International Contacts

My international contact is an Early Childhood educator from Ontario, Canada. She is a registered early childhood educator that has been working at a theme based / Montessori daycare for the past 5 1/2 years.  She hopes to someday continue her education and get a BA in early childhood studies in Canada- I hope to encourage her in this endeavor as we communicate and exchange ideas/information over the next several weeks, and beyond.

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On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 4:25 PM, Amy Smith <amy.smith3@waldenu.edu> wrote:

Assignment: Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

As it is never too early to establish professional contacts, the Assignment for this course provides the opportunity to establish contact, to talk with, and to learn from professionals who live and work in different parts of the world. There are no specific rules for these conversations; simply ask your conversation partners each week about their thoughts and insights regarding the issues and trends you are studying in this course...

This week, issues related to poverty are the focal point of your studies. Ask your conversation partners to help you understand the specific issues of poverty they encounter in their professional lives as well as those they are concerned about throughout the world.

• Introduce your conversation partners to your classmates at Walden
• Share what you have learned so far from these exchanges
• Describe your new insights and information about issues of poverty

Thanks so much Kim!  All I need is your thoughts on poverty in Canada, and how it affects (you/children) in the early childhood field. __________________________________________________________________________________
Hi Amy

I am not sure how it works there (United States) but here (Canada) a lot of our lower income families can apply for subsidy and if they qualify they have some or all of their daycare fees covered by the government.  This allows for their parents to go to school or find a job while their children are taken care of.

This helps a lot of our families especially single parents who struggle financially to take care of their families.

However there is only so much government money and spaces to go around and there are some families who are left out of the program which is unfortunate.  In some extreme cases like these some day cares will lower the fees temporarily to allow for the child to still have a spot and their parent still be able to find a job or go to school.

A motto in Ontario is "No Child Left Behind" and this means that in most cases the government will help in any way they can to make sure that a child receives the best early childhood care they can whether they live in poverty or not.

Kim Loxton
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I plan on communicating with Kim on NAEYC and compare organizations in Canada to the U.S. for the benefit of young children. 

Blog Assignment: Sharing Web Resources

• Provide the name and link for the organization you selected, and a brief description of the organization’s focus, 
• Identify one current issue/trend from the newsletter and/or from the website that caught your attention
• Share if there was anything else you learned from studying these resources related to the topic of this week

·         Pre[K]Now: A Campaign of the Pew Center on the States

http://www.preknow.org/ 

(Newsletter: http://www.preknow.org/signupform.cfm ) This is an amazing site with endless resources.  I especially like the "Advocacy Toolkit" feature.  In the newsletter, I was also able to look-up my own state and its progress towards milestones for quality pre-k programs. 

"

"North Carolina

North Carolina has been a model state for early education, particularly in expanding the availability, affordability, and quality of early childhood programs and integrating pre-k and comprehensive early education services in an innovative way."

ThThe site also provides information on what quality pre-k should look like. 

High-quality pre-kindergarten is the first step in education reform. A vast body of research demonstrates that early learning programs develop children’s cognitive, social-emotional and physical readiness for success in school. This solid foundation is proven to contribute to higher literacy and math attainment, lower grade retention, reduced remedial and special education needs and increased high school graduation rates.
When students have a high-quality pre-k experience, they are better prepared and motivated to achieve at higher levels, multiplying the impact of other reforms. The alternative – helping children catch up in later grades – is both more costly and less effective. The evidence is clear and compelling: Successful school improvement plans, like a child’s development, benefit most from investments made in the critical early years.

Pre-K: The First Step in Education Reform

In these tough economic times, policy makers need to prioritize investments in proven programs. For elected officials seeking to improve school performance, 50 years of evidence shows that high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten is among the best strategies for education reform. High-quality pre-k saves tax payers money; improves children's cognitive, social and emotional skills; decreases the need for grade retention and special education services and helps to close the achievement gap.

Getting Ready—Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

What an exciting assignment!   

Establishing Professional Contacts & Expanding Resources

By Saturday of this week, share in your blog the steps you took this week to locate and contact the two professionals, how far you have come in your attempt to establish communication: 

This has proven to be a very interesting assignment.  I am fortunate to work at a NAEYC accredited program and to  be a NAEYC member.  I have had the opportunity to utilize my contacts with the organization to find a fellow professional internationally.  I am current communicating with an EC professional in Canada and will keep everyone posted.  I also am very fortunate in that our local NAEYC affiliate here in North Carolina (NC-AEYC) is having there annual conference in my city next week. 

On September 17, 2011 I will be participating in:

Regional meeting of the National Dialogue, an unprecedented conversation between NAEYC and it's Affiliate network at the local, state and national levels to explore whether or not we have the optimal "relationship" in place to move a national agenda around young children forward in today's economic, political and educational climate.

Also, describe the process of selecting the early childhood organization, and which website you decided to study:

I chose to organizations to study over the next 8 weeks

 

Pre[K]Now: A Campaign of the Pew Center on the States
http://www.preknow.org/

and

The Canadian Association for Young Children
http://www.cayc.ca/ 

Both of these organizations are new to me as a EC professional and will hopefully provide additional resources throughout this course.  The Canadian organization was recommended to me by my professional/international contact.