Personal Research Journey

The topic I choose to focus on is equity and excellence, so far this process has been enlightening as I take baby steps to learn how to interrupt research. I am excited as I feel by the end of the course I will be fully capable of defining equity and excellence as it relates to early childhood development. At this point I have little understanding of how equity and excellence effects the early childhood development and the programs that foster healthy development. Equity and excellence has a broad perspective I have narrowed my focus to school readiness and achievement gaps. These two subtopics seem to be one of the greatest challenges professional and policy makers face. There are many factors that affect the success of children in the early childhood education programs I want to narrow down to the main issues. I feel in order to conquer the issues and trends within the early childhood field we have to be aware of the issues and understand the issue solve the issue to end the trend.

: Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) hosts many different conferences and conventions one being The Convention on the Rights of the Child accepted in 193 countries as the rights of children as individuals. November 20^th is a universal holiday Children’s Day. The UNESCO holds a convention this day with ambassadors from all over the world this day as has a specials honorary guest as well. The Rights of Child gives policy makers and activist the ability to speak on children behalf regarding education. To enforce policy changes and enforce the need for equity and high quality education for all children. Today still there are about 761 million children lacking literacy skills and the Rights of the Child fight to reduce these numbers. The further I search through the website I am learning of new resources for my learning in the ECE field. I subscribed to the UNESCO newsletter to stay afloat with their stories and changes throughout the Nations.

 “As children represent the future, their best interest is our best interest” says Qian Tang. 

References:

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

Sharing Web Resources

The UNICEF website holds a host if information regarding early childhood as a whole. I learned today from randomly clicking on links there is a host of research and data comprised in this site. I ran across an article focusing on freeing child soldiers in Central Africa. I would not expect this to be on the website but it involves children. I believe you can find almost any topic regarding on this website. They have links allowing you to connect with Facebook, Twitter, Bloggers, other educators, volunteers and many others. I did subscribe to the UNICEF E newsletter to later discover there are multiple E newsletters you can subscribe I was only subscribed to the United States E newsletter, today I subscribed to the Africa E newsletter as well. Each newsletter contain information that adds to my understanding of equity and excellence. Each time I visit the site I gain more knowledge on varies topics. I tend to go with what catches my attention unless I am searching for a specific piece of information. The UNICEF website holds a host of information from the current hot topic in the early childhood education field to the latest research study conduct from Australia. I cannot say each time the information on the site is new for that particular week, although the information is new to me. The topic I am researching may have been posted on the E Newsletter I may just now be discovering the article because I am studying the topic. The following website http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ has been beneficial in my studies this semester and I hope to continue to gain as much knowledge possible from this source.

During week three I made contact with the Goddard School, about a week later I received a return call from a representative at a local Goddard school here in Cincinnati, Ohio I was excited to connect with her. Unfortunately The Goddard School denied my request to connect and build a relationship due to my interest not being to enroll a child into their program or become an intern. This week I reviewed The Global Children’s Initiative, they are committed to the global approach on child survival, health, and development during the early childhood years (birth to 7 years old). This network was designed specifically to focus primarily on “meeting the needs of all children and a critical investment in the roots of economic productivity, positive health outcomes, and strong civil society in all nations, from the poorest to the most affluent”.  The Global Children’s Initiative has briefly acknowledge an understanding of the policy issues presents in early childhood development. The same issues has or are currently present here in the United States specifically Cincinnati, Ohio, and these are the same issues I am currently being taught. The one thing that stood out to me regarding The Global Children Initiative was their mission very detailed and addressed specific points of focus to obtain their overall goal.

References:

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

As of week three I have failed to connect with the two original contacts I reached out to, I decided at this point to research a local organization to build a relationship. The Goddard School INC. a franchiser of the popular The Goddard School early childhood education program. The uniqueness with the franchise is how the support structure ensure consistency and each individual school follows the same vision and mission. The Goddard School is a well versed program each program acknowledges all children learn different by offering different teaching styles. “Our talented teachers also collaborate with parents to nurture children into respectful, confident and joyful learners…….. putting your child at the center of our approach encourages your child's lifelong love of learning(Goddard.com)”. This vision is backed by a program originated by the Goddard School “The FLEX program ensure that children have fun while learning the skills they need for long-term success in school and in life (Goddard.com)”. With these methods The Goddard School are building a foundation early on with children, ensuring the academic success as well as social success. These are two main factors contributing to poverty. Until I speak with a member from The Goddard School I will not have their point of view on poverty.

 

 

Reference:

http://www.goddardschool.com/

  

SHARING RESOURCES

 I recently subscribe to the newsletter and blog of the UNICEF. As of yet I have not received any alerts notifying me of a current newsletter. The reason why I subscribed to this stay afloat with the issues and changes in the Early Childhood field globally. I reviewed the last blog post from May 15^th, 2014 “World We Want, youth journalist from Burundi speaks out.” This post addresses the changes our youth globally would want executed. Now all the changes mentioned are not solely related directly with education however education is the start to facilitating the changes. To better understand the perspective given WORLD WE WANT is a platform through Civil Society teenagers and young adults from around the world discussing their idea world. The most interesting viewpoint “Education is the key to solving all issues. If we had better quality education, some youth would create companies after finishing university. Then other youth could benefit from newly created jobs. In this way, the country could become economically developed ().” This is the voice of Peace a 16 year old young journalist from East Africa. We as professionals are striving to change the world through education. This blog post hits home with me because I truly agree all change starts with education. My goal as an early childhood professional is to be an advocate in facilitating change.  

References:

Luthi, Eliane (May 2014). World We Want, youth journalist from Burundi speaks out

Retrieved from: http://blogs.unicef.org/2014/05/15/world-we-want-youth-journalist-from-burundi-speaks-out/

NETWORKING

I went to the following websites provided in the blog resources for The Global Alliance of NAEYC has e-mail addresses for early childhood professionals worldwide: http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance

 I went to the contact us link then the membership link, attempting to join resulted in a fee. I also went to the contact us link sent an email on general information and membership information. I attempted to follow the blog no option was given. I went to the second website UNICEF has local organizations and representatives worldwide. Check out the country specific links and contact a local representative: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html went to the Connect and Subscribe link, I like the Facebook page, and I also subscribed to their blog. I went to the contact us link followed by the Contact internationally I emailed Brazil brasilia@unicef.org and South Africa pretoria@unicef.org asking the steps necessary to connect with an EC professional. At this point I am waiting a response from both emails sent. I will continue to follow the blogs of both websites as well as research other forms of contact I can pursue. I am extremely interested in communicating with a professional from the UNICEF organization.

May 5, 2014

I received a reply from the NAEYC as I understood in order to connect with any professionals through their network you have to become a member. I am still waiting a reply from the UNICEF.