consider include pedagogy materials, personnel training, service setting and parental education and involvement. Learning materials should be quantitatively, culturally and developmentally adequate and focus on child-centered interaction.

Where government resources are limited, the last year of pre primary education is frequently placed in a formal school setting or there may be efforts to lower the entry age. This is particularly daunting in developing countries, where early childhood may be overshadowed by other pressing priorities, such as universal primary education.  Governments, if they deal with the issue at all, often approach early childhood from the context of national social policy or health services. They must also use complementary financing measures to ensure equity of access for poor and disadvantaged children, as a pure market approach to increasing the level of early childhood provision has been shown to favor the privileged, who can afford the service.

Of all the websites I have visited in the past, this website has to be the most interesting of them all. It gives a good summary of background information on the most important matters, such as Quality and Investment and Financing. Reading such websites as this one, furthers gives me the push I need to succeed in this field of early childhood education.

Resource:

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2012) Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/

Sharing Web Resources

For this week’s assignment on the National Institute for Early Education Research, NIEER, I decided to explore the economics and finance tab of the website, since this has been the majority topic this week. On that tab, there is an article titled, Investing in Early Childhood Education: A Global Perspective. NIEER Director Steve Barnett presented the key note address at an international conference on “Early Childhood: Secure Childhood. Promising Future” at Princess Nora University in Riyadh, Saud Arabia. Interestingly, the article talks about Public investments in high-quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) can yield high economic rates of return. In contexts where child care needs are already met for most parents through other private or public options, the primary advantage of new public investments will be from improvements in child development. Even where there are substantial benefits from increased parental employment, policy makers should give strong consideration to the potential benefits to children (NIEER, 2012). 

On NIEER’s website, the most recent informational post was called Panel favors pre-K overhaul written by Will Sentell of the Capital News Bureau on December 7, 2012. The article touches on an issue that hits close to home. The article covers the situation with Louisiana’s top school board and its approval of plans to overhaul the state’s often-criticized pre-kindergarten system. The issue sparked mostly positive comments from child-care leaders, and was backed by a committee of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education without opposition.

From this approval, the plan that won approval is aimed at revamping what critics call a pre-K system that features uneven quality, standards and availability. The state will establish early learning performance guidelines for those from zero to age 3 and academic standards for 3- and 4-year-olds. Pre-K centers and schools will get letter grades, and state aid will be linked to how the centers perform. The pilot projects are set for the 2013-14 school year (NIEER, 2012).

Although I signed up for the e-newsletter, I still have yet to receive anything from the site. I would love to see what new information the site has to offer, however I still have not received anything. I may have to re-sign up for it to see if that helps.

Resources

National Institute for Early Education Research. (2012). Investing in Early Childhood Education: A Global Perspective. Retrieved from http://www.nieer.org/sites/nieer/files/InvestinginEarlyChildhoodEduationGlobalPerspective.pdf

Sentell, W. (2012). Panel favors pre-K overhaul. The Advocate - Capital News Bureau. Retrieved from http://theadvocate.com/home/4599940-125/panel-favors-pre-k-overhaul