Learning about the International Early Childhood Field

　
     Exchanging information about the early childhood field with international conversation partners has been a learning experience as well as an experience that has broadened my professional growth. My conversation partner from Benin, Africa teaches English to first and third grade students and my conversation partner from Christchurch, New Zealand teaches fifth grade and has a daughter that attends a preschool program. One consequence of corresponding with my partners is that I learned about the effect their governments have on the education system in their country. My conversation partner in New Zealand wrote, “The government believes that a centre can employ people who do not hold qualifications….The current government has been cutting operational grants to early childhood teacher…..The government has slashed funding to centres to encourage to hire less qualified …….” (Mary, 2011). My conversation partner in Benin wrote, “about the school system in Benin, there is subsidy granted by governments to both public and private schools. However, that subsidy is insufficient……in BENIN leaders don't have in mind the issue of Development". They are very corrupted and don't think of the lives of the peoples……..” (Claudio, 2011). Another consequence was that I learned that in New Zealand children with diverse learning abilities are included in the classroom with no emphasis placed on the differences in learning styles. A third consequence was that I heard first hand about the extreme poverty and devastating health issues that exist in Benin. Many programs such as UNICEF provide assistance and aid to the country. Students in third grade are taught about sexually transmitted disease because of the prevalence of Aids.
     The most important consequence and goal that I developed during “conversations” with my foreign partners is to maintain an on-going communication for continued sharing and learning from each other. My professional network is now global and includes professional friends from very different parts of the world.



                                                                                References

Claudio, (9/2011). Retrieved from personal e-mail

Mary, (9/2011). Retrieved from personal e-mail.
　
　
　

International Contacts – Part 3

          Both of my conversation partners responded that quality teachers are highly educated with experience in the field.  Claude, from Benin, Africa writes, “The schools which offer good teaching quality are private school with high school fees.  Good quality teaching here in BENIN is found in private school because in some of those schools we can find qualified teachers with high degrees.  Moreover the teachers have liability of good results otherwise they will be dismissed the following year.  There are weekly tests for students in private schools in all the subjects.  Most teachers in public schools are not qualified since nowadays students who completed a degree at university apply for a position for part-time work in public school without any prior teaching background.  This affects seriously the students’ performance when they sit for different tests at the end of the year” (Claudio, 10, 2011).

          Mary, from Christchurch, New Zealand discussed barriers to quality teacher in ECE within her country.  She wrote, “Early childhood teachers in New Zealand are not paid as much as primary or secondary teachers and they work longer hours and don't get the holidays that primary and secondary teachers get. The current government has been cutting operational grants to early childhood teachers because it believes that the teachers employed by the early childhood centres do not have to all be qualified.  That is why many centres have asked for a small hourly donation so that they can keep all of their qualified teachers and pay for them to do further study.  I think the government's lack of understanding of how important early childhood education is will have a trickle-down effect in the future when the kids enter primary school with lack of literacy and numeracy as well as social skills.  Quality centres hire primary trained teachers with additional early childhood qualifications. Primary training takes three years and it would take an additional one year of early childhood training to get certified in early childhood as well. Other teachers go back to school to get their early childhood qualifications” (Mary, 10, 2011)

          Claude shared his professional goals.  He wrote, “First, regarding my professional goal, i'd like to tell you that i'm very passionnate with teaching and i like continuing teaching to students in English in both private and public schools.I really like English and in this regard i'm longing to study English for a few weeks in the forthcoming years maybe either in US or UK for improvement of my spoken English. i've been saving for that” (Claudio, 10, 2011).

          This assignment has been very enlightening reading first-hand about the educational systems in foreign countries.  My conversation partners have been wonderful responding and answering the questions I pose to them each week.  Through the course of our correspondence, we have formed friendships.  My professional network has become global.

References

Claudio. (10, 2011). Retrieved from personal email.

Mary. (10, 2011). Retrieved from personal email.

Sharing Web Resources

Teaching Tolerance e-newsletter contained an article entitled, “Alabama Immigration Law Tough on Students” by Sean Price. The article discusses the effect of Alabama’s anti-immigration law that was upheld by a federal judge, making the state “No. 1” when it comes to cracking down on immigrants. The law authorized law enforcement to detain people suspected of not being U.S. citizens and requires schools to ask new enrollees for a copy of their birth certificate. Students who are U.S. citizens by birth, but their parents may not be are most likely going to leave the state. Many children have been in tears. They are afraid. Several legal groups, including the southern Poverty Law Center plan to appeal the Alabama Law (Price, S., 2011).

