We come to the last week of Issues and Trends in Early Childhood Education.  It has been quite the journey and I have gained much knowledge.  Turning that knowledge into wisdom will be the real work going forward as I work with children.

      I did not have much contact with my international contact as she travels a great deal and works as the head of the organization Montessori Education for Autism.  We have had some good conversations in the past.  One of her concerns is with parenting of young children.  This is one of the sidelines of Montessori Education. Parent education is a topic that I hear coming up a lot in ECE blogs and conversations.  That is one of the consequences of early childhood education.  Not just for single working mothers but also for affluent families. The need for guidance in parenting strategies. As I have read other blogs and such it seems that in other less “developed” counties parents are more engaged in the everyday workings of what their children are doing and the children are involved in the family life to a greater degree.  In the Montessori community there is a conscious effort to include parents groups and classes for the parents.  In other preschools and day cares it is more of a Parent Action Committee that basically helps raise funds and support when it is necessary.  It is does not have a component for parent support classes.  I think taking a look at how we as early childhood educators can support parents in their endeavor to be a good parent can be something that can be shared globally in this field.

      The NEEIR site that I chose to explore is more of a research site. It has much good information about ECE in the US but does not have an international arm.  Rutgers University is the patron of this site and the research it does.  Full of good information and studies being done in early childhood education.  The consequence of this is that one does wonder how or if they share their information with other research sites internationally.  This is something I would like to follow up on in the future. 

       The third consequence from my lack of international contact is that I see where I really needed to make sure I did get those contacts in place.  This is for future reference for me.  Understanding and learning about ECE in other countries is very important and we need to communicate with each other in a way that is been researched and practiced in other places around the world. 

        My goal as far as understanding more internationally in this area of ECE is to read more articles and research done in other countries and to attend the post grad course from MEfA in the future. 

       Taking this class has really enlightened me understanding about the issues and trends in the ECE world. Given me much to consider and think about and more work to do. 

Thanks for dropping by I’ll see you next time.

     I have been on vacation this past week in Texas visiting my oldest son who had all of my children come as well.  The three youngest who live at home still drove down with me.  My oldest arranged for my second son who lives in CA to be there and what a fun time we had together.  My oldest son works for a man who has some wild animals two of whom are black bears.  They were rescued from the entertainment industry and now live in the lap of luxury (for a bear) at the farm.  They are very well taken care of a loved a great deal.  One has autistic like traits and I had a good time observing him.  Even bears experience developmental delays and developmental problems when their life is turned upside down my man meddling with nature. I'll write more about that later.
     We were asked a series of questions for us to think about and what our future plans are.  Below are my answers.

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

      Wendy Fidler who in chairperson of Montessori Education for Autism in the UK and I talk about how Autism has been identified and affected children and families.  We also discuss how Montessori Method can help them and how our role as observers can be of use in the guidance of these children. 

What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

      The only opportunities that exist at this point is for me to go back to the UK and take Wendy’s post graduate classes in Montessori Education.  This is something I am going to do eventually.  In addition I plan of graduating with my M Ed and attend Montessori and Early Childhood Education conferences. 

What are some of your professional goals?

      My professional goals keep expanding.  In this next year I will be completing the internship for my Montessori certification.  I also will be working with a few people to see what their level of interest is in starting a Montessori School in N W Ohio.  I also wasn't to form a team of support persons so that I have people to help when I do open the school I can accept special needs students.  I will also complete training for Director of Montessori sometime in the next three years as well as my master’s degree in Early Childhood Studies from Walden University.

     In addition I want to emulate the philosophy and the programs of the Crossway Montessori Children’s House.  Which not only serves children but has an apartment complex and training program for single mothers and has incorporated in community into the workings of the school.  Through programs such as Bridges Out of Poverty and Positive Discipline I hope to help families become more stable and financially viable. 

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

     I think I explained this in the above comment.

Thanks for dropping by have a great day  

This week I get to explore out side resources and the other pages of the http://www.nieer.org (National Institute for Early Education Research)  Sponsored by Rutgers.  

 There are about ten pages on this site and I am interested in looking at all of them  The three I will review today are the  Access, Assessment  and English Language Learners pages.  Remember this is a research site and organization.  I have found some pretty interesting things being researched here.

Access:  some of the titles on the research being done in this page are:

Remarks by Secretary Arne Duncan on the state of Pre-school - NIEER 2013 year book release press call.

Expanding access to Quality Pre-K is sound public policy.

