Getting Ready—Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

The Global Alliance of NAEYC has e-mail addresses for early childhood professionals worldwide:

http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance

Unicef, United for children, are working in every country you can think of to help improve the lives of children.  You can research what they are doing by country or as a whole.  The site offers many resources.  You can register with most any social media you are familiar with to keep involved with what they are doing. I registered to become a fan on Face book.  They have a link titled “The State of the World’s Children”, It features videos, panels article from real people sharing information about children rights, policy, health etc...from world.  

UNICEF has local organizations and representatives worldwide. Check out the country specific links and contact a local representative:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html

I am familiar with NAEYC however, I did not know about their contacts outside of the U.S.  I joined TORCH, The Online Resource Center Headquarters.  The online community resources to help you better understand and implement the NAEYC accreditation criteria.  Most of the questions I read came from professionals living in the States.  I find many of the question and answers to actually be useful to me.

 

After exploring many of the sites and registering for a few of the newsletters I chose the following to full engulf myself in.   

National Black Child Development Institute

http://nbcdi.org/

(Newsletter: http://nbcdi.org/support/sign-up-for-nbcdi-newsletters/ )

Totally personal reasons.  As an African American mother and teacher it is important for me to state informed and connected.

National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators

http://www.naecte.org/

(Newsletter: http://www.naecte.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=29 )

I have been a Early Childhood Professional for ten years.

Summer letter from the president, Discussing the Summer Conference taken place in RI, It has a nice write up about teacher research explaining who performs  the research and the purpose for the research.

International Child Resource Institute

http://www.icrichild.org/

(Review also the international projects at: http://www.icrichild.org/kenya ) Click on the International Projects tab at the top to see a list of the available projects.

I truly believe “it takes a village”.  And when I open up this site the front page of the website reads “Empowering the Village to Raise The Child”.

State it’s mission is to improve live of children and families around the world.  In a world where so many children do not have basic human rights.

"Without You..."

"My Support"

          Being born into a large family of sisters I grow up surrounded by others who always having someone around to help me with one thing or another.  Helping me with my homework to French braiding my hair.  I didn’t realize how important that support was until I moved from the East coast to the west coast with my husband and four year old daughter.  It was a very exciting and adventures time for us.  Leaving behind the home, family and friends that was my life for half of my life.  No longer having the support I had come to expect was shocking.  Having one of my sisters stop in so that I could go to the market while my daughter was napping was a thing of the past.  No more dropping her off at my older sister’s house for Friday night date night.  No more calling one of my sisters every morning to see whos house we were having coffee at.  No more stopping by my Aunt's house after church for dinner or dessert.  To make matters more tring my husband's work schedule requires him to be away from home 24-72 hours at a time, and often requires him to work on holidays.  We quickly learned to depend on each other.  I would never have been able to make it with out my husband constant support.  Setting up my morning coffee, leaving for work a little earlier on Sundays so that he can surprise me with a copy of the local news paper.  Keeping me company on the phone while I wait for my teenager to get home.  And always tell me I can do whatever I set out to do. 

I had to decide what to do now that I didn't have a all ready made supportive environment around me.  I had to decide it didn't matter where I am, I can create a supportive environment. Understanding that a supportive environment can be people, or it can be things that I surround myself with making my living or work environment supportive.

Creating a supportive environment to assist me in my journey of personal growth.  I also learned that I needed to create a supportive environment by being selective about the things that I feed my mind with like books I read, television I watch and web sites I visit.

24 years after that first move I have several factors within my daily environment that supports me and gives me strength each day.

“My Connections to Play.”

The quotes that I feel summarized what play represented to me in childhood.

Childhood is the most beautiful of all life's seasons.  ~Author Unknown

The older I grow the more earnestly I feel that the few joys of childhood are the best that life has to give.  ~Ellen Glasgow

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life that he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.  ~Mark Twain

I am from a family of seven children.  Being from a large family we spent a lot of ours play outdoors.  Growing up on the east coast we had the pleasure of celebrating seasons.  No matter the weather we had a game that we could play.

 Winter meant sledding until our clothes were wet and our mother was threaten us to come in or else. 

Spring finally I can ride my bike.  And ride I do to the park, to the school yard and home before the street lights come on.   

Summer finally “schools out for summer.”  I still wake up at 7:00am as if I have to go to school.  And I play from sun up too sunset.  And then I get to play some more.  I just can’t leave the front of the house and that’s when the real fun beings.  Kick the can, hide and seek, and he Ouji board. 

Fall the trees are beautiful.  Raking leave turns into a wonderful adventure.   

