What I have learned from the course Issues and Trends and my goal

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to this course, Dr. Davenna Williams, my Walden colleagues from this course, and my international contacts, who have been sharing their great thinkings and their thought-provoking insights towards related topics regarding issues and trends of early childhood field. From the past seven weeks of blog assignments, I have learned a lot from my international contacts, from the website that I chose to study, and from reading my colleagues' posts. The first consequence that I have gained is that no matter it is a developed or developing country, there exist concerning issues and trends in the early childhood field, such as poverty, diversity, inequity in care and education for children and families. In order to better improve the quality of early childhood care and education all over the world, one should make full use of resources and learn from others' advanced ideas as long as those ideas are for the good of children and families. The second consequence that I learned from my international contacts' ideas about excellence and equity of care and education for children and families is that high-quality programs definitely relate to supports from government, schools with resourses available and accessible and with adequate funds, well-trained teachers, educated parents and family involvement. The third consequence that I learn from the websites is that I should stay informed of the new issues and trends of early care and education by keeping reading the website resources that this course has offered and collecting appropriate practices and methods that can be applied to our curriculum.
This course inspires me a lot and encourages me to set up a goal: to be an advocate for children and families. I will pay more attention to my community and focus on more related issues; as well, I am contacting with one of my colleagues who have been funding for children in need of basic daily needs including clothes, books, money for tuitions and so on, because I am planning to donate monthly to one of those children so that to some extent I can give a little support to children and families in poverty.
Thank you again for those who share their ideas, read my posts and comment on my posts. I hope we can learn more from each other in the following courses. Good luck to everyone!

Getting to Know My International Contacts—Part 3: Professional goals, Hopes and Dreams

This week, we shared some thoughts about excellence and quality in early childhood field. I contacted with my international contacts and asked some questions about their professional goals, hopes and dreams. They shared their own perspectives by answering these questions below:


• What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work?
• What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?
• What are some of your professional goals?
• What are some of your professional hopes, dreams, and challenges?


One of my international contact, Karie Sun, she shared her concern regarding quality and early childhood professionals: early childhood professionals can’t provide consistent quality education to children in China. Lots of local early childhood teachers have been found guilty to child abuse but the government doesn’t do anything to protect and support children. She felt lucky that at school they have lots of opportunities for professional development such as inviting professionals to come and present in language, “Third Culture Kid”, technology, etc. All teachers are required to participate in the school-wide professional development so that they all update their knowledge in a regular basis. School also provides them with sufficient professional development fund and a list of workshops they can go to worldwide so that teachers are always being prepared to offer children the best quality education. She shared her professional goal— to to encourage more cultural understanding in the classroom, both for children and the parents. She would like to help them recognize the importance of cultural differences and respect to people’s cultures. Another professional goal that she shared with is to educate parents not to rush children in their growing-up process so that children enjoy their real childhood and learn what are meaningful in their life. Then she talked about her professional dreams—to call for more people to advocate for early childhood education so that people understand what early childhood educators really do and show support and respect to our job. She also hopes for a more equal environment for children and that all children have their rights to live and learn. However, as what she said, “child abuse still happens and we as early childhood educators don’t have enough power to protect them. I really hope for the government to support early childhood and the children in providing them a safe and equal environment to grow up.” (K. Sun, personal conversation, August 11th, 2014)

I feel lucky too as we, Karie and I are working in the same school where teachers can receive funds and opportunities for professional development. However, still as a TA, I have to say that we do not have as many opportunities for PD as teachers do. Therefore, I hope everyone related to the early childhood field deserves to receive more chances for improvement and professional development in this field.

