Global Initiatives

The Global Children's  Initiative is an organization that was established to use a collaborative science-based research  base to help improve the lives of children around the world. They have several partnerships with organizations  around the world. One of the partnerships  they have is with Nucleo  Clencia Pela Infancia  (NCPI). The NCPI is a Brazilian initiative to increase the knowledge of how lifelong health and wellness begins in early childhood.  The NCPI is working to build a scientific  community around child development  to work with with policy makers to improve the lives of all young children  in Brazil. The other important two task that  the NCPI is working on is to take the research to build social policy and build leaders in the field, also since it is a global partnership  they have to translate all research to Portuguese so it is accessible  to all Brazilians.

Being an early childhood  educator  in the United States it is easy to get caught up in the needs of our own communities, which is important,  but we need to become a global community and be part of a global  conversation about addressing the needs of young children around the world.

Politcs of Preschool- Web Resources

This week the National Institute for Early Childhood Research had a link to an article written in the Atlantic written by Alia Wong. In her article titled The Politics of 'Pre-K', Wong discusses the push for universal Pre-K programs, and how politicians use the word Pre-K as opposed to preschool because it signifies the one year prior to kindergarten entry. Many pre-k programs that are funded by government agencies will only fund children for one year, but many state and federal politicians are really beginning to view early childhood as an investment, as are businesses who are looking for skilled workforce.

As I looked through the website I saw that there were several articles from several newspapers and other publications discussing  the need for expansion of universal preschool programs, the more that the topic is making mainstream media the more traction the movement gets.

References

Wong, A. (2014, November 19). The politics of ‘Pre-K’, preschool and prekindergarten are the same thing—aren’t they? The Atlantic. Retrieved from: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/11/the-politics-of-pre-k/382878/?single_page=true.

Childhood Poverty in Ethiopia

This week I have been exploring the issue of childhood poverty around the world. While my primary focus is on childhood poverty in the United States and specifically in my community, but in order to be an advocate for the field of early childhood it is important be aware of the needs of children around the world. During my reading about poverty and child nutrition I came across a paper written by Catherine Porter of Oxford University on child nutrition in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in Africa and 44% of the population is suffers from under-nutrition. The children in the study they conducted lived in families that had less than a dollar a day to spend, but they did find that children who had even a small amount more money had a a greater chance of catching up and refusing some of the effects of malnutrition even if they were underweight. The earlier that they are lifted out of poverty the better the chance they have of catching up developmentally and physically. Throughout the years of following the children the researchers learned that family wealth was a direct indicator of child health even in the poorest country where the wealthiest families are still far below the global poverty lines.

References

Porter, C. (2013, January). Nutrition in Early Childhood: Insights from rural Ethiopia. Retrieved November 16, 2014, from http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/Catherine_Porter_CPI_Jan2013.pdf

Sharing Web Resources

There are several resources that support teachers in the field of early childhood education. As a professional I am very familiar with a few of these, but have recently looked to expanding my resource library and becoming more familiar with other resources to not only support my professional growth, but also to help me support to professional growth of my staff.

One of the websites that I have been exploring over the last few weeks is the National Institute for Early Education Research or NIEER (www.nieer.org). The NIEER conducts research in the field of early childhood to help enhance the quality and effectiveness of programing for young children in all domains of development. The NIEER also provides research results to policy makers in order to influence positive change in the care and education of young children.

One of the first things that caught my attention on the website was the Annual State Pre-K Yearbook. The yearbook is a comprehensive report on how each state is doing meeting the needs of 3 and 4 year olds. The NIEER looks at enrollment, spending amounts per child, and government subsidies as well as what each new legislative measures have taken place over the last year. In CA one of the biggest moves the state has seen is a move to developing a statewide quality rating system using the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grant, proving that this is an exciting time to be an early childhood professional in California.

Global Perspectives and expanding resources

It is important as an early childhood professional to make connections and become advocates for children around the world, and to reach out and create a global network. This week I reached out to a few resources for global connections with no reply. Still wanting to be as informed about what is happening in early childhood education around the world I began looking into professional global organizations that support early childhood professionals around the world. As I searched for the podcasts of the World Forum Organization with no luck I came across Bonnie's Blog (http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/bonnie/) on their website. As I read her recent blog post I was struck again on the importance of  thinking about the and taking action for young children and early childhood professional around the world.

I have spent time looking for and expanding my resource library and have found that the Zero to Three website www.zerotothree.org is a very valuable resource for early childhood educators and one that while I have gone to to find specific resources or articles I have not fully immersed myself in it and can not yet easily navigate it, so I look forward to spending time learning more about it.