Working on Excellence

This week we spoke a lot on the topics of excellence and equity in early childhood. In my conversations this week with my international contacts we also touched base on this topic. Again, I am always surprised at how many similarities there are but there are differences that are also astonishing. In Ireland for example, they worry heavily on protecting children from abuse and preserving their rights. We do hold this in serious regards here in America but it is not the forefront of our everyday focus because the rates are not as high. In fact, I was told that there is a constitutional vote coming up in Ireland on November 10^th, 2012 that would makes the right for children to be protected legal. We deal with pressuring children academically and “teaching to the test” with a strain on assessments that are not occurring in the natural environment. In terms of the bridge with getting elementary, early childhood, families, and communities on a similar team that has proved to be a hard task for the Irish. They are just now passing legislation that would focus on the stresses that children endure (with the most common being alcohol abuse and poverty). They are trying to promote excellence by providing the basic needs every child is entitled such as safety, love, and nurture. This week I was not able to be in contact with my British colleague, Helen, because she is away on holiday (vacation).

As in all of our discussions through the weeks of this course I and finding more and more how important the community and the private business sector is. If they work hand and hand we can begin to build a better future for everyone…

Trends in ECE

In continuing my research on policies and trends in early childhood education I have answered the following questions for this week.

 

What specific section(s) or information seemed particularly relevant to your current professional development?

There is a section on this website for publications. One of the current items I found which relates directly to my position at this time is helping children cope with change. Change happens around children all the time. Schedules change; families separate, deaths occur….the list could go on and on. I really liked that I saw advice for professionals. My favorite piece of advice was “Feelings matter!”. We so often forget to really listen and take in what children are feeling. When an event occurs in a child’s life that is a change it can really affect a child. As the website says “Children need to feel emotionally say they need to be able to predict what is going to happen around them.”

 

Which ideas/statements/resources, either on the website or in an e-newsletter, did you find controversial or made you think about an issue in new ways?

           

            This is not a new issue for me but one I did read into because I realized that this is more of a global view in early childhood education than just here in America….that topic is…building relationships with families. The British Association for Early Childhood Education has a program put in place called “P is for Partnership.”  The program has two goals as outlined below;

            1) To support parents’ involvement in their children’s learning to develop communication, language and literacy and mathematical thinking in their children, as well as promote personal, social and emotional development through improved motivation, self-confidence and self-esteem in both their child and themselves.

2) To support practitioners to work with parents to enable them to understand the importance of play and exploration in supporting their child’s developing communication , language and literacy as well as their mathematical knowledge and understanding and to show them how they can use simple resources to do this outside the formal education settings.

What information does the website or the e-newsletter contain that adds to your understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field?

            “Influencing Decision Makers”…is the very first thing seen on the policy page of the website.  Politicians in England have put into place that every child who is three and four years old is entitled to 15 hours of free early childhood education. That is extremely different from what we have here in the United States because we are fighting for funding and programs to do just that for children.

        

What other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field did you gain from exploring the website or e-newsletter?

            Currently there is a lot of work being done to facilitate comprehensive regulations and standards. It is certainly on a common scope as what practitioners here are trying to do.  There also seems to be quite a bit of work being done to promote better relationships with families and children within the early childhood spectrum.

 

Resources:

The British Association for Early Childhood Education. http://early-education.org.uk/sites/default/files/Early%20childhood%20education%20in%20England%20summary.pdf

Sharing Resources

     Over the last week and a half now I have been researching early childhood education in England so that I can better understand the culture differences when I speak (hopefully!) with the contacts I am hoping to establish. There is a lot of information out there and it looks completely overwhelming to sort through. However, as in my post from last week I found it easier to view the British Association for Early Childhood Education’s website. If you’d like to visit, simply click on my link; http://www.early-education.org.uk/.

     The focus of the organization is to bring awareness to the importance of early childhood education in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The organization believes that all children are competent learners from birth and they aim for practitioners to foster loving and caring relationships.  In the policy and issues section of the website the reader see’s “Influencing decision makers!” The organization provides a plethora of education, training, and materials for practitioners and parents to make well thought decisions in regards to voting. For practitioners the organization has a thought out set of standards/principals as well as a code of ethics stance.

     Most of the issues that are being dealt with right now are centered on reform. Although early childhood sees the most changes the United Kingdom started overhauling all education programs in 2008. I did notice that a common trend is the learning approach. It is very family centered and can be compared greatly to the Reggio approach.

               

Resources:

 British Association for Early Childhood Education. http://www.early-education.org.uk/.

Professionals Across the World

Find professional contacts across the world, how exciting! I decided to attempt to look on my own and I am glad I did. I have contacted Irene Gunning from the Early Childhood Ireland Association and Helen Snow from the British Association for Early Childhood Education. At the current moment I am awaiting a reply from both contact to finalize whether or not this will be possible for either of them. I am interested in learning about their particular approaches in education and care. I am very excited in building a professional relationship with these educators.

