Final Blog Assignment

Over the past 8 weeks I have learned the following in regards to international early childhood.  No matter where you come from we all are experience the same issues.  Poverty is an issue that we all face whenever we work with children and families.  By having the connections and resources in the international aspect I am able to better understand diversity and being able to communicate with others.

One of my goals is to continue to learn more about the early childhood field internationally so that I can open my mind and communicate about diveristy and equality in the field. 

International Contacts - Part 3

Since I have not heard from my international contacts I have been doing the alternative assignment.  I visited the following website http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/. 

This website contains information in the early childhood field.  I took away these three important facts.

1. The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization holds world conferences.  There next conference will the be the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development. It will be held in November 2014 in Japan.  It would be interesting to attend a conference where educators and policy makers from all over the world gather to meet. 
2. They have case studies on many different countries that include Brazil, New Zealand, Slovenia, Sweden and Jamaica  (published in 2010).  It is always good to read about what is going on in different countries in the field of early childhood education. 
3. There are many policy briefs inregards to many different topics.  One of the concerns I had is that many of the briefs were from 2004 or older.  It makes me wonder what their focus is now to their organization. 

Sharing Web Resources

From the PreKNOW website I was taken to the website www.ffyf.org.  This website is the First Five Years Fund.  It is a website that I have never been to before so I was kind of excited to explore.  The article that I looked at was about a letter of support from 500+ state legislatures urging the congressional budget committee to invest in early learning.  This article was mention in the article from the PreKNOW website. 

Becuase I was not familiar with them I decided to look at their mission statement about who they are:

Our mission is to create a smarter, stronger, healthier, and more productive America through early childhood education for disadvantaged children. Study after study by developmental specialists, neuroscientists, physicians, economists, and social scientists show that early childhood education is one of the most effective investments Americans can make in their children and their economic future.
The First Five Years Fund is committed to moving this knowledge into wide scale practice through comprehensive, quality early childhood education systems, programs, and supports. Through knowledge, data, advocacy, and collaboration, we help elected officials, business leaders, and philanthropists see early childhood education as a solution for dramatically improving education, health, social, and economic outcomes—in the short- and long-term. We help them understand how to craft policies, leverage existing funding, add new revenue, develop programs, and incentivize the most efficient and effective ways to invest in the development of America’s greatest resource—its children.

International Contacts Part 2

I reviewed the website http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/,

Havard has many different activities going on in regards to the developing child.  They have a National Scientific Council on the Developing Child and a National Forum on early Childhood Policy and Programs that caught my attention when browsing through the website.  Both of them out publications that can reviewed. 

I also liked the information on Toxic Stress.  This is helpful to use both in the classroom and in the home.  The information should be shared with families especially first time parents that may not have the knowledge or experience with young children. 

THe Ecology of Innovation was also a new way for me to look at the Early Childhood field.  It is a good visual for understanding the policy and practice of the ECE field. 

Sharing Web Resources

Information from www.pewstates.org

I found a research paper Early Childhood Home Visiting.  This was is something I am going to need to use as our program continues to have funds cut and costs increase we are going to need to be able to look at different options while still providing some type of early childhood services in our rural communities.  Home Visiting is an option that we have looked into and may possibly be moving to during the next school year. 

http://www.pewstates.org/research/reports/solving-social-ills-through-early-childhood-home-visiting-85899444614

This website has a ton of information that would help anyone wanting to write grants.  I like how you can click on a state and you can find relavant articles and information on specific states.  As I continue to explore this website I feel that it has changed over the years from when it use to be PreKNOW. 

I feel that this website no longer focuses on the early childhood field.  They have information on ECE but there focus is not on ECE.  Home Visiting is one of there current campaigns.  One of the issues though is that not all families are able to participate in a home visiting program.  I have signed up for their newsletters and have not received any newsletters from there and I cannot find an archive of their newsletters. 

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

I was not able to get a response back from my international contacts this week so I reviewed the Childhood Poverty Research Policy Centre (http://www.childhoodpoverty.org). 

One interesting thing I found in going through the website is that they only have information or a focus on China, India, Kurgyzstan and Mongolia.  I wonder they these four countries and how they were choosen. 

This thought really made me think about what we are doing here in the United States:  Achieving positive policy change for poor children therefore means action at local, national and international levels.  What are we doing here in the United States to change?

This stat stood out for me:  121 million school aged children in developing countries do not not attend school at all while one third do not complete four years of primary education, the minimum needed for basic numeracy and literacy.  WOW!  How can we go about change? What does this look like in your state? 

Sharing Web Resources

PreK Now or otherwise known as Pew Charitable Trusts is the organization I will be focusing on.  Their website is http://www.pewstates.org/. 

