Conversation Partners

     My conversation partners are Claudio from the Republic of Benin, a small African country and Mary from New Zealand. Since I introduced Claudio in a previous blog I will introduce Mary. Mary and her husband are exchange teachers living in New Zealand. Mary has a preschool aged child that attends a preschool with children whose parents come from a wide range of countries like South Korea, China, India, Taiwan, England, Australia, Samoa, Fiji and other places. “There is a big map of the world on the wall and they put pictures of the kids next to the countries where they come from” (Mary, 2011). Mary teaches part-time in a fifth grade class, called “year six” in New Zealand. “It is a very inclusive classroom with a huge range of abilities. There is one autistic boy who has a teacher's aide with him. The other kids are great at making sure he is included in games and in the classroom programme. When his aide is not there, there are plenty of students who want to sit with him and help him out. There are a few (children) with some clear learning needs but they are not labelled.” (Mary, 2011). New Zealand is struggling with the effects of constant earthquakes. Fear, stress and lack of sleep are effecting teachers as well as students.
     Claudio writes frequently and shared much information about poverty in his country. Unemployment and nepotism are main issues he identified that lead to poverty. Additionally, “In the rural areas, there are some men with low-paid job who get two or three wives and when the wives beget children, they are not able to support them. Another cause about poverty is low -salary of civil servants. The salary of public workers are low to such an extent that they are unable to perform all their daily needs.For instance in BENIN, a junior primary school teacher earns 120 US dollars as a monthly salary.” (Claudio, 2011). Claudio also addressed issues of hygiene and safe water in Benin. “In my childhood, people living in a town called Aguegue used to drink water from the river. As a result they contracted many diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, etc. Nowadays with the aid of USAID and other international institutions , there are tap water all over the remote areas. In the past, people used to go to toilet in the bush but today there are public convenience all over the place.” (Claudio, 2011). Claudio explained that it is mandatory for people to respect rules of hygiene.
     In Claudio’s last email he said he did not understand how the United States could have a problem with unemployment when there is an “organize visa lottery for foreigners to come and work and even settle there permanently?” (Claudio, 2011). I researched visa lottery and discovered that the Visa Lottery Program is managed by the Department of State, which by law awards up to 55,000 permanent resident visas a year to applicants from countries with relatively low rates of immigration to the United States compared to other countries, based on data from the previous five years. The visa lottery was established by the Immigration Act of 1990 in an attempt to bring individuals to the U.S. from countries that had been sending few immigrants to the United States in the past (NumbersUSA For Lower Immigration Levels, n.d.). The diversity visas (green cards) grant permanent residence and employment opportunities to successful applicants. The original intent of the law was to increase diversity of the United States population. Today there are many problems with the program.
     A new insight into issues of poverty is that even though poverty looks different in different parts of the world and may be on different severity levels it is caused by many of the same factors.

References

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

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

NumbersUSA For Lower Immigration Levels, (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.numbersusa.com/content/issues/visa-lottery.html
　

　

Sharing Web Resources

The websites I am reviewing are National Association for the Education of Young Children found at:  http://www.naeyc.org and Teaching Tolerance a Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center found at:  http://tolerance.org/teach/index.jsp .  NAEYC is a resource for teachers that cover a variety of topics related to the early childhood field including policy, national and international trends and issues, classroom ideas, conferences, and research topics.  The website provides a plethora of resources for early childhood professionals from publications to accreditation, past issues, and leadership opportunity programs to name a few.  I prescribed to one of the magazines published by NAEYC and will receive six issues a year.  The current issue of Young Child magazine features an article on movement education.

Teaching Tolerance website contains information related to discrimination.  The website has tabs for their magazine, professional development, classroom activities, teaching kit, and mix it up publications.  The current issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine features an article about making physical education classes more inclusive.  Another article that caught my attention is entitled, “Bully at the Blackboard”.  The article discusses a veteran teacher of 38 years that lost her patience with a kindergartner and called him, “Piggy, piggy!  Oink, Oink”.  The other children in the class followed suit (Koenig, D., Daniels, R. H., fall, 2010). 