I explored two links on NAEYC’s website; the first was the Newsroom and the second was Position Statements. In the Newsroom I found two recent press releases. The first was released on July 28, 2011 entitled, “U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown and Kay Hagan Introduce NAEYC’s Recommendations for ‘Ready Schools’ for All Children in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act”. This legislation, building on the National Education Goals Panel Report on Ready Schools, as well as work in Ohio, North Carolina, and other communities, will help elementary schools provide the conditions and collaborations that will support all children in sustaining the gains they make in preschool through the early grades. Readiness includes ready children, ready families, ready communities, ready early care and education, and ready schools. Becoming a “ready school” includes conditions such as the use of developmentally appropriate curricula and teaching practices, support for teachers to enhance their knowledge of child development and learning, strong collaborations with families and community early childhood education providers, and professional development for school principles (NAEYC, 2011).

The second press release was dated October 11, 2011 and entitled, “U.S. Senator Robert Casey Introduces NAEYC’s Recommendations to Strengthen the Birth to Third Grade Continuum of Learning in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act” The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act encourages further state, community and school-level policy and practices that reflect what we know is needed to create an effective continuum of development and learning from birth through age 8 that sets the course for every child’s success in school and life (NAEYC, Oct., 2011).

The Position Statement tab on NAEYC’s website contains 35 plus position statements, standards, and “where we stand” statements. Positions statements I felt to be relevant to our topics of study are “Positions Statement on a Call for Vigilance and Action by All Policymakers on Behalf of Children and Families” and “Anti-Discrimination Position Statement”. Respectively, these position statements address legislation in Arizona with respect to immigration and related issues as a concern for NAEYC because it does not benefit children, and a commitment to the rights and interests of all children with respect to the hiring and retaining individuals working in the early childhood field (NAEYC). Relevant standards and “where we stand” statements include “Standards for Professional Preparation Programs” and where we STAND on standards for programs to prepare early childhood professionals. Both are about what future teachers should know and be able to do by addressing six standards that emphasize inclusion, diversity, family and community relationships, assessment, curriculum, and becoming a professional (NAEYC).

Completing this research provided insight that some states are not supportive of immigrants and have adopted laws that are harmful to children born in this country who have parents that are not citizens.

References

NAEYC (2011). U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown and Kay Hagan Introduce NAEYC’s Recommendations for “Ready Schools” for All Children in the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/newsroom/pressreleases/Senators_Brown_and_Hagan_introduce_…

NAEYC ( Oct., 2011). U.S. Senator Robert Casey Introduces NAEYC’s
Recommendations to Strengthen the Birth to Third Grade Continuum of Learning in
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Retrieved from
http://www.naeyc.org/newsroom/pressreleases/senator_casey_introduces_naeyc/recomm…

Price, S. (2011). Alabama Immigration Law Tough on Students. Teaching Tolerance.
Retrieved from http://www.tolerance.org/blog/alabama-immigration-law-tough-students

NAEYC web site. Position Statements.

