All of Me

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Issues and Trends: Economists, Neuroscientists, and Politicians as Early Childhood Advocates


             This week as I researched the international website where I have found more promising information about early childhood education overseas, http://www.acei.org, I noticed a newsletter entitled, Is it Possible to Measure Children’s Learning Globally?  I found this newsletter article’s title interesting because in our Early Head Start facility, my coworker and I have just recently completed a series of child assessments to determine each child’s abilities/development in the areas of cognitive, physical (gross and fine motor skills), and social/emotional through administering the DECA and DENVER assessment tools. As a result, I was curious to see if this article was going to state specific information about the types of assessments that were suggested on a universal level or the learning domains that were viewed as particularly important.

            From this article, I learned that the Learning Metrics Task Force (LMTF) is working towards the goal of a universal learning measurement approach by creating a global framework for measuring the learning of all children and youth worldwide. In these reports which included a set of two, it was noted how there is not enough data that provides information of progress in regards to children’s learning on a universal level. As a result, because this proposed model will have many challenges, there has yet to be an established set of universal learning domains that will be used to measure. In addition, LMTF stated that they are also aware that there would not be a “one size fits all” approach. They suggested that consideration should be given for each country’s choice of measurement tools and six identifiable areas (agreed upon universally) that would be assessed to determine a child’s progress in relation to the country’s educational goals.
While reading this article, I also learned that the LMTF supports a holistic approach to learning or “educating the whole child” which is not a new insight but just confirmation/support of information that I have gained over the years.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 1

My contact with an early childhood professional from Play English in China will be away from her office until September 22nd. After this time, she has agreed to maintain contact with me over the next 5 weeks as we talk about topics for each of the week's assignments.

However, during this week's research, I learned that there are 600 million children worldwide that live in absolute poverty. That is 1 of every 4 children (Childhood Poverty, 2013).This information
was really heart wrenching for me.

I viewed a video on World Forum that provided me with information on poverty in other countries such as Afghanistan. The speaker Sakeena Yacoobi talked about how many of the children
there live in refugee camps where there is no clean water and the children slept in tents or under a tree. She also talked about how the children slept on sticks while she visited the camps indicating no bedding even for a pallet. As a result of the poverty she witnessed,she wanted to make a difference so she talked about how she would do this through education and so she set up her different learning areas stationed under tents with the intent to educate the whole child using a holistic approach, as well as their parents who were hurting because of the casualties they have witnessed of their loved ones.
This information again  was sad, but it provided me with a glimpse of how poverty affects children in other parts of the world. However, it makes me also want to get involved as an advocator against childhood poverty because being a spectator won't help to solve the problem.


Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre. (2013). Home. Retrieved from: http://www.childhoodpoverty.org

World Forum. (2011). Provocation by Sakeena Yacoobi. [video]. Retrieved from:

http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/media-and-resources/wofo-tv/

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Sharing Web Resources

The name of the organization I selected from last week's task was the HighScope Educational Research Foundation. The link to this organization is www.highscope.org . The international contact that I have currently heard back from is the High Scope Teacher Education Center: China North and there is no website available at this time. But, the HighScope website itself, has information on the efforts of its international partners.  As a result, the goals of these institutes are to maximum the "potential of all children and youth, advance learning environments through the use of High Scope practices that are conducive to growth and strengthening of open democratic societies, promote global cooperation and networking of all the members of the High Scope Internation Registry and work cooperatively to enhance the use of available staff and resources "(Highscope Educational Research Foundation, 2013). One current issue/trend that I found on the website under the seasonal magazine: Resource (Spring 2013) was an article called "The Changing Face of Early Childhood: Using HighScope to Support Cultural and Linguistic Diversity"which goes along with this week's lesson called "Changing Demographic and Diversity". In this article, research shows that best practices suggests "that educators foster the development of children's home language in the classroom noticed that ELLs (English Language Learners) learned English faster and performed better in school on a long term analysis" (Highscope.org, 2013). I thought that fact was quite interesting and supported information that I was already knew about recognizing and supporting the use of home language in the classroom environment.

High Scope Educational Research Foundation. (2013). International Institutes. Retrieved from: https://secure.highscope.org/Content.asp?ContentId=110

Highscope.org. (Spring 2013). The Changing Face of Early Childhood:Using HighScope to Support Linguistic Diversity. Resource, 5. Retrieved from: https://secure.highscope.org/file/NewsandInformation/ReSourceReprints/Spring2013/HSReSource2013spring_72.pdf

Getting Ready—Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources


In this week's assignment, I contacted four international early childhood schools to make contact with an early childhood staff member, one school was China North in Beijing, China; Play English in Milan, Italy; and Morgan Rothschild Academy in China.
 
I emailed each of these schools and have yet to hear from them because this contact was made on today (Saturday). I do not plan to pursue the alternate assignment  because the contact to these schools was too recent.

The reason I chose these schools are because they utilize the High Scope Curriculum and this curriculum is one that is used at the Head Start where I am employed. I am also in the process of being certified as a teacher of this curriculum.

The organization that I plan to study is the High Scope Educational Research Foundation. Their website  is www.highscope.org.  I really have an interest in this curriculum. In addition, I have subscribed to their newsletter as well (a couple of weeks back).

I do not have any helpful tips that I would like to share because I have just made contact on today which is a weekend, so I plan to followup at the end of this upcoming week if I have not received a reply by that time.