According to Dr. Twemlow children as well as teachers bring their own background and experience to the classroom.   “What teachers need to know is that our brains are hard-wired to obey those in charge,” says Twemlow.   Dr. Stuart Twemlow is well-known for his research on teacher bullying, including a 2005 study in which 45 percent of sampled teachers said they had bullied a student at some point in their careers.  If bullying was seen as a process, not a person anti-bullying programs would be more successful (Koenig, D., Daniels, R. H., fall, 2010). 

Teachers bullying students interested me because bullying is usually thought to occur between students when it happens in the classroom.  I am reminded again of the importance of self-evaluation.   We must always be cognizant of our limitations and appropriate steps to take to alleviate built-up stress.

Reference

Koenig, D., Daniels, R. H., fall, 2010.  Bullying at the Blackboard.  Teaching Tolerance. Retrieved from http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-40-fall-2011/bully-blackboard

Establishing Professional Contacts/Expanding Resources

Global Correspondence

In preparation for this assignment to establish professional contacts with early childhood professionals outside the United States I sent 19 emails to potential education professionals using the The Global Alliance of NAEYC website and one email from an alternate source I located by surfing the web. I also asked my niece visiting in the Netherlands to contact elementary schools for contacts, I asked my neighbor’s girlfriend living and teaching in Canada to correspond, and my daughter provided a contact from one of her friends that recently moved to the United States from Spain. Of the 20 emails I sent, seven were delivered. I received a response from one of the emails from an English teacher in Benin. I am planning to meet with my daughter’s friend tomorrow to exchange email addresses. I have not received a response from my contact in Canada.
Claudio Hounkponou is an English teacher from Benin with whom I have been corresponding. Claudio identified some issues in Benin that effect education as: “First, there is a low rate of girls attending school , most people in the rural areas especially peasants and farmers refuse to send their girls to school. For, according to them girls are to stay at home for household shores. Second, there is lack of appropriate materials for teaching.So, most teachers here lack adequate teaching materials. Besides, all the students don't have the books for learning. Third, the classrooms are narrow with great number of students sometimes exceeding sixty. Fourth, we have the issue of training and retaining of teachers. In today's Education in BENIN ninety percent of teachers are young people who need to be trained and retrained.”
The Republic of Benin is a small country about the size of Pennsylvania located in West Africa. Benin is bordered on the south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north by the Niger River, on the west by Togo, and on the east by Nigeria. The country is under military democratic rule. The climate is hot and humid with an average temperature between 75 degrees and 89 degrees Fahrenheit. There are two rainy seasons and two dry seasons. Tourists are attracted to see the elephants, lions, antelopes, hippos, and monkeys. The economy is agricultural with cotton being the main crop. There are 110 Peace Corps volunteers in Benin that promote sustainable development through activities in health, education, the environment and small enterprise development (infoplease, n/d). Claudio mentioned in an email that French is their official language and “Furthermore, we have some america's volunteers in our secondary school”.

Reference

infoplease, n/d. infoplease All the knowledge you need. infoplease. Retrieved from http://www.infoplease.com/country/profiles/benin.html


Expanding Resources

I selected The National Association for the Education of Young Children website to explore and study because I would like to become a member to receive the many benefits offered including a subscription to one of their magazines. While researching NAEYC’s website I noticed easy access to their position statement, developmentally appropriate practices, an E-zine and many other resources I frequently reference. The home page to their website is visually appealing with alternating topics, publications and resources in the learn more section. This website appears to be very extensive and includes a section on publication that is of interest to me.
The NAEYC’s website supports the early childhood community by providing information about all of their publications plus the on-line publications including a scholarly journal, books and variety of brochures and other publications. You may research specific topics and authors using this website. The website provides research references as well as ready to use ideas and materials for classroom teachers.