Sharing Web Resources 3

When I opened some links from the website National Institute for Early Education Research/NIEER (http://nieer.org/) that I chose to study last several weeks, I found out that those links are related to early childhood field, such as Child Care Aware of America, Foundation for Child Development, and Pre-K Now, which advocate for children from different perspectives.
Then I tried to go deep into the website Foundation for Child Development (FCD), whose mission is to make full use of research to ensure that "all children benefit from early learning experiences that affirm their individual, family, and community assets, fortify them against harmful consequences arising from economic instability and social exclusion, and that strengthen their developmental potential”. (FCD, 2010)

I did not receive any e-newsletter so far. Then I searched the resources on this site and found an article Multilingual Children: Beyond Myths and Toward Best Practices, which shows how to best support multilingual children’s learning and development and to some extent indicates how to eliminate inequity in multilingual children accessing to quality preschool programs. This policy is framed by four questions which I think we as educators should consider about:

1. What are the broad social and historical contexts of multilingual learners in the U.S.?
2. What are the demographic characteristics of a multilingual family?
3. Which basic language developmental processes and strategies for promoting multilingual children’s language can be applied to multilingual children?
4. What home, education, and community contexts support learning multiple languages?

 

Here I would like to share some key strategies from this policy about what caregivers and teachers can do to ensure children develop strong multiple skills.

Ensure that children in multilingual con- texts have long-term and enriched ex- posure to, and opportunity to use, both languages in a variety of contexts. 

Create an environment in which each language the child is learning to speak is supported; support the minority language (L1) in the child care environment.

Support L1 as much as possible by, for example, visits to areas where L1 is the dominant language spoken, as children may begin to prefer the majority language.

Speak to children in the language that comes most naturally to the caregiver, resulting in a richer and more diverse language environment.

Develop and/or identify programs that expose children to high-quality input in L2 at early ages. 

Do not ascribe perceived language delays to multilingualism. (FCD, 2014)

 

If you want to find out more answers to other questions above, you can click the link to this policy:  http://fcd-us.org/sites/default/files/Multilingual%20Children%20Beyond%20Myths%20and%20Towards%20Best%20Practices.pdf

Go back to the website that I selected at the beginning of this course, National Institute for Early Education Research/NIEER (http://nieer.org/), I searched some resources and found that there are some related to excellence and equity in early care and education. An article, Expanding Access to Quality Pre-K is Sound Public Policy, written by W. Steven Barnett in 2013, stated the necessity of expanding access to quality Pre-K and advocate for children in low-income families. In this article, the author points out what good Pre-K means, “Pre-K prepares children to start off well. It does not guarantee that nothing later on will interfere with their progress. We should not conclude from this that pre-K does not matter. Schools spend a lot of time and money helping children who are behind catch up at least part way, and reducing the need for this spending is part of what good pre-K is all about.” (Barnett, 2013, p.4) They emphasize "raising standards and putting in place continuous improvement and accountability systems to ensure the new programs deliver strong results”. (Barnett, 2013, p.5) The author suggests that policies be invested to enable all children, especially those in low-income families to access to quality Pre-K.

Reference:

Barnett, W. Steven. (2013). Expanding Access to Quality Pre-K is Sound Public Policy. Retrieved from http://nieer.org/publications/nieer-working-papers/expanding-access-quality-pre-k-sound-public-policy.
Foundation for Child Development. (2010). About Us. Retrieved August 9th, 2014 from http://fcd-us.org/about-us.
Foundation for Child Development. (2014). Multilingual Children: Beyond Myths and Toward Best Practices. Retrieved from http://fcd-us.org/sites/default/files/Multilingual%20Children%20Beyond%20Myths%20and%20Towards%20Best%20Practices.pdf

Getting to Know My International Contacts—Part 2: Excellence and Equity of Care and Education for Children and Families

This week the issues and trends that we are studying about is Excellence and Equity of Care and Education for Children and Families. When I got in touch with my international contacts and asked them about their personal or professional experience about which issues related to excellence and equity are the forefront of professional discussions in their countries and their insights on those issues related to excellence and equity, they shared abundant information that deepens my understanding of excellence and equity of care and education for children and families.

The two international contacts are my colleagues from our early childhood learning center. One is Mary Ann Lopez, from Philippines, who has been working in our international school for around ten years in China. She shared what changes she has seen in China regarding excellence in early childhood field. Below is a paragraph that she wrote to me to share her insights. 

