Final Blog Assignment

One consequence of learning about the international early childhood field are that we have very similar issues.  My contact, Gayle, from Indonesia talked about the need for better wages and more education for early childhood professionals.  We have the same issues here in the United States.  Another consequence is that I would like to learn more about early childhood in other countries.  I have enjoyed reading other blogs to find out what others are learning from their contacts.  It has really shown the similarities we have around the world; that we all struggle with wages, education, poverty, and diversity.

A goal I have is to keep in contact with Gayle and learn more about early childhood in Indonesia.  I would also like to have more contacts around the world.  I have had another response in the Yahoo group I belong to and I am looking forward to learning more from this new early childhood professional.

Getting to Know Our International Contacts - Part 3

It has been great getting to know my international contact, Gayle.  This week she responded to the questions that were posed to us...

• What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work?

Gayle's response - the most common is teacher qualification, next is the salary range, and last is meeting the needs of the students.

• What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

Gayle stated that there are several choices like Principal certification and teacher certification.

• What are some of your professional goals?

Gayle has a lot of things that would like to do.  She wants to obtain another masters degree in education majoring in special education.  She is now training on ABA, applied behavior analysis for autism and Montessori lower elementary. "So many plans, so little time"

• What are some of your professional hopes, dreams, and challenges?

Her hopes, dreams and aspirations in life are to share, reach out to more families and to be able to pass down the knowledge about Montessori.

From talking with Gayle again, it appears that things are similar there as they are here.  We struggle with having highly trained teachers and pay rates are not what they should be.  Just like Gayle, many of us have goals of obtaining more knowledge about early childhood education and child development.  I think we also want to reach more families and to share our knowledge with others.  I'm looking forward to continuing to talk with Gayle and learn more about what it is like teaching in her corner of the world!

Sharing Web Resources Continued...

I'm still checking out The National Head Start Association's website...www.nhsa.org.   I have clicked around and I landed on the NHSA Blog.  There is a lot of information on there.  The most recent posting talks about the long-term benefits of Head Start.  It also talks about a study that was done on the long-term affects of excellent, average, and poor teachers.  The results found that students with excellent teachers held onto the benfits much longer than those with average or poor teachers (Vinci, 2012).  In the end and "regardless of test scores, good teaching in a nurturing environment changes children’s lifetime trajectories" (Vinci, 2012).  Vinci (2012) also notes the importance of offering high-quality programming to all children throughout their years of school. 
The next posting is about the One Window of Opportunity campaign.  There are lots of stories from alumni, parents, volunteers, and staff about their experiences with Head Start.  The focus in this posting was about early intervention.  I know that we screen children for learning difficulties and for speech and language development and when services are needed, we refer students and get families the services they need. 
Another posting talks about something we discussed earlier in our class.  How others outside of early childhood professionals have taken an interest and shown the importance of early investments in our youngest learners.  In this posting, an economist, James Heckman, has recommended expanding Head Start and Early Head Start funding. 
As far as any new information about the issues that we have focused on this week, I really didn't find anything new.  However, as a previous employee of Head Start, I know that we serve children and families that are low-income and do our best to meet the needs of children that come from homes where English is not the primary language spoken.  I also know that Head Start has another website that gives even more information to staff and families.  I look forward to taking time to continue to read this blog in the future and see what else is shared!