Final Post for Issues and Trends

I was honored to have Mrs. Bimbo are of Ajoke International School of New Jericho of the Centre for Early Childhood Development (ECD) as my international contact person.  I did contact three people and only Mrs. Bimbo was her only one who responded to my email.  I am forever grateful to her for having spared time even in her seemingly busy schedule to help me accomplish my assignments and learn more from her vast experience in the field.  I believe this is beginning of a lifelong relationship of sharing experiences and learning from each other in the field. 

Mrs. Bimbo revealed that, there is however a general believe that regardless of the situation in which a child is placed, a quality teacher can provide a learning environment that can enable a child to develop optimally and in a holistic manner.  In addition she expressed concern that the is a general lack of quality teachers to meet the current demand for ECD programs.   The was attributed to a lack of practical demonstration and instruction during training, a lack of on-site support to assist with implementation of theoretical training and lack of on-site support after completion of training to ensure consistent implementation.

As a consequence therefore, I purpose to be a quality ECD professional that seeks for continuous professional development.  I have learnt that one can become a professional by always doing self reflection, attending workshops, working with others and reading professional material (Castle, 2009).  I intend to follow these methods to attain professionalism and be able to provide optimal and holistic development to children. 

As a professional I intend to continuously network and share my knowledge with others in the field.  I have truly enjoyed my contact with Mrs. Bimbo and will continue to communicate with him.  She mentioned that many young professionals in the field lack on-site support after graduating from school. This area I would love to help in.  It is not only happening in South Africa.  Many graduate and have no support in the field.

References

Castle, K. (2009). What do early childhood professionals do? Dimensions of Early Childhood, 37(3), 4–9. 

International Contact Part 3

My professional goals are the three criteria that should be used to evaluate a high-quality early childhood teacher are that high stakes exams can measure what one has learned. I was always the one that strived for the highest score possible, but would always wind up with the just passing score on standards. I made great grades, but was just not up to par when it came to standardized exams. Because of these standards and my scores, it affected my career status, caused me to not have my teaching license and made me feel unintelligent.  My goals are for knowledge, communication and success.  I was able to review all of the past weeks learning into one idea. I was able to bring my ideas of education, knowledge, families, colleagues, administration, reflection, and collaboration into a whole. This assignment has also put forth an idea of possibly going further in my education as an administrator in the future. I need the knowledge and experience of teaching first before making such a major decision. This assignment has also excited me in the fact of knowing that I am not too far away from becoming a life-long learner and teacher and excited about my new career.
My local news is the Shelby County School merging. The city and county school compounded together to help the inter city schools with educating all income.   

Sharing Web Resources

I am sorry I did not publish my internet went down.  I just knew it did publish. Here is my resources from my web

As we have seen, public policy can drive the issues that create a cultural climate looking for change. Several issues that are finding platforms for discussion among politicians, teachers, and communities could provoke changes in the next few years. The trends we currently see in family support services are:

• States adopting a variety of tax credits for working families giving them help with childcare and in-home care expenses
• Family-leave policies, allowing both parents opportunities to spend time with newborn babies in the early formative years of infancy
• Flexible work schedules and job-sharing opportunities for parents who want to continue on their career path
• Internet and media control legislation to assure parents that children will not view or find inappropriate materials while using these media for learning
• Improvement in the quality and availability of infant and toddler care 
• Over the last several days, 230 American men and women competed against and socialized with athletes from 87 other nations at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The Olympics are not only a test of individuals’ athletic prowess, but also a test of nations’ good will, collaboration and diplomacy — and ability to find a common language.  As the late Nelson Mandela said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
• Today, a world-class education means learning to speak, read and write languages in addition to English.
  In an interconnected, interdependent global economy, we must prepare our children for a future in which their social and economic success will depend on their ability to understand diverse perspectives and communicate with people from other cultures and language groups. This isn’t a matter of getting ahead — it’s a matter of catching up.
  It is common for students in other countries to be required to study two or three languages in addition to their own.
  In our country, we have a valuable yet untapped resource within the estimated 4.6 million students learning English — the fastest-growing student population in our schools. These students come to school already speaking a variety of home languages, most commonly Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic or Hmong.
  These languages are significant not only to our economic competitiveness but also to our nation’s security. The heritage languages our English learners bring to school are major assets to preserve and value.
  Many schools and communities across the country have established programs to encourage mastery of multiple languages. In effective dual-language classrooms, English learners and English-proficient classmates are provided opportunities to learn academic content while simultaneously becoming proficient in both languages.
  That’s why our department is encouraging innovations in education of English learners, in part by making it a priority in the federal Investing in Innovation (i3) program.
  The extraordinary opportunities — and needs — of our English learner population were the focus of the three-day National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) conference, which convened last week and drew over a thousand participants.
  There, leaders from our department described the department’s commitment and met with international leaders to improve cross-border educational coordination.
  Educating speakers of other languages in English, and encouraging mastery of multiple languages, has long been important to America’s competitiveness — and will be increasingly vital in the years to come.
  We challenge our schools and communities to invest in our future leaders with biliteracy and multiliteracy skills.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

