Consequences and Goals of Early Childhood International Awareness- Week 8 post

Spending time these past 8 weeks learning about the international early childhood world has been so enlightening for me.  I really feel that I have grown as a professional in the field because of it because it has open my eyes and mind to a new way of looking at things, a new perspective.  The consequences of learning about international issues and trends have been nothing short of positive consequences.

1. The international world, outside of the United States, is working towards many of the same goals as we are in the United States.  Goals such as cultural awareness, finding more time for children to be children by focusing on play based learning, accountability and better training for teachers, as well as better financial support and accountability from the government.  This has helped me to understand that we are not in this struggle alone.  We need to look towards each other for support and for help so that we can all do what is right for these children.

2. The international world of early childhood education has struggles that are similar and that is lack of resources and qualified teachers.  Learning this has encouraged me to develop myself that much more because I want to help teachers and train them better so that we have more qualified teachers.

3.  Having International awareness allows me to be more culturally aware because many students in our schools, in the United States, are from many of these countries.  By learning about the world of education in other countries will help me to be a better teacher and professional to our students in the United States.

One goal that I have for the field related to international awareness is that we can all put our differences aside and work together for the positive well-being of all children!  As we have learned, we all have similar goals and struggles.  It makes no sense to compete for which country has the highest test scores, whose young children are better advanced and whom can read better.  Let us just all share our resources, share our knowledge with each other and be one community of learners! Our children will be better persons for it and we will all be better teachers for it as well!

International Contacts

I am following UNESCO’s website as I have not any luck with the other options although I have continued to try and reach out to international contacts.

One thing that I came across on the UNESCO website was something known as the Muscat Agreement.  The Muscat Agreement is based on the notion that education must claim an explicit, stand-alone goal in the new development framework after 2015, as well being a cross-cutting theme across the broader development agenda (UNESCO, 2009-2014).  This is a global initiative to make sure that all children are successful in obtaining the education that they deserve.  There are many goals and targets that have been set forth-Goals and Targets of Muscrat Agreement-

Early childhood care and education   Basic education    Youth and adult literacy  Skills for work  Skills for citizenship and sustainable development Qualified Teachers Appropriate Financing

The link goes into details on these goals and targets

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/single-view/news/key_milestones_reached_for_new_education_goals/

An insight that I have gained from reading this site and exploring is that early childhood education has many of the same issues around the globe as we have here in the United States.  Other countries are also finding that the need for more focus on the poor needs to be a priority so that the investment later in life is less.  Other countries also have issues with training and resources and this is also a global problem.  Early childhood education is something that needs more attention and focus in all countries.

“The 1990 Jomtien Declaration on Education for All (EFA), stated that countries should view early childhood as part of basic education” (UNESCO, 2009-2014).  Early childhood education should absolutely be treated equally to elementary/primary education. I was glad to see that this is also a global issue that is being looked at and it is not just the United States.  Early childhood education is crucial and there is so much research to back up the importance that children receive an early foundation in life.

Sharing Web Resources

One of the outside links that I explored was a link for Early Headstart.  When I went to this site, I discovered a whole new world of resources and information about Headstart.  The site that it took me to http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/ehsnrc provides an abundance of resources for Early Headstart teachers, educators, parents or anyone that just wants to learn more about it.  There are resources, policy and procedures, much literature as well as ways to get involved.

One of the resources on the website that I searched more thoroughly was the section on cultural and linguistic responsiveness.  I chose to follow this section because we have been studying and discussing this and I wanted to see how early Headstart handles this topic and what they do to make sure they are meeting the needs of their families.  Needless to say that once I clicked on the link for cultural and linguistic responsiveness, I found an abundance of more information such as professional development, articles beyond articles on the topic, information on refugee families, program preparedness checklists, and more.  I really liked the checklist so I explored that a little more.

The Checklist is divided into 13 sections, which are ordered alphabetically. The sections are: Communication, Community Partnerships, Curriculum, Disabilities Services,  Environments, Family Partnerships, Health and Nutrition, Human Resources,  Planning, Program Governance, Screening and Assessment, Teacher-Child Interactions, and Transitions

Each section of the Checklist contains indicators that refer to specific program systems or services. Some indicators were taken from, or were based upon, the Head Start Program Performance Standards and/or the Head Start Child Development and Early Learning Framework. Other indicators were selected from the literature on recommended practices (The National Center on Cultural and Linguistic

Responsiveness, 2012).  I think that this checklist would be very useful for any early childhood program/classroom to evaluate your classroom based on cultural responsiveness.

Something else I discovered on the site was the Headstart Multilingual Glossary.  This would be very beneficial to all teachers, especially those who do not speak the language of their students.  You can find this very useful glossary of terms at http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/cultural-linguistic/center/glossary

One major insight that I have gained from this week’s blog assignment is that there is a never ending amount of information, resources, and literature available for teachers, other educators, and parents that need it.  So often I have heard teachers say that there is not enough funding or resources for them to do what they need to do in their classrooms.  If teachers just spent a day searching the internet and all of these amazing websites that these organizations have, they would find so many free resources and professional development opportunities.  A few weeks ago I began a list of all the websites and resources that I have come across since starting this program at Walden.  I am beyond thankful that I will have this list to refer back to when I need it.  There is so much information that it can be overwhelming so I found that if I started a list, it would help.  I have 3 more websites/links that I can now add to it this week.

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

http://www.zerotothree.org/