“Education is for all, and every child deserves the best education. However, there are a lot of factors that affect the excellence and equity of care and education for both children and families. First, the country’s view about children’s future. I believe that China is now beginning to spend more hours in learning English, for English is becoming a must to be competent in the future. In addition, I heard recently that Pre-K and K have less homework than before. I think China is beginning to see the value of play during early childhood. Second, the school; its mission, vision, and philosophy.  We are fortunate to have administrators and teachers who work together to nurture every child to become an effective communicator, collaborator, independent learner, complex thinker, and global citizen. With this aim, the school provides teachers with trainings to improve their skills in serving the children. Teachers are another factor that affects excellence and equity of care and education for both children and families. Teachers' trainings and skills are paramount in serving children.  There must be a continuous training for teachers to inspire and motivate children to be the best that they can be, because motivated teachers motivate children. In addition, for a teacher to be able to provide excellent education, they need to believe that all children are capable, and make them feel that someone cares for them.  Furthermore, teachers need to figure out what a child needs, to connect with children and families, and to make learning meaningful and purposeful. Teachers not only provide excellent education for children, but also educate families on how they can enhance children’s learning at home and make parents feel they are valuable instruments in providing equal and excellent education for their children.” (A. Lopez, personal communication, July 28th, 2014)

The other colleague is Lindsay Vargas, from Costa Rica, who had been working in her local school and a local international school for around ten years and now has been working in our international school for three years. She shared some information regarding excellence and equity of care and education in Costa Rica.

“I personally believe that excellence of care and education for children is a type of education where children can have the chance to feel validated as human beings. They are not little persons, they are complete persons who are just learning about the world. Excellence of education, as well, gives children opportunities to explore their own interest and creativity, to be innovative to find answers to their wonderings in their daily life. Excellence of care to me is basically to ensure children have what they need to grow healthy. We should provide them with tools to succeed covering basic needs such as love, shelter, health and food. I do believe all the different programs offered around the globe strive to provide children with excellence of care and education. Sadly, I do believe there is a great amount of children around the world who are deprived from even the most basic care and education, due to their life circumstances and the reality of the government and how they allocate their budgets. 

Education in Costa Rica is mandatory for every child from age 6 to 15.  Most of children attend school until they finish junior high (the 9th grade). However, a high percentage of children will leave school to find a job. In rural areas, some are interested in helping their families; some want to make money to buy the things teenagers want. I am certain there is no equity of opportunities in my country. Most of the high-income families enroll their children in good private schools that teach children with innovative approaches. Children from these schools, are exposed to learning experiences in early years. The middle-class families would enroll their children in private schools with more traditional approaches where they would have opportunities to reach excellence, however they would need more effort to do it.  Low-income families have to send their children to public schools, where children at the age of 6 are learning about what children at the age of 3 in good private schools have learned, thus building a bigger gap in every school year. Budgets in public schools are very limited. The teachers do not have the resources to expose children to a great variety of media or experiences.  The children are forced to learn drills dictated by the educators, to copy from boards, and basically to stay stuck in the same kind of education methods used centuries ago.  

It is really hard to get parents involved in the classroom. Some are successful and busy persons who need to attend to conferences and meetings; some are working extra hours to provide their families with food; some are busy with drugs, prostitution, etc. So, how can there be excellence of care and education for children and families if parents are absent?  

The government should find ways to invest more in education for children and families, to help the population understand the importance of education for the success of a nation.  With more educated children who are exposed to excellence of care, the nation will have more opportunities to improve and keep growing.  It is a healthy cycle.” (L. Vargas, personal communication, July 31st, 2014)

From both of the information from my colleagues, I find that excellence and equity of care and education for children and families lies in factors such as the supports from the government, schools with resources available and accessible, well-trained teachers, and educated parents and family involvement. I think that is what are called high-quality programs if all these factors are taken into consideration when we provide children with care and education.