Getting Ready~Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

This week marks the start of the third class on my journey to my masters.  Our first assignment was to contact several early childhood resources from around the globe.  My first thoughts were completely and totally skeptical.  Why would any early childhood professional (and by professional I really mean high up on the food chain) want to take time to respond to my lowly little email asking for help…but I was game.

I contacted Ec-Pec Foundation (International Step by Step Association) in Budapest, Hungary. Ec-Pec Foundation was established in February 2001 with the intention of promoting the child-centered Step by Step pedagogical program in institutions (preschools, schools) educating disadvantaged children, and supporting program development in educational institutions already using the program. I originally contacted this organization because I was curious if any of Dr. Emmi Pikler’s (Lóczy/Pikler Institute) inspirations may be found because of the general area the foundation was located. 

I emailed an Eva Deak as indicated in our course contact list…later having found another name listed on the actual website, I feel I may not get a response. I will have to wait and see what comes of it, but will keep my fingers crossed!

The second organization I contacted was the Ajoke International School in Nigeria. I chose this location because of its African location. In the fall I watched a documentary called “Babies” In the movie I found four very different and diverse approaches to child rearing. The one that struck me the most was of an African tribal group.  This is because the tribe has nothing earthly to speak of. They are living in stick huts in a desert like area.  No running water, no electricity, no modern conveniences, every day is life or death for them. Through it all the children are happy and taken care of.  Here in the United States we hear talk of poverty, even severe poverty but honestly we have nothing to relate to the poverty they see and live over there. Mostly I am very curious about the culture of the country.  Is it industrialized and modern like our country or is it more rural like some other African countries, like that of the family I saw in the movie.

More than anything I want to learn about how these two very different countries care for their children, what values and expectations do they have for them, and how do they teach them. At this point, I haven’t heard back from either contact but am quite anxious to.

This week we were also to explore an international early childhood agency or organization.  I checked out several of them, I honestly didn’t really know what to expect to find at some of the sites, and so maybe that is why I am still a little sketchy about picking one…I don’t know what I should be looking for. Several wanted you to donate or purchase a membership, some of the listed resources seemed to have a lot of broken links or missing information.  I looked at the following:

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 )

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.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/ (Review also the online Resources listed on the right: Selected publications, Country Profiles, or Policy Series)

Perhaps I wasn’t looking in the right spots, maybe I was looking for a presumed content.  I will keep looking. I know that the information I might want is out there waiting for me to find it.  It is very helpful to have the internet to connect us with people and organizations on other continents doing the same thing with the same hopes, dreams and wishes for young children.  It is a professional goal of mine to attend and international or global early childhood conference someday…I have been looking at the World Forum on Early Childhood Education. It is my hope that I can write the cost of attending into our STARs program budget and be able to go to some place sunny and warm to get a new perspective on educating children at a global level. How many people get to do that?

My Supports

So this week we are learning about supports needed to help a child meet his or her full potential.  Supports are around us everywhere. Some of us need very little support to get through our lives, while others of us need a little more take a look…

Every day before I even open my eyes, I have supports in place to make the transition from asleep (which often eludes me) to awake. And let me tell you about the different levels of awake…most of which because of the sleep or lack of it, I never find.  At six a.m. each morning except for Sundays and every other Saturday I wake up to cathedral bells. I chose the bells because it was much less painful than waking up to the wonk, wonk, wonk of an air raid drill. After hitting the snooze button at least once, I crawl out of bed—reluctantly and tired.

Enter the next support…a steaming hot shower! A little bit of heaven on earth, the shower has a stool so while it try and pry open my eyes I can let the hot water cascade down over my tired achy body, it seems almost punitive to have to start everyday tired and sore, but such is the life my body has dealt me. This is a result of too many years of self-induced stress and worries about the “little stuff” over run my life, so do not make the same mistakes I did. There are not lying when they say stress kills! On to support #3, now if I could figure out how to main line the caffeine! Throughout my day, there are many other supports I have come to depend on. Teachers who show up to work with a positive attitude and a genuine love of working with children, parents who trust us to educate their children while they are working, a husband who has supported my crazy dreams for over 20 years. My friends and family who pick me up and dust me off when I fall are also a huge support to me on a daily basis!

Besides the life sustaining supports like food, shelter and oxygen what if your world tipped tomorrow and you suddenly needed help to relearn everything, who and what would it take to create a life that was fulfilling and personally rewarding, and how does this all play into my role as an early care educator, so glad you asked!

So here we are you wake up in a hospital hooked to machines, tubes, and other devices to support your very existence. You find out you have had a stroke, your left side is paralyzed and you are unable to speak. The team of doctors and nurses assure you that in time you will fully function again, but it will take hard work on your part and you will need to relearn how to walk, talk, feed yourself; the list goes on.  Your support team just got a whole lot bigger! Now you have speech language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists trying to restore life as you knew it.  Through hours of restorative care, and family support you will return to “normal”.