There mission statement is:

The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life.
We are an independent nonprofit organization – the sole beneficiary of seven individual trusts established between 1948 and 1979 by two sons and two daughters of Sun Oil Company founder Joseph N. Pew and his wife, Mary Anderson Pew. From its first day in 1948, Pew’s founders steeped the new institution with the entrepreneurial and optimistic spirit that characterized their lives. Early priorities included health care and biomedical research, the Red Cross and a pioneering project to assist historically black colleges.
As the country and the world have evolved, we have remained dedicated to our founders’ emphasis on innovation. Today, Pew is a global research and public policy organization, still operated as an independent, non-partisan, non-governmental organization dedicated to serving the public. Informed by the founders’ interest in research, practical knowledge and a robust democracy, our portfolio has grown over time to include public opinion research as well as environmental, health, state and consumer policy initiatives.
Our projects lay the foundation for effective policy solutions by informing and engaging citizens, linking diverse interests to pursue common cause and insisting on tangible results. As part of that mission, we provide nonpartisan reporting and research, advocacy, and technical assistance to help states deliver better results and achieve long-term fiscal health by investing in programs that provide the strongest returns.
We bring policy makers and experts together to develop solutions that are driven by facts, and conduct reporting and in-depth research across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, using evidence to determine which policies work and which do not. When the facts are clear, we and our partners advocate for practical reforms in areas such as elections, corrections, children’s dental health, and voluntary home-based programs for new and expectant families. We also conduct research and advocate for policy solutions at the local and national level, including ways to provide consumers with better information about financial products.

What I find interesting is that PreKNOW has changed it's focus over the years.  It finished it's ten year project in 2011 (everything is now archived).   The Pew Organzation still has a lot of research on how different things can impact the families we serve. 

Establishing Contacts

I contacted the OMPE Philippines National Committee and the UNICEF contact in the Philippines.

I have not heard back from them but hopefully will hear back from them in the next week.  I chose the Philippines because I am Filipino and want to learn more about how the country understands and works within the early childhood field.  

The list of resources that were given to us is a list of websites and newsletters that I use a lot in my job.  I use the NACCRRA, Zero to Three, NIEER, NAEYC, PreKNow, NHSA, Children's Defense Fund and SRCD websites weekly if not daily. 

For this class I am going to focus on Pre[K]Now: A Campaign of the Pew Center on the States.  I am choosing this one because of the focus and talk on Pre K nationwide and statewide in Alaska.

When I think of Child Development

 

These three images really help me to understand child development.  I think that it is important that we understand that each child learns at different rates,  it is also imporant for us to realize that children's lives outside of school varies and we never know the outside influences they may be experimenting.  We also need to ensure that we involve children as much as possible. 

 

 

Thank you to all my collegues throughout this class in our discussions and blog posts.  I wish you all continued success on your educational journey.  

Testing for Intelligence

When looking at assessing children I think  we need to look at how developmentally appropriate and culturally appropriate the assessment is.   When thinking about the assessments we need to ask ourselves does this assessment look at the "whole child" or is it just a part of the child. 

From an administrative view I think that it is imporant for programs to have data so that programs can apply for funding (and additional funding) to support their programs. 

I feel that if children are going to be assessed that they need to be assessed in all areas - social-emotional, physical - fine and gross motor, language, cognitive, literacy and mathematics.  It is important that we understand how children are as a whole and not just a part of them. 

In Alaska some of the pre kindergarten programs and grants have a lot of different assessments required for these programs.  One of the school districts requires a pre and a post Early Screening Profile test, a pre and a post PPVT test and Teaching Strategies GOLD three times a year.  That is A LOT of assessing/screening on three and four year old children.  This same school district also does the same assessments on their kindergarten students. 

I think that it is important for parents to understand what type of program they are enrolling their child into and that they understand they types of assessments that are being done on their children and that the information is shared with them. 

Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

When I think about my daughter who is three I look at the list of the stressors and I hope that she never faces many of these stressors in her life time.  One stressor that I know of that impacts her is noise.  She does not like high pitched noises like a lawn mower, a leaf blower, a blender, hammering etc.  When she hears these things she looks around and covers her ears.  Sometimes she will run to another room to get away from the "noise".  When she does this my husband or I will go and and talk to her about the noise.  We typically try and show her what is producing that noise so that she will become familiar with it and not be scared of the noises.  We have even had her hearing check to try and understand why certain noises impact her. 

 

When I look at the list of stresses that a child may have in their life I see this list in many of the children we serve in our program and the way children cope with themselves varies.  When I look at this list I see children experiencing more than one of these things in their lives and they are all under the age of five.  The children we serve are facing poverty, racism, isolation, hunger, chaos and violence.  When I think about Rural Alaska I feel that many of these stressors are prevalant in our communities.  How do we get families out of poverty?  Poverty leads to hunger, isolation and violence.  I feel thataction of violence is typically the end of the line for many.  When I see children that are hungry we see them acting out, eating a lot at school and withdrawn. This then effects their behavior, attendance at school, how they learn and retain that information.  I think that there are many programs in our region to help with the effects of the stressors.  In the region I live in I see a lot of programs like our free and reduced lunch program, attendance and drop out programs, wellness programs etc.  

