Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

This week I conversed through email with my contact in Australia as well as a newly formed contact in Germany. I had asked both professional what prevalent inequalities they see in early childhood education in their countries.

The professional contact from Australia talked about the inequality of there not being early childhood education available to all children. This was mostly due to the fact that some children live in far rural areas and cannot get to a preschool facility. She also discussed the fact that most mothers in her community work so children attend a “day care” and parents cannot “taxi” their child to a preschool facility. Finally she talked for quite awhile about pay for preschool professionals and that she felt Australia would have higher quality and more educated professionals in the field if they were paid a better wage.

Secondly I talked with a professional from Germany. She English was very broken so this conversation was more difficult to maintain. She stated that in her community many of the children went to the local Catholic Church for schooling. She also said that young children could take an exam to enter the school at a younger age. I am going to try to gain more information from her about that this week. She went on to say that “there is no much money for worker with young child.” In other words I think she feels the pay scale could improve.  

Over all it has been a very interesting conversation between the professionals from Australia and Germany and myself. I never imagined the differences and similarities I would see between the countries within their field. 

Sharing Web Resources – Taking a deeper look

Over the past few weeks I have been diving into The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) website. Professionally, I have been looking for information that will help me explain the value of helping organizations that support children in poverty. I have also been interested in diversity issues and how to support children. In order to help support my professional development I looked to NAEYC for much needed information. First I was able to find a policy update (http://www.naeyc.org/policy/federal/4_5_12) that was very interesting. It talked about the money and changes happening in the House of Representatives. It was not wholly the information I am looking for, so the search continues. Mostly I was extremely interested in anti-bias curriculum. I came across an informative blurb about celebrating Thanksgiving in the classroom (http://www.naeyc.org/content/anti-bias-guide-holidays/thanksgiving). This gave me a lot to think about and I could see the controversy. It also made me wonder why the holiday continues to celebrated in schools. I wonder how many families and children have been offended by the information, celebration and teachings of the holiday while at school.   

Looking at information that would support the learning for the week of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field was easy to locate. There was a quite a bit of information to support this fact. Although I was hoping to find more information about how economists support the field of early childhood and that was a little harder to locate. NAEYC is full of so much information it is easy to get lost within the site. It is also easy to become over whelmed and loose track of time while exploring the site. 

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

My conversation partner is a Jo from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She works with 2 year olds in a daycare setting. I asked her about the effects of poverty in her community. Her response was, “I don’t have to deal with issues of people who make a low income to much at my daycare. We are located in a fairly well-to-do community. The children I have in class take many holidays with families. Anything we need for the classroom all we have to do is post a sign and the items are brought in the next day. I am lucky to work in such a place. I know America has more struggles than we do because we already have a lot of needs offered to us for no cost while Americans have to pay for example health care. Our government also will step in to help us when needed to. I think you call it government assistance.”

            While the conversation was brief I was happy to make contact at all. I am hoping to glean more information in the coming weeks. I was surprised to find that poverty is not an issue for her. I am also holding hope that I can establish communication with another individual from Australia so see the variances in answers between communities.   

Sharing Web Resources

I chose to read more into the NAEYC website and subscribe to their e-news letter. I feel like I never get the chance to read up on the information NAEYC provides and this gave me the perfect opportunity to do that. A few of the articles included, a New Edition of Ethics and the Early Childhood Educator, A New Basics Book, Refresh with Summer Learning Content from NAEYC, and new spotlight books along with other general information. Out of all the articles I was most interested in reading about the new Basics book that is coming out this month. The bit was talking about how this is the newest book is a series. This particular book is titled “Basics of Supporting Dual Language Learners”. It is about focusing on teaching dual language learners. It is also an introduction to dual language learners “for educators of children from birth through age 8” (e-News, 2012).  The book “covers key points about first and second language development, discusses the importance of supporting the home language, and describes how programs and schools can prepare for a diverse group of students” (e-News, 2012). I was so intrigued by this book and the information it provided that I ordered a copy of it. I really think it will be informative and further support the Issues and Trends class.

References:

e-News. (2012). NAEYC. Retrieved July 4, 2012, From http://newsmanager.commpartners.com/naeyc/issues/2012-06-07.html