Final Blog Assignment

Throughout this course I have learned a great deal of the issues and trends within the early childhood field. Although, I was unsuccessful in obtaining an international resource, I learned gained a breadth of knowledge from my colleagues as well as from podcasts and websites. Included in my knowledge are three consequences of the international early childhood field which are: communication, applying research and career development.

Through the consequence of communication I am able to utilize the communication resources of the Internet, email, and telephone I am able to connect with others across the world as I seek to gain more knowledge of the early childhood field.

Through research, I can compare and contrast the similarities and differences in the EC field in the world. Allowing myself to analyze this field globally has given me great insight into how to make my personal program a high-quality program.

While I learn of the global EC programs, I think of how great it would be to be able to travel to another country and participate in an EC program. I passed on teaching English in another country during my undergrad years and I seem to regret it. I believe that such an experience would allow me to grow as it pertains to my career.

One goal that I have as it pertains to my international awareness of the EC field is to dedicate time out of my schedule to conduct weekly research about the field internationally. Learning of the policies and etc of international programs will assist me professionally in gaining more insight as well as ideas for my program.

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is an organization that advocates for fair, equal and quality education for young children. Their mission includes: to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, cultural communication and information (www.unesco.org).

Through reviewing the site, I have found three insights that I am anxious to learn more about.

1. Through literature, children are are to learn more of their plight of their African counterparts in the children's African book series Bouba and Zaza. Through the lives of two African children, others learn about war and conflict, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the issue of water resources and environmental protection (www.unesco.org/new.en/media-services/single-view/news/adea_and_unesco_launch_bouba_and_zaza. These topics are prevalent in Africa and all poor children are affected by them.

2. UNESCO also discusses Global Action Week which is April 22-28th, 2012. This week focuses on securing quality education for all children. I am very interested in this cause and plan to return to this site to gain more information on the daily issues that will be addressed.

3. Last, UNESCO discussed the increasing number of children who are placed in home-based childcare services in New Zealand as their mothers enter the workforce. These services are also becoming more focused on education and the children are being equally educated as the children who are in center-based childcare. This information was nearly ten years old and I am interested in learning how this information has changed.

This site provides great information and is a great resource for all childhood professionals.

Sharing Web Resources, Part Two

The early childhood organization that I chose is Zero to Three (www.zerotothree.com). This site provided a link that I found interesting specially within the early childhood field. The link to the Early Head Start National Resource Center contains valuable information to professionals, parents and etc. to help support these individuals in providing children a healthy and early head start in life.

While providing information such as publications, more web-based resources, special initiatives and activities that include audioconferences, podcasts and webcasts; this link is a great resource for those who are interested in this field.

The monthly e-newsletter provided by the Zero to Three for March 2010, discusses the use of evidence-based practices in early childhood. With insight and research from eight different article, professionals in the field state their understanding of the challenges and benefits of evidence-based practices.

In addition to the e-newsletter, there was a video that describes the first ever congressional briefing on 2/16/12 to discuss how to support homeless infants and toddlers. This video also discussed how one in every 45 children is homeless in the U.S.; which 70,000 or 42% of these children are aged 0-5 years. This information increased my frame of reference on how prevalent homelessness is within children and how I can begin to serve those I currently work with and others.

Global Children's Initiative

The Children's Global Initiative which was founded in 2006, seeks to: reframe the discourse around child health and development, supporting innovative, multi-disciplinary research and demonstration projects and building leadership capacity in child development research and policy. (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/. Through its global work, the Children's Global Initiative provides children and their families with assistance that focuses on children's health, learning, development and behaviors.

One aspect of the Children's Global Initiative that I found interesting is that in Brazil, the premier of the Nucleo Ciencia Pela Infancia which is established to help children of the early childhood age and their families by investing more in children and strengthening policies. By collaborating with five different early childhood entities. The goal of this program is to foster a more prosperous, sustainable and equitable society (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/applying_the_science_of_early_childhood_in_brazi/