This week I selected the alternate selection, which was to learn three new ideas from the Harvard University.  The measurement of program impacts the differences between the treatment and comparison groups on a range of outcomes of interest is a central feature of the evaluation process.   Two recent developments have stimulated growing public discussion about the right balance between individual and shared responsibility for child well-being.  The first is the explosion of research in neuroscience and other developmental sciences that highlights the extent to which the interaction between genetics and early experience creates either a sturdy or weak foundation for all the learning, behavior, and health that follow. The second is the increasingly recognized need for a highly skilled workforce and healthy adult population to confront the growing challenges of global economic competition and the rising costs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for the aging baby boomers. The early development of cognitive skills, emotional well-being, social competence, and sound physical and mental health builds a strong foundation for success well into the adult years. Beyond their short-term importance for positive school achievement, these abilities are critical prerequisites for economic productivity and responsible citizenship throughout life. All aspects of adult human capital, from work force skills to cooperative and lawful behavior, build on capacities that are developed during childhood and beginning at birth. As the science of early childhood development, progress to­wards this goal will be most effective if innovative actions are guided by an understanding of four interrelated dimen­sions that together comprise a new framework for improv­ing physical and mental well-being: (1) the biology of health; (2) the foundations of health; (3) caregiver and community.  (Shonkoff et al, 2012)

 Four decades of program evaluation research point to the following “effectiveness factors” that can enhance development in the first five years of life:

• Access to basic medical care for pregnant women and children can help prevent

threats to healthy development as well as provide early diagnosis and appropriate

management when problems emerge.

• Environmental policies that reduce the level of known neurotoxins in the environment

will protect embryos, fetuses, and young children from exposure to substances that

damage their developing brains.

• Not all services are effective. Center-based programs that have positive impacts on

young children’s development provides some combination of the following features:

o   small class sizes and high adult-to-child ratios;

o   a language-rich environment;

o   age-appropriate curricula and stimulating materials in a safe physical setting;

o   warm, responsive interactions between staff and children; and

o   high and consistent levels of child participation.

 Programs that cost less because they employ less skilled staff are a waste of money if they do not have the expertise needed to produce measurable impacts.   Scaling up successful, model interventions into effective, multi-site programs is a formidable challenge that can be addressed, at least in part, by establishing quality standards and monitoring service delivery on a routine basis.

References

Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/)

Shonkoff, Jack P., Richter, Linda, van der Gaag, Jacques, and Bhutta, Zulfiqar A. (2012). An Integrated Scientific Framework for Child Survival and Early Childhood Development.Pediatrics, 129 (2), 460-472.

Eutopia,(which means the perfect place as oppose to Utopia which means a perfection beyond attainment) is a fantasy fiction story of two boys who stumble across another world named Eutopia. As they arrive in this land, they come to realize that it has been destroyed by vice and greed. The boys must practice their virtues in order to awaken the guardians of Eutopia and restore this once perfect place. Through reading this series, children will feel empowered and see that they can make a positive difference in the world through practicing virtues.

Integrated studies involves bringing together typically disconnected subjects so that students can arrive at more meaningful and authentic understanding. For more than a decade, researchers at Project Zero, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, have been studying interdisciplinary work across a wide range of settings -- from research centers tackling some of society’s thorniest challenges to school classrooms preparing students for a complex future. They have found interdisciplinary understanding to be a hallmark of contemporary knowledge production and also a primary challenge for today’s educators.

