International Contacts

As of yet I have not heard from any of the international contacts that I emailed.  I am hopeful that someone well email me back however I did look up a podcast to listen to and reviewed the Children’s Initiative website.

The podcast titled ‘Beyond School Books’ – a podcast series on Education in Emergencies by Rudina Vojvoda talked about how there are 200 million children under the age of five that are not able to reach their full potential in cognitive development due to poverty, conflict, malnutrition, inadequate care and lack of educational opportunities.  The moderator Kathryn Herzog spoke with Dr. Jack Shonkoff and Dr. Chloe O’Gara about this issue.

According to Dr. Shonkoff neuroscience suggests that stronger returns on investments could come from programs that not only provide rich learning experiences for children but also build the capacity of parents and other caregivers to protect young children from the consequences of toxic stress.  Dr. Shonkoff states “The circuits in the brain are very vulnerable to toxic stress, so even in the presence of good education later, children will not achieve as much as they would have if they’re not protected from this adversity early in their life” (Vojvoda, 2012).

Dr. O’Gara talked about how little investments are being made in early childhood.  Africa invests less than 1 per cent of public education resources in early childhood education, Latin America 9 per cent, and 10 per cent in Western Europe (Vojvoda, 2012).  She goes on to say that there is a lot of room for growth in awareness and investment in early childhood care and education, particularly for children who benefit the most – the least advantaged children.  Schools need to become outreach agents, assisting families and communities in implementing small-scale early childhood programs that focus on getting children ready for school.

Both speakers stressed the importance of empowering families and communities.  I feel that this is important for the success of every child.  Families and communities are the biggest advocates for their children.

Dr. Shonkoff concluded with this quote “This is not just about stimulating minds.  This is about protecting brains” (Vojvoda, 2012).

Three new insights that I have gained from exploring Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” Global Children’s Initiative is the centerpiece of the Center on the Developing Child to focus on children’s health around the globe and development an agenda. Through exploration of the website, I learned about some of the activities that are a focus on the Global Children’s Initiative.

One activity is the Zambian Early Childhood Development Project. The Zambian Early Childhood Development Project focuses on the early childhood experiences and development within sub-Saharan Africa. A number of states have shown the impact a child’s development, health, and educational outcomes but there is little evidence on the areas of sub-Saharan Africa. The Zambian Ministry of Education, the Examination Council of Zambia, UNICEF, the University of Zambia, and the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University launched the Zambian Early Childhood Development Project (ZECDP) in 2009, a collaborative effort to measure the effects of an ongoing anti-malaria initiative on children’s development in Zambia. In order to do this successfully they created a new comprehensive instrument for assessing children’s physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development before and throughout their schooling careers—the first assessment tool of its kind in Zambia. The ZECDP collaborators hope that the data collected as part of this project, as well as future work in this area, will not only improve understanding of child development in this context but also help identify key interventions towards improved outcomes in a rapidly changing developing world.

Another insight is I learned that the Center on the Developing Child is launching its first major programmatic effort outside the United States. This effort is a part of the centers Global Children’s Initiative and is called Núcleo Ciência Pela Infância. In collaboration with local experts, this project aims to use the science of child health and development to guide stronger policies and larger investments to benefit young children and their families in Brazil. Through this effort to work towards benefits of young children and families in Brazil, organizations are working together to catalyze more effective policies and programs that will, ultimately, foster a more prosperous, sustainable, and equitable society.

The third insight that I learned about was the video Super-Cérebro. Super-Cérebro is the Portuguese translation of Brain Hero, a three-minute video depicting how actions by a range of people in the family and community can affect a child’s development. This video corresponds to the child’s development and what impacts a child’s development including but not limited to their brain development, the community in which a child grows, the experiences a child faces throughout early childhood development. This video was a very informational piece for parents of children of young ages.

Resources

Vojvoda, R. (2012, April). ‘Beyond School Books’ – a podcast series on education in emergencies [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/education/beg_62266.html

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/

Sharing NIEER Online News

I have been studying the website National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER).  I subscribed to their Online News and received volume 11, issue 15.  In this volume they talk about new research on autism.  This study is relevant to me because the majority of the children that I work with are on the autism spectrum.  Did you know that autism can be spotted in children as young as age two with the use of electroencephalogram tests (EEGs)?  Early intervention is best so early knowledge is always good resource.

            What I found interesting is that United States ranks 24^th on early childhood because preschool access and quality vary too much from one area of the country to another.  The top three ranking countries are Finland, Sweden, and Norway.   We should look at these countries and follow their example by making our preschools more accessible and have high-quality center throughout the country.

