Building Research Competency

I am excited and eager to be in this class,  Also, I am expecting to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to complete an accurate and effective research study.

Final Blog Week 8

When I was assigned to learn about the international early childhood field, I did not know what I was going to find.  I was really excited to learn what was going on in the field in other parts of the world.  I chose to review Save the Children website.  This organization is doing a terrific work for the most vulnerable children of the world.  They literally, “Save the Children” of the world with all the programs and services that they offer.  Besides reviewing this organization’s website, I learned a lot from reviewing my colleague’s blogs each week.  They all posted interesting and vital information that helped to strengthened and deepened my understanding of the early childhood field outside United States.

One of the most important things that I learned is about all the international efforts to alleviate the consequences of poverty in the early years.  Children in all parts of the world suffer from poverty in different ways.  I now understand how organizations as such as Save the Children work to provide children better opportunities and chances to fight poverty.

 I learned that quality, equity and access are issues affecting the early childhood field tremendously.  Many people in USA and outside USA have difficulty to access high quality programs.

The last thing I would like to mention is that I realized that early childhood professionals all around the world are not recognized as professionals.  Even though, credentials are required and that many programs are requesting degrees; we are still suffering of low compensation and lack of acknowledgments in what we do.  People still think that what we do is just playing with children.  We have a lot of education and awareness work within our communities to achieve recognition throughout the world.

One of my goals is to continue learning about what is going on in the early childhood field outside the USA.  Use that information to strengthened my practices and advocate for the field in general.

Professional contacts week 7

This week I reviewed the UNESCO website.  UNESCO is an agency that specializes in building peace, eradicating poverty, and sustaining development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information.  The UNESCO also advocates for early childhood care and education.

According to UNESCO access and equity is a global issue.  Some countries committed themselves to improve and support the early childhood care for the most vulnerable children.  Government many times lack financial resources to support early childhood care and education for many low income families.

The quality of the programs and teachers is also important in any part of the world.  Quality factors are pedagogy materials, training and parent involvement.   Learning materials should be quantitatively, culturally and developmentally adequate and focus on child-centered interaction.

Another issue is financial resources to support early childhood quality programs.  All countries struggle to find funds,  developed countries priority and  support and develop primary education.

The early childhood issues are similar in all countries including USA.  It is an international problem to have all families access high quality programs.  Also, funds are a challenge in times of economic crisis throughout the world.  I am very glad that an organization such as UNESCO contributes their advocacy  effort every day to help overcome these current issues in the field.

Week 6 Sharing Web Resources

While following some of the links in Save the Children website.  I found this very interesting link that leads you out to you tube where you can watch videos about the results and work that the organization does.  The link is Results for children, and there you can see links to watch the videos.

The area that I search thoroughly is what we do.  In this area you find all information about the programs they have, how they do the work.  When you visit this area, you get a clear understanding of their philosophy and what they are trying to accomplish with their programs.

In July 26, 2012, there was a new publication about teens in poverty seeking to save their money.  Save the children interviewed more than 2,000 children in ages from 12 to 18 in low income areas of Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal.   The studied revealed that children get the money from allowances, gifts or part time jobs and save it in amounts as small as .50 cents monthly.   They keep their money in piggy banks, under furniture or under piles of clothes.  They try to save for their future, but more than often they have to use for their school supplies, basic needs, and clothing.  Poverty is a topic that we have being studying during this course and how poverty affects the life of a child.  Using this example, I can tell that poverty force children to mature earlier and think about what they are going to do in a future to be out of poverty.

The website contains plenty information about the importance of meeting the basics of all children to secure a better future for all of them.  There are many inequities that affect children from all over the world.  Inequities to access medical services, high quality education, financial resources and to meet their basic needs.  While some children are thinking how to spend their money in the latest video game, other children are thinking to save money for a better future.

Something that I learned from reading the publication is that children in poverty are forced to mature. They think about their future in a very early age when children should be playing and enjoying their childhood without worries.

Sharing Web Resources Week 4

The website that I have been reviewing is Save the Children.  I am impressed of all the information that is gathered in this website.  They work with the most vulnerable children throughout the world, and there is information in the website of what they do in each country that they work.   While reviewing the website under the tab Take Action I found information about becoming an advocate for children.  Since I started my degree I have been more interested in advocacy than ever before.  It is an area of my profession that I want to continue developing and learning.   They have links to join their efforts through important social networks, they provide information in the most important trends and issues and encourage you to participate and speak to congress and information in legislation and what is advocacy.  Also they have information about the elected officials and what techniques are most effective to advocate for children and families.

One of the biggest consequences of poverty is malnutrition and lack of health services.  When people are poor they lack of means to provide for themselves and their family an appropriate nutrition and health services.  This organization works to ensure to provide these services in the areas where they work.  Besides worrying about the nutrition and health of the children we also have to worry about the state of health of the parents.  When parents are not healthy they lack of the energy to thrive for their children.  This situation makes it difficult for them to break the chain of poverty. 

In the website I found this statement “What does "go without" mean in America?   This means little access to books, early education, proper nutrition and play.  Children that face these issues have a hard time to thrive during their first years of development.

Facts in USA:

·         Four-year-olds from families affected by poverty are 18 months behind other 4-year-olds developmentally.

·         In 60 percent of low-income households, there are no books at all in the home.

·         In rural communities, 52 percent of children living in poverty are overweight or obese.

Obesity is another issue in early childhood.  Nowadays in the USA obesity has become a great health issues within the children.  This is due to the limited access of healthy foods and parents low education.

If politicians, neuroscientists and economists work together to create policies and programs that decreased poverty many of this issues could be drastically reduced.  Then we can have more healthy people and children that can develop and become productive citizens for our nation. 

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

Unfortunately, I did not get a response from the people that I attempted to contact over in Peru.  I am a little disappointed, but I will not give up.  For this week, I chose to listen to 2 of the podcasts.  I listened to Susan Lyon from Innovative Teacher Project and Barbara Jones Founder of Pine Groove Montessori School.  What I noticed in their podcasts is that they both  were interested in alternative education.  The early childhood field is changing, and more professionals are becoming interested in programs that promote high quality services.  Also, programs that are able to individualized and look at children from a different perspective.

With all the issues and trends that we find in our communities nowadays.  There is a great need of people and programs that are able to meet the needs and interests of all children.

During this week, I have been learning about poverty.  I was struck to learn how poverty can affect the healthy development of a child.  I look at poverty as a chain; a chain that needs to be broken.  If we provide the children in poverty with the services and systems that they need, we may help them to break with the poverty cycle.  They break the cycle by becoming  self-sufficient  and productive citizens in the country.

Sharing Web Resources

The International website that I selected is Save The Children.  

Save the Children is an organization that works in more that 120 countries to protect, save and improve the life of children.  Also, they have an emergency response program that is prepared to protect vulnerable children during and after disasters. One of the issues I found in their website is health and nutrition.  This entity works to provide access to health and nutritional services to children and their families.  They develop strategies and programs to make sure that they are reaching as many people as possible.

It has been proved that children benefit of quality health services and well- child check ups.   Unfortunately, not all children in the world have access to quality health services.  Even in the United States there is a great percentage of children and families who are not receiving their schedule check ups and services, due lack of insurance coverage.