As I think back to my childhood play years.  I can’t help but feel sorry for what children today consider play.  When I think of early childhood, happy or unhappy, chaotic or relaxed, the imagined childhoods we might have had or wish for my children.  Children are missing out on a world of experience.  Some that represents a quality of life.  I want to give my students great experiences and establish a good rapport with them. 

Relationship Reflection

Relationships, it is deepest of all bonds humans develop. Yet we neglect to value and nurture.  Nonetheless, we feel the most painful emotions when we lose someone close to us and remorseful that we did not spend enough time with them.

I am the fifth daughter.  My parents were blessed with seven daughters.  We were realized in neighbourhoods where people didn’t quite understand how my father became the boss at the largest plant in town.  After all we didn’t look like them.  Therefore we spend most of our time with each other.  Reading, playing school and planning our further.  As adults we moved to different parts of the country promising to meet at least once a year to reconnect.  Not a Sunday goes by that we don’t speak to one another.  To this day my relationship with each of them is important.    This assignment makes me wonder if we were that important to one another then why did we move away?

My spouse, He makes me feel good about me.  He builds me up all the while keeping it real with me.  He is truly the only person that I can open up about anything.  He does not judge me.  He know this is who I am and he’s good with that.  My sisters were not happy for me.  They were honestly rude and hurtful towards me about my getting married.  He encourages me to forgive.  We celebrated 20 of marriage last week.  

My girls, I have two wonderful daughters.  I can say that now.  We are almost threw our teen years!  The dreams and plans I had and still have for them are bigger then I knew I could dream.  They have taught me lessons only children have the power to teach.  Is it really so bad that I see them as a reflection of me?

My co-worker Miss. Stacie, her classroom is diagonally across from mine.  We share tales of challenging students, lesson plans, the best words use when speaking with a parent.  We share our lunch, recipes, issues that have come up at home and district frustrations.  But the most important thing we share everyday is laughter!     

I share a partnership within each of these relationships because they are apart of whom I am and who I can.   They touch me in someway everyday. 

What else could a girl ask for?  At almost 48 years of age I still crave to have a "Bestie".  You know the girlfriend bond that so many books and movies talk about.  It's never to late.

“Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future”

 John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Here's Too You!

A Big note of thanks for sharing your knowledge and yourself with me.  I hope to be continuing this journey with you.  Best of luck in all of your endeavors.

Testing for Intelligence?

Holistic development is based on the premise that we are to see a child as a whole person, emotionally, socially, intellectually, physically, healthily, culturally and spiritually.

Each area of development influences the others and is interconnected.  For example: Physical development goes into cognitive and social.

Holistic development values the many forms of learning.  The art of holistic education lies in its responsiveness to the diverse learning styles and needs of evolving human beings.  What is appropriate for some children and adults may not be for others. 

 Test fall under many categories.  a standardized test is an exmination that's administered and scored in a predetermined, standar manner.  There are two major kinds of standardized test: aptitude tests and achievement tests.  The intelligence tests avaiable are supposed to be a guide to measure one's general level of intellignce.  Different test measure different skills.  Usually standardized tests are said to be the single best predicto of one's level of intellectual capacity.

They are an attempt to measure how well you know a certain subject, or ones intelligence, cognitive functioning, interest, and personality are a few that come to mind.  I think the goal is generally all interconnected. 

Based on that information, I do not believe the formal approach is the best way to study what the young child.  I do not approve this type of assessment testing should be administered to children.  Every child has their own style of learning.   Of tools and techniques that can be helpful in a standardized test will not allow all children to share what they know and have learned?  There are many other items to be considered.  I know adults who do not test well.  There are a variety of tools and techniques that can be used.

After learning that one of my students would be returning to Korea for his elementary school years, I decided to take a look at assessment testing  at schools in Korea.  In Korea education his very important and expected of all citizens.  A fee is charged to attend school.  The school researched uses  The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), it is designed to measure intelligence.  It is a standardized achievement test designed to provide achievement scores that are valid for most types of educational decision-making. Areas that are assessed are Reading/Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. It is often used for placement evaluations in programs for gifted children.  

A child’s feeling and emotions have an effect on what they learn.  In elemtery school my  I felt that I felt that I was not as smart as the other children when it cam to spelling or math.  My teachers responds effected my emotional response.  If they cheered telling me I could do it or did they stare at me in complete silents.  As educators it is crucial that we remember that no experience fails to evoke an emotional response.  Understanding this fosters the whole being.   

http://www.infed.org/biblio/holisticeducation.htm

http://www.davidjcarey.com/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_for_Children.ht

http://www.dulwich-seoul.kr

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1130621