International Contacts - Part 2

Since my last blog I have gotten a response from the executive director of the Canadian Association for Young Children.  She emailed me back and said that she would love to answer any questions that I may have.  I then emailed her and asked about excellence and equity in Canada and specifically her program.  I just received an email back from her on June 1^st and it said that she would get back to me very soon but she has been really busy at work.  I was excited when I first received her response thinking I would actually have some information to share.  I was then hopeful when I saw I had a message from her yesterday.  This all turned to disappointment when I learned that she was too busy to answer my questions and so I would not be able to share any information in my blog.  I am understanding (as I know what it is like to be so busy with work that there is little time for anything else) but disappointed none-the-less.  So I listened to the podcast again and researched the Harvard website.  Here are my findings:

Podcast:

                The global leader I chose to listen to was Irma Allen, the chairperson of the Swaziland Development Authority.  In this podcast Irma Allen talked about how the goal of their program is to use nature while training people within the community to become early childhood educators.  In this part of Africa there are no buildings to have schools in.  The teachers have to use the environment that is available and that is nature.  The environment provides all of the teaching materials that they need and they have to make use of these materials because they have no others.  She gave examples of this in how the students will use water from the rain to do activities.  When there is no rain they use other items from nature such as the dew which displays the webs of spiders that can be studied.  These types of activities not only provide learning experiences but also give the students a better understanding and respect for nature.  She gave an example of the effectiveness of the program with the story about an orphaned boy who had gone through it.  This boy was now an adult and said that when he came into the program he received a welcoming attitude.  He also said that the program gave him a deeper appreciation for his country and made him feel like he had a place in this world.  It was this positive early childhood experience that helped make him the person he became. 

                The new insight that I gained from this information is that no matter what the circumstances, early childhood education plays such an important role in the development of children.  This young man I’m sure suffered many hardships with being orphaned but because of the chances and experiences that this early childhood program gave him, he was able to create a good life for himself.  It also shows how early childhood programs can be created using the environment that is given.  I think that it is so inspiring to think that the people in Africa who do not have the luxuries that we have still have found a way to use the things that are available to teach their children.  This shows how important the children and the early childhood experience are to them.  While we are here in our country wondering if the textbooks and worksheets that we are using are going to meet the standards and help children pass tests, these people are teaching children with the natural things around them.  This I believe would take a great deal of imagination and creativity and I commend this program and these people for their dedication to early childhood education.  We could all learn a great deal from this very simple way of teaching. 

Global Children’s Initiative:

Insight #1 – Brazil

                In Brazil they have created a course for many people who are involved in early childhood education to look at the research behind all of the areas of development and how it relates to early childhood programming.  This course was designed and taken by politicians, public managers, society leaders, and policy makers to gain tools that would help them implement more effective policies and programs within the early childhood setting.  This course was part of the Center on the Developing Child’s first major program efforts outside of the U.S.  The goal was to provide common knowledge of the importance of the early years of education so that the people involved in policy and program development could put that knowledge to use.  The course provided insight from experts within the field on topics like the foundation of early childhood, cognitive and behavioral development, and economics.  The experts would also provide ways in which programs could become more effective in developing countries.  This course is helping Brazil to become a global leader when it comes to showing how important it is to use research and knowledge to create effective early childhood practices.

                The insight that I gained from reading about Brazil is that there are other countries that are actually willing to put children first.  There are policy makers willing to sit down with experts in the field and together work out a way to make programs more effective for the children involved in them.  My hope is that one day our country will do something like this and our early childhood programs will become more important.  These people in Brazil did not mention wanting to become better because of competition with other countries.  Rather they said that they want to improve the human potential by starting with the most influential of us, the 0-5 year olds.  They said that the children are the future of their country and so it is important for them to invest in that.

Insight #2 – Zambia                     

                In the country of Zambia a program has been developed called the Zambian Early Childhood Development Project.  This was a project that was designed to measure the effects of child development in relation to an anti-malaria initiative.  The project helped to create a new assessment instrument (Zambian Child Assessment Test (ZamCAT) that takes current child development measures and combines them with newly developed items.  This will give them a wider assessment of children of the preschool age.  The goal of this program was to collect data with the assessment that will lead to the understanding of child development and through studying this data they will determine what interventions will improve outcomes most effectively. 

                The insight I gained from this global initiative is that once again a program is conducting research to use in showing the importance of early childhood education.  I love that they are not using the data to determine how smart the children might be, but instead to help foster the most effective programming that will benefit the children.  The instrument does not only measure academic achievement (like many of our assessments) but also takes into account socio-emotional and physical development as well.  It goes to show that all of these work hand in hand and so it is only feasible that an assessment tool should be used that measures all of them. 

Insight #3 –Chile                                   

                The global initiative in Chile is a program called Un Buen Comienzo which in English translates to “A Good Start.”  In this initiative the goal is to improve early childhood programs through the use of professional development for teachers.  The main focus of the program is on language development but they also look at all educational offerings for young children.  The initiative also looks at health and the ways that physical development plays a part in school attendance.  They want to involve the families in education.  This program which began in 2007 will soon have 60 schools which are participating.  Chile, along with Brazil and Zambia, is showing the importance of early childhood education with programs like this.  In fact, this is the first type of evaluation is the first to be used in Latin America.  This puts Chile at the head of the pack in showing the importance of the impact that high quality early childhood programs can have. 

                The insight that I gained from this article was that Chile sees the importance of making sure their teachers are educated and stay educated with the use of professional development.  They also see the value of having parents involved and how a child’s health plays a key role in learning.  If a child is unhealthy then they cannot attend school regularly but if health care is available then this issue can be avoided.  I liked the fact that this started out small with just 4 sites and now is so large with 60 or more schools involved.  We could use some more quality professional development opportunities like this one that would help us in this country create better programs for our young children and their families.

Equity and Excellence:

                The information that I gained about equity and excellence from these international sources is that they are all striving for it.  Each one of the programs that I mentioned is showing a sincere caring about each child and the ways in which they can create programs that will be effective in teaching them.  They have demonstrated this by discussing research that is involved and how they are using this research and data to gain knowledge that will aid them in creating policies and programs that are highly effective and will demonstrate excellence.  I think the biggest insight that I gained about these two topics is that they are not striving to have excellence in academic or cognitive skills but rather to be excellent for the children.  They are looking at the importance of learning in the early years and not how to make the children smarter but how to make the programs better in order to provide the children with the best possible chances for academic success.  It’s not the learning that comes first it is what is best for the children.  I truly enjoyed reading about each one of these initiatives and I believe our country could learn a great deal from its global partners about the importance about early childhood education.

               

Resources:

Center on the Developing Child Harvard University. (2012). Global children. Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/

Episode 5: Irma allen (2012). World Forum Radio. [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/radio.php