International Contacts Part 2

Some of the ideas I found in the Harvard website that helped me expand my education and understanding of Early Childhood are the short videos they offer. Although short and concise, they are very informative and very self explanatory for anyone to understand the content. I thought this to be a good tool to share with parents. The following is the link to one of them that can be shared with parents to show them the importance of interacting with their child. This is the link to one of the short videos;

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/multimedia/videos/three_core_concepts/serve_and_return/

One of the most essential experiences in shaping the architecture of the developing brain is "serve and return" interaction between children and significant adults in their lives. Young children naturally reach out for interaction through babbling, facial expressions, and gestures and adults respond with the same kind of vocalizing and gesturing back at them. This back-and-forth process is fundamental to the wiring of the brain, especially in the earliest years.

The website also offers articles to read or five minute videos for the visual learner

Interactive features, lectures, and presentations.

The videos are offered in various languages which I thought was very nice for everyone to take advantage of them globally. The insights I have gathered from viewing international resources is that the problems are the same no matter what part of the world we are in and we are all working together to find solutions. Every country has issues related to poverty, academics, and other early childhood factors. The difference is that some countries prioritize the issue more than others

"Our Future"

Reference :

(http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/),

Sharing Web Resources and Newsletters

Out of all the web resources, the one resource that seems more relevant to my professional development is funding. Without funding there would be no professional development available for professionals and we all would become obsolete. Funding includes the planning, coordinating, and implementation of different Early Childhood Programs. Without funding, we might plan, but we certainly cannot implement.

The newsletter from the Children’s Defense Fund ponders on the point of funding by pointing out that the most vulnerable population, which is children; is the one that always ends up with the cuts

My insights on this newsletter are that it is very eye opening not only to professionals but also to the parents and taxpayers in general. Although some constituents may argue they do not have children and the issues do not pertain to them, it affects society as a whole. I found the statistics very astounding and interesting to look at. Below, I am sharing some of the statistics retrieved from the newsletter;

·   Head Start will serve 96,179 fewer low-income children.

·   80,000 fewer children and their families will receive child care subsidies.

·   5 million fewer families will be served by the Maternal/Child Health Block Grant, which provides funding for prenatal care, well child services, infant mortality, injury & violence, oral healthcare, school-based health programs, and eliminating racial/ethnic disparities.

·   211,958 fewer children will be vaccinated.

·   $270,790,425 less funding available for heating and cooling assistance through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).  Nearly half of the families receiving LIHEAP assistance have at least one child.

·   Title I grants will serve 1.8 million fewer students.

·   26,949 fewer children will be served by early intervention special education grants.

·   350,327 fewer English Language Learner (ELL) students will be served by English Language Acquisition Grants

·   1,133,981 fewer students will be served by grants for career and technical education.

·   51,577 fewer students will receive financial aid through the Federal Work Study program.

·   110,543 fewer students will receive aid through Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants

·   18,611 fewer youth will be served by the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), which provides training services to underemployed adults, and youth who have dropped out of high school and want to go back to school or enter the labor market.

·   4,350 fewer youth will receive education and training from Job Corps, which targets economically at-risk youth.

 Reference:

Information and pictures retrieved from http://www.childrensdefense.org/policy-priorities/budget-watch/

Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre

 

I chose to study the website designated for the Child Poverty Research and Policy Centre.

The website offers insights by sharing personalized stories of children affected by poverty. The website also offers data from different counties to compare one with the other.The case study that caught my attention was that of a 16 year old young girl named Laxmi who was married at 10 and whose dream is to become a teacher. According to the website 40 % of children in developing countries suffer from malnutrition. At current rates of improvement, 1 billion children's mental development will be affected by malnutrition by 2020 (UN James Commission).

Below, is Laxmi’s case study

 Daily routine

Laxmi gets up at 5 a.m and gets ready for the day. She then studies from 7 till 9 a.m. and goes to school at 9.30 a.m. together with her younger brother who attends the same school. She returns home at 5 p.m. and fetches water from the hand pump. Once she has done that, Laxmi makes evening tea for her family, plays with her nephew and studies for a few hours before going to bed.

Family life

Laxmi’s family is relatively well off compared to other families in the district. Her father is a farmer who owns 15 bighas¹ of land, 10 goats and a buffalo. However, the harvest is poor as his land cannot be irrigated. The drying up of the nearby Banas river has meant that people depend heavily on the open wells in the village: this has led to the water table becoming lower, which has put a stop to the pumping of water for irrigation.
Laxmi has two brothers and a sister. Her younger brother goes to school and is in Class IX². Laxmi’s elder brother grazes the family livestock and goes to the market to sell milk. He carries 6 kilograms of milk in cans to the market on his bicycle and sells it at 12 Rupees per kilogram. Thanks to his earnings from milk sales, Laxmi’s brother contributes around 2000 Rupees³ a month to the household income.
Laxmi’s elder sister never went to school and was married 6 years ago. However, she has been living with her parents for the last two years as her husband has severe psychological problems, and her parents are now planning to arrange a second marriage for her⁴.