Child Development and Public Health

Breastfeeding is a topic of interest for me.  I have two children and I breastfed my daughter exclusively for 14 months and my son is 6 months old and he has only been breastfed.  Before I had children I was working in a Head Start program and I was probably the only worker there that did not have children.  I found it interesting that many of my co workers did not breastfeed their children.  I also found this intersting because many of my co workers live in poverty and would rather go buy formula than breastfeed their baby.  I believe that this is due to the lack of information/knowledge and resources that is given to them in the hospital.  Living in rural Alaska women fly out of their communities and into a central hub.  They wait (away from their home and families), deliver the baby and are sent home on a plane within three days of delivery.  When they get home there is a lack of medical services (In our rural communities there is not a doctor or a nurse.  Most communities have an entry level health aide.) let alone a laction consultant in the community. 

For many parents of the world and even in some parts of the United States there is a lack of food, formula is expensive and water is an issue (lack of water or not clean water).  Breastfeeding children could make a difference for the child and families.  It is a natural resource of food for families and could relieve some of the stressors that some families have. 

For my work with our families at our program we are already sharing this information on breastfeeding.  The benefits of breast feeding for both the baby, mother and family (especially if there are money concerns within the family).  When we were developing and designing our infant toddler classrooms we created spaces for mothers to come in and nurse their babies.  We also make sure to inform parents of this area when doing enrollment and giving tours of our centers. 

Benefits for Baby & Mother

• Lower incidence of certain viruses
• Lower incidence of respiratory illness
• Reduction in ear infections, meningitis
• National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences found that breastfed children have a 20 percent lower risk of dying between the ages of 28 days and 1 year
• The immune factors in breast milk guard against invading germs and result in a natural buildup in babies of protections against many forms of illness
• Breastfeeding may protect babies from developing allergies
• Research has demonstrated a connection between breastfeeding and cognitive development (greater intelligence)
• Recent studies show a strong link between breastfeeding and a lower incidence of obesity as a teen or adult.
• The longer women breastfeed, the greater the mother’s protection against breast and ovarian cancers.

http://www.voices.org/issues/childrens-health/call-to-action-on-breastfeeding/?gclid=CPnZjtD4xLkCFYZ_QgodD3EADQ

Childbirth

Childbirth is a unique experience to each and every person.  I have been privelaged to given birth to two children.  My daughter was born in 2009 and my son was born in March 2013.  Each was unique in their own way but also similar.  I had a lot of prenatal appointments with both my children.  These appointments included measurement of the baby, fetal non stress tests, blood pressure checks on myself and the doctor just getting to know me.  I remember waiting in anticpation for the arrival of our daughter. I also did not want anyone in the room with me except for my husband.  For me being in labor and giving birth to our daughter was very easy.  I even remember saying that was it? I could do that again.  The nurse looked at me and said most people don't say that.  I remember when the nurse handed my daughter over to us I felt happy, relieved that she was healthy and couldn't believe how tiny she was. 

I chose this example because it is what I know.  I also believe that it is important to share positive brith stories.  Too many times I hear of horror stories and it scares people and gives people a negative attitude when they go into delivery.  It was important to me that I welcomed our daughter into a postive enviornment. 

I feel that if families/parents are stressed the child is going to pick up on that.  I believe that the stress impacts the child developing properly.  When stress is involved I feel that children will develop more slowly and will not thrive like they should. 

I looked up information on the Netherlands.  I found it interesting that pregnant moms do not see an obstetrician and instead use a a midwife.  The moms decide whether they will have a home or hospital delivery. If you do opt for a hospital birth you will unlikely get an epidural due to the anesthesiologist's schedule. I also found it intersting that a baby may go home in as little as two hours A nurse will come to the house for seven days and it is know at maternity home care (kraamhulp).  I found this interesting because with my son I stayed in the hospital for three days after delivery and I felt like the doctors were not in a rush to send me home either. 

What would be interesting is to compare how different states in the United States deal with child birth.  I know that in Alaska it is very different than Washington State. 

36 Weeks Pregnant

Continue to Strive Towards your Goals and Dreams

Thank you all for coming to visit this blog over the past eight weeks.  My wish for you the reader is that you continue to strive towards your goals and dreams.  Continue to stay up to date and research the early childhood field.  Share that knowledge and your passion for the field. 

