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.