Helping students acquire interdisciplinary understanding doesn’t mean mixing in a smidgen of art or music to liven up a math or science lesson. Veronica Boix Mansilla -- who, with Howard Gardner, cofounded the Interdisciplinary Studies Project at Project Zero -- emphasizes the purpose behind integrated studies. Students build and demonstrate interdisciplinary understanding, she explains in a recent publication, "when they can bring together concepts, methods, or languages from two or more disciplines or established areas of expertise in order to explain a phenomenon, solve a problem, create a product, or raise a new question in ways that would have been unlikely through single disciplinary means."

Getting to know my International Partner

I decided to partner with Mrs.Bimbo Are, she is from the Ajoke International School.  She stated to me that Economic activity throughout the region continues to expand: GDP growth is projected to reach 4.9% in 2013.  "Africa's economies are have been expanding robustly and poverty is coming down". 
I learned from emailing her that instead of using one consistent methodology to determine poverty estimates, the country was simultaneously following several methodologies developed by different international institutions. This often resulted in estimates that were not comparable, moved in opposite directions and painted vastly different pictures of poverty in the country.
In reading my articles from class I read that the poverty affects the health.  Poverty is a major cause of ill health and a barrier to accessing health care when needed. This relationship is financial: the poor cannot afford to purchase those things that are needed for good health, including sufficient quantities of quality food and health care. But, the relationship is also related to other factors related to poverty, such as lack of information on appropriate health-promoting practices or lack of voice needed to make social services work for them.  In turn, is a major cause of poverty. This is partly due to the costs of seeking health care, which include not only out-of-pocket spending on care (such as consultations, tests and medicine), but also transportation costs and any informal payments to providers. It is also due to the considerable loss of income associated with illness in developing countries, both of the breadwinner, but also of family members who may be obliged to stop working or attending school to take care of an ill relative. In addition, poor families coping with illness might be forced to sell assets to cover medical expenses, borrow at high interest rates or become indebted to the community.

Sharing Web Resources

We were asked to pick an international website share.  I decided to share Edutopia which is The Georgia Lucan Education Foundation (GLEF) is dedicated to improving the K-12 learning process by documenting, disseminating, and advocating innovative, replicable, and evidence-based strategies that prepare students to thrive in their future education, careers, and adult lives. Their vision is of a new world of learning, a place where students and parents, teachers and administrators, policy makers and the people they serve are all empowered to change education for the better; a place where schools provide rigorous project-based learning, social-emotional learning, and access to new technology; a place where innovation is the rule, not the exception; a place where students become lifelong learners and develop 21st-century skills, especially three fundamental skills: how to find information; how to assess the quality of information; how to creatively and effectively use information to accomplish a goal. It’s a place of inspiration and aspiration based on the urgent belief that improving education is the key to the survival of the human race. They call this place Edutopia, and they provide not just the vision for this new world of learning but the real-world information and community connections to make it a reality. I feel in love this site because Edutopia is dedicated to transforming the learning process by helping educators implement the strategies of Comprehensive Assessment, Integrated Studies and Social and Emotional Learning. The trending that was interesting to me is resilience and grit.  Resilience is bouncing back from adversity. Grit is the persevering through challenges. 

Communication with my email

Their send me email discussing the problem with parents communicating.  They  have problems with early pregnancies and preemies not getting the right help.

Establishing Professional Contacts

This week we were ask to email some educators from another country.  I decided to email

MoroccoGarderai Essaada
Mr Hicham MOUKRAM
Rue Sammarinne n : 1
Jnane Illane Safi 46000
Maroc
Tel + 212 44 46 30 83
Email: hicham_moukram@hotmail.com

Federal Republic of Nigeria
Niger Delta Academic Foundation
Daniel Ibigoni Semeniworima, Director/CEO

Ajoke International School
Mrs.Bimbo Are
New Jericho G.R.A.
P.O.Box 679, Dugbe, Ibadan
Nigeria
Tel: 080-23236933
Email: arebimbo@yahoo.com