Okay, now imagine you are a child who has just relocated to the United States with your family.  You do not know anyone, except your parents, and siblings; and you speak no English. This morning you are dropped off at a childcare. You still do not know anyone, have never been in a setting like this and now your parents are gone! How do you feel, how are you going to function? How will you make it through the day? What if you have to go to the bathroom? Pretty scary, huh? Do you feel completely and totally isolated?

As a teacher and advocate of young children, I can tell you this does happen, more often than you would think.  In our ever-changing global world, it is very likely you may be faced with a similar situation. How well you can be prepared to help the student integrate into the classroom will speak volumes about your teaching ability, attitudes and desires to become a culturally responsive and individually appropriate educator. We must be ready to face the challenge of how best to respond the developmental, cultural, linguistic and educational diversity of our students.

NAEYC (1995) offers this advice to help teachers and students:

•  Recognize that all children are cognitively, linguistically, and emotionally connected to the language and culture of their home
•  Acknowledge that children can demonstrate their knowledge and capabilities in many ways
• Understand that without comprehensible input, second-language learning can be difficult
• Actively involve parents and families in the early learning program and setting
• Encourage and assist all parents in becoming knowledgeable about the cognitive value for children knowing more than one language, and provide them with strategies to support, maintain, and preserve home-language learning
• Recognize that parents and families must rely on caregivers and educators to honor and support their children in the cultural values and norms of the home
• It also offers this advice for administrators and directors of early childhood education programs:
• Provide early childhood educators with professional preparation and development in the areas of culture, language and diversity
• Recruit and support early childhood educators who are trained in languages other than English
• Recognize that children can and will acquire the use of English when their home language is used and respected
• Develop and provide alternative and creative strategies for young children’s learning

As much of a challenge as this can be we need to remember that preschool children cannot afford to miss out on content learning in their first language while they are becoming fluent in English (Nemeth, 2009).  Keep in mind that inclusive classrooms are not just about children with medical and health disabilities. Inclusion is about access, participation and supports for ALL children. By creating classrooms and programs that offer individualized learning, we can assure that children can and will learn in a way that is meaningful and relevant to them!

References

DEC/NAEYC. (2009). Early childhood inclusion: A joint position statement of the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/DEC_NAEYC_EC_updatedKS.pdf Copyright by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

National Association for the Education of Young Children. (1995). Responding to linguistic and cultural diversity: Recommendations for effective early childhood education. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PSDIV98.PDF
Copyright by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

My Connections to Play

“Play is the highest form of research.” – Albert Einstein

Growing up I had three of the best "toys" EVER; cousins you call them. My grandma tells the story like this..."I waited so long to have my first grandchild, and then it seemed like every nine months there was another one."  We were like the four amigos, the four musketeers, where one went we all went.  We didn't need anything or anyone else, just us and the streams, rivers, and things we'd find around the yard or campsite; maybe a dirt pile or two. When one of us got hurt, we all cried--that's when we needed a little adult support. Other than that we pretty much just did our own thing, as much as preschoolers could do back then.  I can remember this all the way up through our teens. We had everything we needed to entertain ourselves for hours; days even and almost nothing came from a store or had a "set" way to play. 

Fast forward 35 years and play has changed somewhat.  Gone are the days of being unplugged.  Our children are bombarded by bells, lights and whistles, play dates, structured  organized sporting events and movement classes.  Our children's toys have all but eliminated face to face social interactions and have created a whole new language (text ease--much of which I don't speak or understand). My  biggest worry as a child was who would catch the first fish.  Today's children are dealing with a whole new tragedy--Nature Deficit Disorder. As a child my back yard extended from one end of the block to the other, today's children have only the space contained between each side of the six foot privacy fence.  Imagination is a thing of the past. Between the story lines of the television or video games our children don't have to think about anything, it's all spoon fed to them.

Because play is the essential work of young children we must ensure that our children have the opportunity to participate in true and genuine play that they and they alone have engineered, constructed and imagined. Through play, children can explore their senses, how their body works, how to create and sustain relationships, and emotional regulation. They are also able to explore academic concepts like math, sciences, art, language, literacy, music and physical skills. Play is a low pressure, safe way for children to explore, engage and interact with the world around them and the people in it. 

As an advocate for children and quality childhoods I turn to Magda Gerber for her timeless words of wisdom, I encourage you to do the same. When creating play environments for children remember that "active toys make passive children, and passive toys make active children." 

What might that look like? I'm glad you asked lets take a look...

**photos courtesy of Pinterest 

As you can see children are actively engaged with non commercial materials that do not tell the children how to play with them, the children create ways to play. By choosing open ended "loose parts" we can create opportunities for children to develop complex play schemes that allow children to work on "whole" child learning.  


“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw