Can Parents Access Enough Information to Judge For-Profit Childcare? - Early Years - Education Week

Can Parents Access Enough Information to Judge For-Profit Childcare? - Early Years - Education Week

Consequences of learning about the international early childhood field

Learning about children around the world has been educational!

Three realizations I made this term: 

1.  Developmentally appropriate and evidenced-based practice are happening globally.
2. We have many things in common with EC professionals abroad, in particular our passion for supporting children!
3.   In some nations, equal opportunities are not granted to every child, in particular children with challenges and varying abilities are discriminated against.

In my opinion, one important goal for the EC field globally should be to maintain and establish international relationships, such as those created by the World Forum Foundation and Unicef. We need sharing and networking across the continents to create a better world for our children.

THANKS TO ALL

I want to thank all my classmates for your dedication and collaboration for this blog. Every comment was truly appreciated!

I also want to thank my international contacts: Wanda, Deepa and Franchesca. Without their help and communication this would have been more challenging.

Until next time,

Angie

International Contacts- Final post

Wanda Martin, works for the department of defense dependent school (Dodds) in Germany

What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work? “The German programs have better resources than what is offered in the American programs.  Funds are available for field trips, materials, etc to assist in the education of the children.  The American parents who are allowed to put their children in the German Early Childhood Programs love it.  They say their children get much more out of the program than if they were in an American program.  The American parents have to pay for the extracurricular activities as they do not pay into the German taxes.” (W. Martin, personal communications, 2012, May 25)

What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

According to her friends, German educators must complete intense education preparation programs and continue education in order to teach in German schools.

What are some of your professional goals?

She wants to continue working abroad with Dodds. She is able to live with the wages she receive because Dodds pays her rent and utilities for living overseas. The downside is that positions for teaching pre-K classes are scarce and few educators leave their posts. She continues to put an inter-district application in hopes one day she will be able to teach pre-k again.

What are some of your professional hopes, dreams, and challenges?

To return to the pre-K classroom. Complete MS program.

Deepa Joseph, Educator working in United Arab Emirates

What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work? The ECE is developing in UAE. Before professionals in ECE were not given much recognition. In fact, in their work permit paperwork their official title was ‘Nanny’. There were no minimum qualifications or education requirements to work as a preschool teacher. Now things are improving. The education ministry has realized “ECE is equally an important field and therefore teachers have to have at least minimum teacher training to work as a preschool teacher” (D. Joseph, personal communication, 2012, June 11).  They are also standardizing the curriculum to cater to the developmental needs of the children.

What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

Due to the recent improvements the ministry of education is offering trainings for educators that do not meet basic education qualifications.

What are some of your professional goals, hopes, dreams and challenges?

Deepa sees her future working for private companies creating curriculums that are developmentally appropriate. Even though she loves working with children in the classroom, she hopes one day to work behind a desk to improve the quality standards of ECE in UAE. She wants to apply the knowledge she is receiving from Walden; at this moment her biggest challenge is to finish this intense MS program.           

Franchesca Ventura, Pre-K Teacher from El Salvador

I have not been able to reach Franchesca, but based on previous emails I will answer as many questions as possible.

What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work? There is a movement towards child-centered curriculum, competency standards, and assessment based on observations of children development. However, there are limitation based on financial resources, poverty of the population and quality of the educational materials used, like books.

What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

Many professionals in the ECE field from El Salvador are still unable to understand developmentally appropriate practices. Perhaps due to limited funds for training and professional development support (my personal assumption).

What are some of your professional goals?

She views herself as a highly professional EC educator who implements the latest evidence based information provided by researchers from her country. She wants to be part of the latest education reforms in El Salvador and implement DAP, child-appropriate assessments and curriculum.


Addendum:
Franchesca replied back... Her hopes, dreams and career goal include completing her education in psychology, her initial field of studies; she wants to continue her professional development in early childhood and improve her practice based on current information of child development; lastly, she wants to learn to speak and write English to be able to communicate globally with others in the field. 