            Neuroscientists had to set the record straight in New Hampshire when a “state representative remark that kindergarten  results  in criminal activity after his research found a link between crime rates and access to kindergarten in communities throughout the state” (NIEER, 2012, para. 5).  “Correlation does not mean causation” (NIEER, 2012, para. 5).  It goes to show that you need to learn how to analyze your research properly.  NIEER Director W. Steven Barnett wrote a paper providing insights on how to do this.  You can find his paper at http://nieer.org/resources/research/PreschoolEducation.pdf.

            Jumpstart, a national organization dedicated to improving school readiness outcomes for low-income children, established National Early Education Council (NEEC).  The NEEC is to advise Jumpstart strategies and bring together key players in the early childhood field.  I thought that this was something with checking out.  You can find the Jumpstart webpage at http://www.jstart.org/.

Resource

National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). (2012). NIEER Online News, 11(15). Retrieved from http://www.nieer.org/publications/online-newsletters.

International Contacts

International Contacts

Unfortunately, I have not received a response back from any international colleague and I had to do the alternate assignment.  However I did learn about Mongolia through the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre (http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/index.php?action=countryo#12).  I watched all ten podcasts from the World Forum Foundation radio. 

The podcasts were about the passions that inspire these professionals to help young children.  Not a lot of talk about poverty; however, Meridas Eka Yora, ran an orphanage in Indonesia.  She talked about how you had to be mother and father before becoming the teacher and that the oldest children take care of the youngest.  Irma Allen who lives in Africa talks about the fact that there are no schools.  Children’s learning experiences all take part outside.  The outdoor environment has a lot to teach us and they use natural resources that are available to them.  Maysoun Chehab in Arab trained parents and teachers how to help children that have been through a big conflict such as war.  Teaching adults how to deal with the conflict helps children to deal with it.  Delfena Mitchell ran a home for abused children in Belize.  You could hear her passion in her voice when she talked about a little boy in her program.  Deevia Bhana in South Africa talked about sexual abuse that goes on there.  They believe that having sex with young girls would cure HIV or AIDs this is a scary thought.  It would mean that no young girl is safe from being raped.

World Forum Foundation Radio. Includes links to podcasts of conversations with early childhood professionals.
http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/radio.php

After visiting and researching the website http://www.childhoodpoverty.org, Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre I learned a lot about poverty in Mongolia.  Mongolia went through a rapid structure change that hit families hard, unemployment rose, inflation and prices soared.  There were cuts in basic social services and welfare reduced support.  In 1998 36% of the population was below poverty level.  Poverty was higher in urban areas than rural. 

Before this transition Mongolia’s social services were high standard and accessible to all.  Now access to healthcare for poor families, migrants, and those in remote rural areas is poor.  Health insurance schemes demands user fees and restricts use to these registered as living in that area.  Malnutrition is growing in 1998 30% of children under five had low height for age and 10% were under weight.  51% of population did not have access to safe drinking water.

Many Children were forced to work outside the home for money which resulted in no schooling.  One third of migrants moved to urban areas for better education.  Migrants are four times more likely to drop out of school than long-term residents due to urban schools not accepting migrant children.

This information is not the most recent and I look forward to researching more about Mongolia to see where they are today with poverty.  I still hope that the international colleagues will respond to my emails; however I still plan to research Mongolia further.

The organization that I am reviewing

The organization that I chose is National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) http://nieer.org

This organization “conducts and communicates research to support high-quality, effective early childhood education for all young children” (http://nieer.org/about/vision).  The NIEER has a variety of articles and research projects that benefits educators, families, and policy makers.

The newsletter is sent biweekly.  I looked back over the last three issues and I found this:

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently released the latest edition of “The Condition of Education,” the annual report of trends and developments in P-20 education. Amongst the plethora of statistics gathered, NCES reports that the percent of 3- to 5-year-olds enrolled in full-day pre-K classrooms increased from 32 percent in 1980 to 58 percent in 2010; private preschool enrollment dropped from 6.3 million in 2001 to 5.5 million in 2009; nearly 1 million more public school students were identified as English language learners in 2009 than in 2000; and the percent of children and youth ages 3-21 with disabilities has decreased each year since 2005, with approximately 6.5 million (13 percent) of public school enrollees being served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (NIEER, 2012).

I thought it demonstrated the demographic changes that we have been talking about.

NIEER. (2012, June 1). The condition of education 2012: A portrait of the nation’s students. NIEER online newsletter, 11(12). Retrieved from http://nieer.org/publications/online-newsletters/volume-11-issue-12