The website I choose to look thoroughly at the British Association for Early Childhood Education. The website is as follows; http://www.early-education.org.uk/. The website is pretty similar to NAEYC's. There is a lot of educational tools on the website and free publications professionals can view. There is of course a place for practitioners and other organizations to become members. I plan on subscribing to their version of Young Child. It's pretty exciting, in my opinion.

                                        

My Conncections to Play

In our play we reveal what kind of people we are.

Ovid
Roman poet
43 BC–17 or 18 AD

As astronauts and space travelers children puzzle over the future; as dinosaurs and princesses they unearth the past. As weather reporters and restaurant workers they make sense of reality; as monsters and gremlins they make sense of the unreal.

Gretchen Owocki
Contemporary American early childhood educator

Play was a very big deal for me as a child. Some of my favorite memories are with me, my sisters, and neighbors playing in our front yard. Play for me was an escape from the issues that were taking place around me. It was a way for me to construct the world as I thought it should be.

I think play is different today than it was when I was a child. To me play was so innocent back in those days. Now children have much harder realities to deal with in life. A lot of play that I witness is imitation based on the harder events of life. Video games are also huge. It is so easy for a child to plop in front of a tv and play for hours without physically moving around or stretching their imagination. My hope is that one day children can really be innocent and imaginative without being subjected to violence, hate, and cruel acts of crime. For children to have a truly stress free life would be amazing.

Play has definitely shaped me from childhood to adulthood. When I was about 3 or 4 I developed a huge passion for music (which I still have today). I would pretend to put on huge concerts and when I started taking trumpet lessons I would sit outside with my instrument and play as if I were alone on a darkened stage and everyone was watching me. I gained confidence and practice through this. I also learned that I could achieve my dreams if I followed them. As an adult I did achieve that dream as a performer although my life took a different path after the birth of my child. Now about to enter my thirties I carry that imagination and dreaming with me. It helps me to run an effective business and provide my son with a life time of memories. As a teacher I am able to play with my students every day. Professionally, I highly recommend 30 minutes of play a day for adults. Not only is it good for your health to move around, giggle, and smile BUT it also keeps you young at heart!

 

These are some toys I had from my childhood. I made many phone calls on the phone that you could pull with a string. Rainbow Bright could do anything! She went on so many adventures and solved so many problems. She was my childhood hero. I actually had a microphone. Thats how I put on my concerts!!!

Childhood Quotes

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.  ~Tom Stoppard

The greatest poem ever known
Is one all poets have outgrown:
The poetry, innate, untold,
Of being only four years old.
~Christopher Morley, To a Child

Assessments For Children

I have never ever liked standardized tests. I will be the first to admit I did mediocre on the SAT’s and barely got through the standardized tests throughout elementary and secondary school. I do not have a learning disability or lack the knowledge to succeed. I was just (and still am) not very good at taking a test that measures one little specific item. I feel it is too much pressure. What if it is a subject that is not my strong point? What if I have learned and can only express the knowledge obtained in a manner that is not traditional? Does that mean I know nothing because I cannot seem to do well on a test? Please do not misunderstand my comments. I do understand the need for measuring and assessing knowledge. I just do not necessarily agree with the way we perform these tasks. I am a strong believer in Multiple Intelligence. Not one of us learns the same exact way. Why should we be assessing the same exact way for every child? On another side note, there are thousands of schools out there “teaching to the test”. It is not benefiting the children…in fact I feel it often hurts them.

We should take a look at the whole child. What are their strengths? How can we use those strengths to build on knowledge or improve the weaknesses? Early childhood education tends to be tailored to each individual child. When we are measuring and assessing, in terms of knowledge, we should take into consideration what is best for the child. I do believe we need to progress monitor and record our observations. I even agree that we need to monitor subjects such as math and language. But I also feel we should look at music, art, history, physical education and any other form of learning that can be stemmed together. I, personally, learned a great deal of math through music however, when I was tested they never asked me math questions in the form of music or even related math to another subject. It was confusing for me at times. Holistically speaking, everything about the child needs to be assessed…physically, socially, cognitively, emotionally.  

In Ireland it seems as though the assessment process in school aged children is still progressing according to a report given in 2001. Assessments and standardized testing was at first only given at the discretion of the teacher. Now the Department of Education and Science has move towards obligating teachers to do these assessments and standardized testing on a regular basis. They are also now required to report the outcome to the child’s parents. Through what I read it seems as though teachers did not have much of an obligation to speak to parents about their child’s progress. It also was not until 2000 where Ireland implemented a regular attendance policy for school aged children ages 6-16. In Ireland, they are also just recently starting to focus on the development on quality early childhood programs. It seems so different in contrast to the United States because we focus so much on assessments. It certainly is laid back.

Resources:

Education Provision in Ireland2001

http://www.ibe.unesco.org/International/ICE/natrap/Ireland.pdf