Sharing Web Resources: NAEYC outside links

This week we were asked to explore our selected website further and visit the outside links.

There is a page of the NAEYC site with many links to various organizations
http://www.naeyc.org/links

There are over 100 links to explore! The sheer volume was overwhelming. Each link had tons of information and even more resources to explore! I have a massive headache from visiting websites most of the late afternoon. Ahhhh, where to begin. Here are my top choices:


Voices of America's Children- This is a cute presentation depicting the importance of telling our politicians to save money by investing in children.
http://www.voices.org/take-action/americas-kids-americas-future/

Equity Educational resources- Since our topic this week was on education and equity, this website got my attention. It contains resources for inclusion and providing equity in early childhood programs.

http://www.edequity.org/

Center for the Child Care Workforce- Resources for educators, including information for the worthy wage movement and how to get involved.

www.ccw.org

High/Scope Education research foundation- Contains information on excellence in early childhood education and the research on this curriculum. 

http://www.highscope.org/Content.asp?ContentId=62

The area I explored with more detail from the NAEYC website was on accreditation process http://www.naeyc.org/accreditation.  It seems to be a thorough process for centers working with young children to apply and improve their quality practices. There are many resources available to improve the quality of programs and support educators. 

From my exploration for the links and the organizations I am more aware of different issues and trends in early childhood: 1) the movement towards higher quality and excellence in professionals. 2) support for families diversity. 3) Accessibility to quality education programs for young children. 

And many more, but right now I can't stand to look at the computer screen any longer! I will try to post more informative links as I find them. Until next post...

-Angie 

Global Excellence & Equity in Early Childhood

I have been communicating with my international resources on the topic of excellence and equity. The following are brief summaries about each country:

El Salvador

Franchesca shared her perspectives on the country’s movement towards a child-centered curriculum, with progressive education. Although, there is a push towards child-centered education the resources and support are limited. Franchesca is sad by the state of an impoverished system, resources are outdated and do not represent the nation. She uses an example of books about the months in which December is represented by snow, but in El Salvador snow is nonexistent. She feels passionate about helping young children in El Salvador, and hopes there is a better tomorrow (Y.F. Ventura, personal communications, May 24, 2012).

United Arab Emirates

Deepa shared information on Abu Dhabi Education council (ADEC). They make the decisions regarding the education of young children. It used to be that anyone with a High School diploma could teach in the early childhood, but now there are strict rules that a teacher before signing a contract with the school or nursery must first undergo many hours of teacher training. ADEC has updated their standards and policies and are enforcing them in schools and nurseries to follow which are based on the current research and practices (D. Joseph, personal communications, May 26, 2012). Here are a few links on ADEC http://www.adec.ac.ae/English/Pages/PressItems.aspx?PRId=526

Germany

Wanda works in an American army base in Germany, so her experience is mainly with American education, but living in Germany she has been able to observe their education system. She is impressed with the resources available for German youth. The parents receive quite a bit of help through the early years. Mothers are given THREE years for maternity leave. The early childhood education programs are paid for by taxes. Germany’s Kindergartens are based on the thinking by Friedrich Fröbel (W. Martin, personal communications, May 25, 2012). Friedrich Fröbel was an educationalist whose philosophy involved play based education and child-led learning. Here is a link http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-froeb.htm.

I also found an article about the German policy for moms to stay at home and not send their children to day care. Basically the Betreuungsgeld creates certain inequities based on socioeconomic status. The subsidy would be too small for wealthy or middle-class mothers who might earn more at work, but be inviting to low-income mothers, but not necessarily for single mothers since it would be too small of a sum to live on. It is a good read if you are interested. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/the-real-stakes-of-todays-child-care-debates-in-the-us-and-germany/256385/

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/the-real-stakes-of-todays-child-care-debates-in-the-us-and-germany/256385/