Married at an early age

When Laxmi was only 10 years old and studying in Class V, she was married off to Shivnarain, a boy from another village in Tonk district, on the same day that her elder sister was married. Her gauna (formal send-off), however, has yet to take place. Laxmi’s parents say that they will send her off only when Shivnarain has secured a job. Shivnarain has completed Class X and has also passed the entrance examinations for the Central Reserve Police Force; he is now awaiting his call letter.

Valuing education

Despite her early marriage, Laxmi’s parents continued to send her to school and she is now studying in Class XI⁵. Laxmi’s father is keen for her to study further: he has relatives whose daughters are educated and wishes for his own daughter to become like them. Laxmi’s parents can be considered relatively progressive in that they actively support her continuing education and they let her cycle to school in another village⁶. In addition, Laxmi’s parents-in-law do not object if she chooses to study further, which is fortunate as Laxmi herself wants to obtain a Bachelor’s degree and become a teacher. She has already been practicing for her future career by teaching her friend Chandrakala, who is from a poor family and did not attend school. Laxmi values her education because it makes her feel more confident about herself. Had she not been married off at an early age, Laxmi says that she would have chosen to find herself a job before marriage.

1. One bigha is equivalent to 0.25 hectares.

2. In the Indian school system, secondary education starts with Class IX and ends with Class XII.

3. At the time of writing, 2000 Rupees was equivalent to approximately US $44 or £24.

4. This system of second marriage is common in certain parts of Rajasthan and is known as nata. It confers a lower status upon women. Nata started off as a way of arranging second marriages for women in case of separation, desertion or death in their first marriage. However, increasingly, it is carried out for monetary gain.

5. This is in stark contrast to most girls in Laxmi’s village who, at best, only complete Class V.

6. Although other girls in the village have also learnt how to ride a bicycle, Laxmi is the only one who cycles out of the village to attend school.

I thought this was very interesting because despite her circumstances, Laxmi is still considered a fortunate child who is able to continue her education unlike other youngsters her age.

Child coal miner This is Bakyt, an 11-year-old boy who works in a coal mine and, together with his two older brothers, is one of his family's main breadwinners.

 

Young boys fetching water at sunset

Young boys fetching water at sunset from one of the soum centre’s tapstands, Khalkhgol, Dornod Aimag.

Children usually fetch water for households in rural areas like Khalkhgol and some are paid by their neighbours for the service. Some children spend the little money they earn on sweets and games, but some use it to support their families to buy basic necessities like flour and clothes.

by Jenni Marshall/CHIP




Information retrieved from : (http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/),

SHARING WEB RESOURCES

I subscribed to various newsletters. I chose different ones because all will help me expand my knowledge in early childhood education. One newsletter that caught my attention talks about politics. Issues such as taxpayer’s money and childcare programs are discussed. An example I retrieved from one of these was the following excerpt;

On March 2, NBC’s Dateline aired a shocking story about just how easy it is for convicted felons and those with a violent history to get a license to provide child care. NBC’s Chris Hansen went undercover and found child care providers with a history of homicide, arson, assault and battery, child abuse, as well as drug and drunk driving convictions. These providers were licensed and some received taxpayer dollars to care for children. That’s possible because state background check laws vary greatly and there is no federal requirement for a background check for child care providers

As a professional, taxpayer, and mother, these issues interest me and affect me. So far I have learned that the policies and funds become very intricate and once you start following these trends you can begin to understand how programs and funds work. Although the website I chose is the Association for Childhood Education International most of the issues that are the focus around the globe are very parallel to the one’s we concentrate on in the United States. These issues are defending children’s rights and sharing statistics to benefit the future education field. I like that the website offers many resources and a day by day calendar with special information for childhood professionals.

The link for the website is http://acei.org/    

Another newsletter which caught my interest was zero to three because it is very informative and offers educational tools I can share with parents. The link to the newsletter is http://www.zerotothree.org/about-us/    

INTERNATIONAL PROFESSIONAL CONTACTS AND RESOURCES

Although I have not succeeded at establishing communication with another professional yet, I have researched thoroughly a website that offers an array of Early Childhood information.

The website I chose to study and familiarize with is “The Association for Childhood Education International”. The reason why I chose this website is because I am interested in learning how around the world other communities view children and the programs that are being implemented to help these little beings succeed and excel in the future.

The mission of the organization is:

“To promote and support the optimal education, development, and well-being of children worldwide, and to influence the professional growth of educators and the efforts of others who are committed to the needs of children in a changing society”.

Their Vision:

Every child in every nation will have access to a quality education. This education will prepare children to become responsible and engaged citizens and ready them for life in a changing world.

I thought it was a strong mission which depicts a vision for helping children. The first thing I learned from this website was that Nov 20, which is also my birthday, is Universal Children’s Day. The website is full of interesting facts and articles from other Early Childhood professionals and is very easy to navigate, making it user friendly. The link to the website is the following:

http://www.acei.org/

The website also offers a blog, which I can follow and stay abreast new information.