Research That Benefits Children and Families

If I could conduct research about any topic in the early childhood field, I would want to know more about the impact of the push down of curriculum on our youngest learners.  I would like to know what type of environment has the best outcomes for children; an environment that promotes academics, an environment that promotes play, or an environment that provides opportunities for both.  I would hope that my research would help teachers to know what type of an environment to provide for children and how to help children reach their full potential.  I would also hope that parents would understand the importance of play in the early childhood learning environment and how it promotes positive outcomes for children.  With this knowledge, I would also hope that families would not push for more academics, but push for more time for children to be creative and to make choices in the activities they choose.  This knowledge might also be handy for administrators and policy makers to understand the importance of play and to not push the academics quite so hard.  I think that young children are more capable than we may know, but I also believe that they need time to interact with their environment and to become creative thinkers and problem solvers. 

My Personal Research Journey

The general topic that I am interested in learning more about is the push down of curriculum.  I have chosen to focus on the social/emotional effects of this push down.  I understand that we want to prepare our young learners for the next steps in their education, but what about play?  We have been taught that we will need innovative thinkers in our ever changing world and strong problem solvers.  If we take play out of the classroom and limit their outdoor time, how will children learn to be creative and solve problems?  I also feel that if a child's social/emotional development isn't optimal, they probably are not going to be ready for the academics we are pushing.  I remember play being a big part of my kindergarten experience and that we had three recess's when I was in elementary school.  In most school's these days there is only one recess and it is during lunch time.  What happens to the last child in the lunch line?  Are they really getting any quality outside time?  I think I chose this topic because I believe strongly in play based learning and the positive effects of forming strong, trusting relationships with the children and families I serve. 

I think that this topic is very current in the early childhood field and so I am nervous about being able to find current research on this topic.  After looking at how to evaluate websites and articles on the internet, I am more confident that I will be able to decide if an article is of the standard to use in my research.  I am also confident that I will be able to use the information and skills from this class in my career as an early childhood professional. 

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! 

Getting to Know Our International Contacts - Part 2

The first thing that stands out for me when reading this article is that “the great need of early childhood care and education programs should not overshadow the method used” (Lee & Hayden, 2009).  When implementing an early childhood education program the culture of the country needs to be taken into account.  The article on Zambia was very interesting.  This country may not be ready to implement an early childhood program due to the already poor conditions of its primary schools.  It appears that this country needs to take a closer look at better funding and other issues that are affecting its current education system before adding an early childhood program.  

The next article focused most of its attention on using indigenous knowledge and practice in the early childhood programs.  The Gambia uses a community’s mother tongue in the early childhood classrooms because they know that this helps with literacy rates.  By using the mother tongue, they also help to preserve the culture and pass on stories and dances to the children and families.  Mali has strong community support for their early childhood programs.  The community comes together to talk about curriculum and to choose the teachers and children.  There is training and communication about how children spend their days to aid in planning.  What a great way to get the community involved and another way to bring in the families culture. 

The article on Brazil, particularly the PIM was very interesting.  This reminded me of the home based services that are provided through Head Start.  Home visitors make visits on a weekly basis and spend time educating the family and implementing an activity.  They provide resources to parents and assess their activities and the children.  This helps parents understand the importance of their participation in their child’s education and also gives them ideas and activities to do with their children.  It appears that this program has made a big impact in Brazil and is being studied by other organizations. 

The last article made me think of something that my mother always told me, to remember my own childhood and what I liked and didn’t like, what made me think and made me happy and to think about that when I am raising my own children.  This is one of the first things this article starts out saying, that we need to remember our own childhoods.  We have to remember that we are working with children, not a set of numbers.  This article focuses on staff training and the lack of it in Brazil.  They are working on ways to strengthen the qualifications of teachers and have implemented an Educational Board where teachers come together and share their stories and are provided with training.  Wouldn’t this be great for all early childhood educators…to come together to share ideas and work out difficulties? 

My contact, Gayle, mentioned that teacher training is highly needed where she works.  She stated that the children need more hands-on activities.  Perhaps that is why she is a Montessori teacher.  She also told me that some public schools are very much accepted but not because of the core curriculum, but because of the facilities.  She also talked about the importance of parental awareness and information dissemination being the key to an educated decision for the parents to think that a school’s program is more than enough. 

Sharing Web Resources

I have been following the National Head Start Association web site.  This week the information that seemed particularly relevant to my current professional development was the upcoming conference.  I took a closer look at what training sessions were offered throughout the week long conference.  There are sessions about connecting children to nature, lots of literacy based sessions as well as math and science based.  There are sessions that are geared for teachers and some that are geared for management.  One of the keynote speakers this year will be Stedman Graham, he is the chairman and CEO of a management and marketing consulting company that specializes in the corporate and educational markets.  I believe that his session will have an impact on what we have been talking about this week as he is a businessman.  There are also sessions that will explore brain development and add to our understanding of how neuroscientists support the early childhood field.  Another keynote speaker will be the Director of the Office of Head Start, Yvette Sanchez Fuentes.  I believe her address will give more insight into the politicians view of early childhood.  There are so many sessions each day to choose from that it can be very hard to decide on which ones to attend.  I know this because I was able to attend last year in Kansas City.  Each year there is something new to think about a new presenters along with ones that have presented in the past.  I also know from my own personal experience that you may attend a session and find that you don't agree with what is being presented and have very different opinions.  As with any new idea, you have to decide for yourself if the information is something you can use or not and either give it a try in your classroom or leave it back at the conference.  There is also an exhibit hall at the conference with lots of vendors and many university's including Walden University.  It was so nice to meet representatives from Walden at last year's conference! 

Something in the newsletter that made me think was the legal advisory service trainings that are being offered to Head Start agencies.  There are webinars for establishing a culture of compliance and conducting internal investigations as well as other topics.  These webinars are geared toward upper management personnel, but they made me think. 

By exploring this website I gained insights about what topics are hot in early childhood.  We are still talking a lot about early literacy.  There was also several sessions at the conference that talked about assessment, not only of the children, but of the effectiveness of teachers and different ways to do that assessment.  There were sessions that focused on coaching strategies as well.  I think that anyone that attends this conference, they will come away with a lot of good, useful information that they will be able to take back to their own classroom or agency and put into practice.