Promoting a Culture of Inclusion Birth - Third Grade Systems Within State and Local Education Agencies .
   This one is worth the read if you are interested in inclusion.  There are several memes that didn't make sense to me but the rest was interesting.

 Assessment: 
 The research here was interesting and had to do with what could be given to policy makers.   We all need and must do assessments.  This page gives a criteria for doing that but also has a lengthy power point on an assessment tool developed by Rutgers.

The article I found most interesting here was the one titled,  Young Hispanic Children: Early Learning 
Needs and Opportunities: National Summit on Hispanic Early Learning 

I encourage you to read this one the statistics will surprise you.

English Language Learners:

Many articles having to do with Hispanic children and families and the importance of serving ELL students.

Early Childhood Choices and Hispanic Families.

Policy Brief - Preparing Young Hispanic Dual Language Learners for a Knowledge Economy

Experimental Comparison of Two -Way and Monolingual Immersion in Preschool.

All this research is interesting, as a teacher who will encounter all of these paradigms in her work I am excited that there is some place to read what the research finds and what  policy recommendations are being made.  Many times I feel the policies are being made with out considering the child, families and teacher and how the policy will affect practice in the classroom.  It is good to know there is information out there so I can keep abreast and hopefully ahead of what is going on.  In this way we can anticipate the changes coming and be better prepared when the policy changes are made into mandates

Thanks for dropping by:
Here is a little something I found and thought would be fun to try :-)

Blog Week 5

Ed 6162

Issues and Trends in Early Childhood Education

This week I got to poke around in the Center for the Developing Child – Harvard University.  This is one of my favorite places to spend an afternoon reading research on ECE development and practice research. (Yeah I am a bit of a geek)  The pages I focused on this week were the Global Children’s Intuitive.  There were three topics that garnered my attention.  Three objectives were identified and three activity domains.

Objectives:

1)      Reframing the discourse around childhood health and development  - Foundation of life long health

2)      Supporting innovative, multi-disciplinary research and demonstration projects

3)      Building leadership capacity in child development research and policy.

The domains that were going to have activity built around them are.

a)      Child mental health

b)      Children in crisis and conflict.

c)      Early childhood development.

On the child mental health page the focus is on four mental health disorders that affect children and adolescents. 

1)      Anxiety and anxiety disorders

2)      Depression and depressive disorders

3)      ADHD and related problems

4)      Conduct problems ranging from early child disobedience to adolescent delinquency and violence.  

Link for the entire article is here:

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/sar/child_mental_health/

The domain of children in crisis and conflict Harvard is sponsoring several studies. Theresa Betancourt notes that just keeping children alive in a crisis is not enough, (which is what NGO’s do) the effects of long term crisis and conflict that affect all areas of a child’s life for as long as they live.  “Regions rife with armed conflict and areas affected by HIV/AIDS represent the two major exceptions worldwide to recent gains in children’s health and development, notes Betancourt, which helps explain why the two research projects in sub-Saharan Africa have drawn her interest. For both projects, Betancourt says, the Center on the Developing Child contributed seed funding that enabled her to secure or fill gaps in larger federal grants.” 

The link to that page is here:

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/faculty_and_staff/faculty/faculty_spotlights/theresa_betancourt/

In the domain of child development a tool was created to study child development in a developing country in Sub-Sahara Africa in the country of Zambia.   This was a longitudinal study of 1,686 children who were born in 2004 and were then followed up in 2010 (the number in the cohort had dropped to 1,250) and then again in 2011.  The study found that comprehensive child assessments are feasible with in standard population based household surveys. 

Link to read the article.

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/zambian_project/

Ok that was all really interesting.  Children all over the globe deserve to have a level playing field where health, welfare, safety and education are concerned.  I am supportive of that.

However I have one concern and that is those domains being addressed right here in the United States.  I have identified what I would consider a “new” kind of special needs child in early childhood education and I am concerned that teacher preparation programs are not preparing teachers to deal with it.  This child is impoverished (by US standards) is in danger because of high crime where he or she lives, and has the beginnings of mental health challenges due to living in a stress filled environment.  I have talked to more than one therapist who is seeing a three year old who have been kicked out of preschool/day care because they do not obey in class for whatever reason.  As a ECE teacher I want to make sure that children who are at risk in our own back yard are benefiting from research and funds for studies to help us as educators help them as children to succeed in learning and for life. 

I hope to explore any research on that vein in the future.

Thanks for dropping by