Getting to Know International Contacts

I was able to contact two early childhood professionals outside of the U.S. Rachel lives in Iceland and Karen lives in Canada. They were both very gracious and informational. Our communication has been done through email. I emailed them both and simply asked about poverty in their country and in their professional lives as well as how they personally felt about poverty as a world-wide issue.

Rachel spoke of poverty as a world-wide issue very passionately. She stated that she struggles with why some areas of the world are struggling to feed their people and other areas are dealing with obesity. She also spoke passionately about assistance needing to be for helping and teaching people to come out of poverty rather than being used as an only means of income. She has not dealt with poverty in her professional life, stating that while some of the families in her nursery receive reduced tuition, because of parent's not working, she would not label them as living in poverty.

Karen stated that poverty in Canada is not much different than in the U.S. except for the fact that they have very remote areas where food, water and supplies must be flown in making things more expensive. We discussed whether the cost of living had anything to do with the poverty rate in Canada and she said she did not believe it did. She talked about Canada going towards Universal Early Learning and that children begin full day Kindergarten if they turn four before December 31, which she believes lends to relieving some financial strain on families. One statement she made struck me, she said that Canada has pledged to alleviate child poverty but still have such a long way to go.

I feel like the contacts I have made with Rachel and Karen will be beneficial in my professional life and my personal life. They have a lot of insight and are eager and willing to share with me and for that I am very grateful.
I have found a new passion for helping and supporting families in poverty over the course of this week's readings and research. As I have begun to look at my own community, the numbers of children and families in poverty and/or homeless is shocking. It has saddened me, but also moved me into action. I believe that I will be seeking to become more involved in helping, partnering with organizations and getting my family involved in the very near future.

Sharing Web Resources

We had an extensive list of resources to chose from. I chose the National Institute for Early Education Research. Their website can be found at nieer.org.

NIEER focuses on academic research and according to their website, they work to monitor an evaluate/state progress, inform policy makers of the importance of early care and provide a definition of what quality early care is and catapult conversations about early education policy and much much more.

As I began to look at the website, I was overwhelmed with the amazing articles, links to trending issues, blog and more information than I could take in at one time. I have been looking their website for about a week and still do not feel like I have scratched the surface to all the information available.

One current issue/trend that caught my attention, was an archived blog post about Dual Language Learners. This article caught my attention mostly because of the topics we have been discussing this week. This article solidifies the conversations we have been having about respecting and valuing home language, as well as building and maintaining relationships with children and families. The blog post was so good that I am going to attempt to put a link up for you all to read it. :)

I did sign up for the weekly newsletter, however, I have not received an email as of today.
There is so much information on this website that I plan to take it section by section to explore. I feel that because I do not feel confident in my abilities to conduct research and analyze it, that through this resource I will gain confidence that I can take into my next course which will focus on research.

I hope you all find some really great things on this website as well and on the sites you have chosen to explore. :)

Links!
Blog Post
National Institute for Early Education

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

I have been both anxious and excited about this portion of this course, as I am a part of the Walden Early Childhood Program's Facebook page and have seen others reach out for contact information. I work for a lab school as a part of our Child and Family Studies program and each year a group of students travels to Belize to conduct workshops and just be a part of their early childhood program. I have contacted that instructor to see if there is anyone in that program willing to be in contact with me. I have also reached out on another Facebook page that I get Reggio inspiration from and am waiting for a response there. I am hoping to hear something in the next few days in order to not have to use the alternative resources.
For the second part of this blog, I am challenging myself to go outside of my comfort zone a bit. I am not extremely comfortable with research and all of the jargon, so I am going to explore the National Institute for Early Education Research. I am hoping to be challenged and learn a lot! That website is nieer.org

I wish you all well in the next 8 weeks! I hope we learn a lot and are challenged personally and professionally!