New Insights and Information from Conversation Partners

     My conversation partners, Claudio (Claude) and Mary have been super helpful enlightening me about the educational systems in their respective countries if Benin, Africa and Christchurch, located on the South Island of New Zealand. Claude grew up in the town of Portonovo, which means new port named after the city of Porto in Portugal. People form Portugal discovered Portonovo and thought it looked like their city of Porto. Claude works 18 hours per week teaching English in a public school where he works as a civil servant. He also teaches French (the native language of Benin) in a private school. In Benin there is a nation-wide program called “Education For All”, a subsidy granted by the government to both public and private schools. “However, that subsidy is insufficient to such an extent that some schools lack enough classrooms. Some international donors often come for help with furniture supply. Besides, there is shortage of school materials namely books for students. The government just send some in the schools and the principal of schools give out to teachers. Then the students are to pay money to photocopy the whole book. Some students' parents often lack money for photocopying the book. As a consequence, some teachers expel the students from their class. For my sake, i never expel my students. when there is a student with a book on a table, i usually tell the student without the book to use it with his neighbour with the book.  Moreover, the government doesn't provide the classrooms with computer. This is one of a major issues we, EFL teachers are confronted with here. Adding to that, the students have no grounding about computer” (Claudio, 2011). Claude explained that the government does not support early childhood education. UNICEF is actively working with young children in his country.
     Mary explained that poverty is rampant in New Zealand and on the rise. Food is very expensive and there is a Government Sales Tax on everything. Health care is free and there are lots of benefits for people with children as well as those unemployed or suffering from disabilities that prevent them from working (Mary, 2011). “Schools here are labeled so to speak according the area they are located in and how well the people in the neighbourhood around the school are doing economically. For example, my school is located in a well to do area where housing prices are high and the median income of the area around the school is quite high. Schools are rated on a decile scale from 1(lowest) to 10(highest). My school is a decile 9. This means that most of the children there come from families where income is high, education is highly regarded and this rating gives the school has a good reputation. However the bad side of this is that because the school has a high decile rating with supportive parents who are able to help out financially when asked to, the government limits the operational funding of the school. My school has to find funding every year to pay for the numerous teachers' aides that we have. There are lots of students with high needs and the number increases every year. The school also has to find ways to buy computers and find the extra funds to send teachers on professional development courses. Decile 1 schools receive lots of funding from the government because the school population cannot afford to help out the schools when they need more money for things. The children are fed breakfast every day and the school helps families to pay for school uniforms. I think that the decile ratings of schools automatically make people label the school and have a pre-determined idea of what the school's population may look like. Test results are not used to label the school as performing or not performing up to standards as I believe they are in the US (Mary, 2011). 
     Early childhood programmes here in New Zealand receive lots of government funding for now. The previous Labour government(which was more to the left) granted every child 20 hours of free childcare as soon as the child turned 3. I volunteered to pay an additional fee per hour to ensure that my daughter’s preschool teachers get to have release time for professional development and that they get to hire extra teachers to help out and to ensure that they hire qualified teachers who have specifically trained as Early Childhood teachers. The current National kept the 20 hours of free childcare, however believes that the early childhood centres don't need to have teachers on their staff who are all qualified to teach Early Childhood that they can have some teachers who have no training at all. They undervalue the profession of Early Childhood teachers” (Mary, 2011).
      The more I learn about Benin, the more I admire Claude for his drive and persistence in obtaining an education at a university and his dedication to the teaching field. He explained that when he explained email to his fourth grade class that, “ they are astonished when i tell them that one can send a message to a person living thousands of miles away and have answer back within a couple of minute when the correspondent is connected” (Claudio, 2011). In Christchurch, Mary experiences diversity in much the same way as in the US. “NZ has had a huge influx of Asian immigrants in the past 20 years and had to adapt quickly to accommodate their needs” (Mary, 2011).

References

Mary, (9/2011). Retrieved from personal e-mail.
Claudio, (9/2011). Retrieved from personal e-mail
　

Sharing Web Resources

While reviewing The Teaching Tolerance e-newsletter, I came across an article entitled, “Two decades of Teaching Tolerance”.   This article explained that the teaching tolerance program was founded in 199 by Morris Dees.  The mission of the program is to promote respect for differences and an appreciation of diversity in the classroom and beyond (Thomas J. E., 2011).  The article highlights issues related to tolerance by year beginning in 1991.  Many groups are mentioned, including gays and lesbians, homeless children, educating children of illegal immigrants, and children with learning disabilities.  The article is relevant to my professional development because it focuses on the broad spectrum of diversity, including areas not typically included in diversity.  Reading this article broadened my thinking to include sexual preference and homeless children as part of teaching diversity.

The new issue of NAEYC’s Young Children magazine includes the article, “Moving Bodies, Building Minds:  Foster Preschoolers’ Critical Thinking”.  This article explores how teachers help children develop their working memory through movement (Marigliano, M. L., Russo, M. J (2011).

When body movements are paired with language, and language paired with sensory motor experiences, children have two ways to make meaning of their experiences.  When initiating a movement activity, teachers can use the scaffolding technique of engage, expand, and empower to create a rich experience.  Creative movement activities foster critical-thinking and problem-solving skills while encouraging joyful exploration.  During creative movement experiences, children learn to think before they act, pay attention to detail, and consider differences between experiences (Marigliano, M. L., Russo, M. J (2011).

This article adds to the volumes of research conducted by scientists on the importance of quality early childhood education on brain development.  Critical thinking and problem-solving are qualities that enhance positive development toward becoming productive adults.

            Insights I’ve gained by exploring Teaching Tolerance website and NAEYC website are that diversity and research on the developing brain are broader than I originally thought.  Diversity includes subjects of hate groups such as gays and lesbians.  The argument that highly educated and trained early childhood professionals are needed to enhance healthy brain development is made stronger by including research on movement education for young children.

References

 Jill E. Thomas, J.E., (Sept. 2011).  Two Decades of Teaching Tolerance. Retrieved from

     http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-40-fall-2011/two-decades-teaching-tolerance

Marigliano, M. L., J. Russo, M. L. (Sept. 2011) Moving Bodies, Building Minds  Foster

Preschoolers’ Critical Thinking:  And Problem Solving through Movement. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/201109/Moving%20Bodies_Russo_Marigliano_Online_0911.pdf