Carlos - Thank you for your feedback and discussions over the past eight weeks. May you continue to learn, advocate and share your knowledge.  My hope for you is that you continue on your path to your Master's degree. http://raynard02.blogspot.com/

Regina - A quote from your blog - May you continue to stumble, rise and soar.  I can really relate to this quote during my career and educational path in the early childhood field.  Thank you for discussion posts over the past eights and I hope you continue to soar.    http://tiny2giantsteps.wordpress.com/

Codes of Ethics

I chose these three ideals from the NAEYC's Code of Ethical Conduct and Statement of Commitment.   These three are important for me because I feel that they will help guide early childhood educators in running successful early childhood programs.  In order to provide quality services we need to ensure that we are looking at all aspects of who will interact with that child.  We need to be able to work with each child without any glasses on.  The families are an important piece when working with children that I feel some programs lack.  We also need to ensure that we are sharing resources whether it is partnering with another classroom, a community partner like a child care facility or your local school district.  If you work to have your program obtain these ideals you will run a successful early childhood program.  What is one of your ideals you like?

 

I-1.3 - To recognize and respect the unique qualities, abilities and the potential of each child. 

 

I - 2.4 - To listen to families, acknowledge and build upon their strengths and competencies, and learn from families as we support them in their task of nurturing children. 

 

I -3A.2 - To share resources with co-workers, collaborating to ensure that the best possible early childhood care and education program is provided. 

 

http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PSETH05.pdf

Early Childhood Resources

There are many different resources available to us in the Early Childhood field.  I have added a new section to the right of just a few of the resources that I have found helpful during my work.  Check back often as I will continue to add to the list. 

These are three additional resources that I use in my daily work:

• http://www.bestbeginningsalaska.org/ - Has some GREAT resources for families (and teachers too).  Includes early learning guidelines, early learning guideline activities and activities for childrens book (see tab imaginiation library).
• http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc - This is the Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center from the Office of Head Start.  It has been tools for early childhood programs.  There are also six National Centers that you can access from their website (see tab Training and Technical Assistance). 
• http://www.sesamestreet.org/parents/topicsandactivities/toolkits - Great tool kits for parents on many different topics.  My current program that I work for has used the toolkits to hold parent education nights on different topics.  The materials also are very child friendly. 

If you have more resources that you think I should add to my list please leave a comment with the link and I will check it out. 

Inspiration and Motivation

Parents don't make mistakes because they don't care, but because they care so deeply.  

T. Berry Brazelton

It is a good rule to face difficulties at the time they arise and not allow them to increase unacknowledged.  

Edward W. Ziegler

We as professionals in the early childhood field have an opportunity to shape a child's life for the better.  

Sandy Escobido

"One of the biggest lessons Head Start has taught us is how important it is to involve family members."

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' remarks on opening the 1st National Birth to Five Leadership Institute

(Oct 2011), Washington, DC.

Personal Childhood Web

There are many people that have come into my life over there years.  When I think back to my childhood there are people that come to mind that continue to impact my life today with the impressions they made on me when I was younger. 

My Parents - My Mom and Dad have always been there for me and continue to be there for me today. They always wanted me to have a better life for myself then they did growing up. Not only did they provide for me but they taught me life lessons like setting a goal and being able to obtain that goal. They taught me that nothing comes for free and that if you want something you have to work for it. My parents have also instilled in me how to be the best parent I can be to my own children.

• My Uncle and Aunt - My Uncle Nick and Aunt Dee have always been a part of my life as far back as I can remember.  They always were there to support me growing up while attending my activities like my t-ball games and dance recitals.  They were also the ones that would take care of my brother and I if my parents went out of town.  They nurtured and provided for us.  The impact they made on my childhood still impacts me today.  I want my own children to know they have people in their lives that will support them and take care of them. 

 

• My Grandmother - Lola was always there for me growing up.  When my brother or I got sick she would come and take care of us so my parents could go to work.  She loved cooking for us and introducing us to our culture.  She also allowed me to explore the outdoors and develop skills for surviving off of the land.  I love being able to share cooking expriences with my daughter.  I also like teaching my daughter and son different aspects of our culture that my own Lola taught to me. 

Personalizing

This is a picture of myself and my family from May 2013.  

My husband is holding our brand new baby boy (born in March 2013) and our daughter is three years old. 

This drawing was done by my three year old daughter.  She drew this picture while I was working in my office.  She showed it to me told me a story of what she had drawn.  It still amazes me how children can go from drawing scribbles to all of sudden going to drawing objects that now look like something.  She was very proud of herself when she drew the "people". 

 

I have many favorite children's books that I enjoy reading. Right now it is Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. This book brings back memories from my own childhood but it now also one of my daughter's favorite books. We love to read this book together. I love that it is teaching her rhyming and the lesson of trying new things before saying you do not like it. 

 

 

I have been going back to this quote over the past year in both my personal and professional life.  It's just a nice reminder for me that I need to keep looking forward...

 

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.

~Author Unknown