Week Eight: Final Blog

Learning about the international early childhood field has enabled me to expand my knowledge of how different areas approach and think about issues such as poverty, equity, accessibility, and health and wellness. This knowledge gives us some potential background information about what children may or may not have experienced prior to arriving in our classrooms. This knowledge also allows us to select areas where we need more development, support, or resources in order to best serve children with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and learning needs. Lastly, it can help us to identify focal points for becoming advocates, such as advocating for equity in education for children regardless of where they live or what socioeconomic bracket they fall within. 

Children and families need high quality care no matter where they live. One of my goals would be to advocate for high quality early child care both internationally and locally.

Week Seven: Getting to Know Your International Contacts- Part 3

I talked with Astarte about her professional goals. Her family is well off and she does not need to work in order to help support her family. She wishes to continue working with children because she feels a natural closeness with them. She likes to be a part of their development, watching them grow  and gain skills. She currently floats between classrooms as needed and loves this because she is able to see children each day and at various stages of development, from infancy to the late preschool years. She feels joy when interacting with children and hopes to be able to spend at least ten more years teaching in early childhood classrooms before she is no longer able to keep up with the physical demands of the job.

This last statement reminded me that working with children is physically demanding as well as emotionally demanding. As an administrator of early childhood programs, my workload is much different than it was when I was a classroom teacher; it is easy to forget the stress and strain of daily classroom work.

Week Six: Sharing Web Resources

One of the links that I had not previously explored on Child Care Aware was for the Best Practices Program: http://www.naccrra.org/programs-services/naccrra-best-practices-program. This program sets standards of excellence for care in the early childhood setting and is voluntary.

Child Care Aware has an entire section devoted to "Quality": http://www.naccrra.org/about-child-care/quality-matters. This section includes reports and statements about quality and equity/inequality in early childhood programs. There is also information about Quality Rating Information Systems (QRIS). Early childhood professionals can utilize these resources to keep themselves up to date on current data and information related to quality and excellence in the early childhood field.

The e-newsletter for Child Care Aware is not released monthly. The latest edition came out in August and was about safety for children in hot cars. However, something relevant to this course was posted recently on Child Care Aware's blog: http://policyblog.usa.childcareaware.org/. The blog post talks about the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant and its impact on excellence in child care programs.

I love that Child Care Aware is so comprehensive. It has information for providers as well as parents. I thought that it was particularly helpful that they have a Child Care 101 section for parents, found here: http://www.childcareaware.org/parents-and-guardians/child-care-101. This section lists how to find a provider, what types of providers are available, what parents should look for when trying to find high quality providers, what to do if they can't find a provider, and more.

Week Five: Getting to Know Your International Contacts- Part 2

I talked with Astarte again this week, this time regarding the topics of excellence and equity in early childhood programs in Cairo. When I talked with her previously, she noted the great disparity between programs that existed for the wealthy and those for the poor/publicly funded populations. Children who attend the publicly funded schools generally do not receive the same level of care or education that children who attend private schools do. They may be taught by teachers who do not have formal training in child development or early childhood education. This lack of education may lead to a curriculum or teaching/classroom management style that is not developmentally appropriate. Cairo also has a larger equity issue based on a lack of gender equality. While this is being slowly addressed across Egypt, girls unilaterally receive fewer opportunities for education than boys.