Week 7 Getting to know your international contact.

This week I heard from one of the contacts  that I had been trying to get in touch with. The reason why I am just writing my blog was due to the fact that he is right now in California getting ready to make a trip to Chile for the second time. His name is Mr. Bartlett (Bob). We went to the same school in high school. He was about four years older than me. I remember him and  his family always hosting international students and always being involved in international club and traveling. I had reached out to him a few times in the past few years to help him with donations on some of his trips and when I was student teaching he helped me connect with a pen pal down their for my 4th grade class. Recently for this course, I have had a hard time getting ahold of him due to him preparing for another trip to Chile. He is going to be restoring another school like he did two years ago. I asked yesterday in an email about if this is what he thought he was going to be doing this for the rest of  his professional career? "I started off in Chile when I was 18 as a volunteer. When the church found out that I was going to school for International education and policy, they took over my education and as long as I did schooling they would pay for it and let me work there. This is what I have wanted to do since middle school. The church gave me the biggest opportunity of my career.....Since then I have come director of the Language department. I specialize in the correspondence between facilities in the U.S and in Chile." I asked him about professional development and what was the most important thing to keep up on as far as working between two countries. He said that it was policy and monetary. Monetary could get "sticky". "very dangerous". That language doesn't always translate perfectly. I asked him what the near future holds for him, especially going back to Chile. "I leave in a week. I will going to meetings with stake holders and then right onto base to build the new school facility. I am all over the place. This time I am going to enjoy the process more. It is my third time going to South America and I know the process. I hopefully will not be as STRESSED!!!! I can enjoy what I am doing"

Over all the conversation was short. However, I saw passion in his email. He was capitalizing words for emphasis. He was cracking jokes and showing thrill for this trip. He hoped to correspond with me when he could when he goes to Chile through some emails and pictures. I hope to hear from him. to get where he is now took a lot of work, dedication, education, passion, and time! THis is what it looks like to be a professional.

Week 6 --Sharing Web Resources

This week on the Zero to Three website I checked out some of the outside links. One of the links that I looked more in-depth at was the Early Childhood Website: https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/ehsnrc. There was so much to do from there. For being 24 and in the generation of the internet, I am not a big fan of it. I never had internet until I was in college. It still feels weird to click a link on something like a webcast. However I found one really interesting from just reading it. It was called “Early Head Start and Child Welfare: A Compelling Collaboration for Supporting Families and Young Children Webcast”. It is an 86 minute webcast where professionals sat around a table discusses ways the two organizations worked together to provide a stable learning environment for children. This conversation brought up how the children were affected developmentally and how to work with children in a child care setting. The great thing about this webcast was that I could take notes with the PowerPoint that they provided with it. There was also a guideline that could be printed out to show when things were talked about. I collected all of these resources. I may not have listened to the whole thing from start to finish but I got to skip around and check out the different topics.

                This week the e-newsletter gives resources about domestic violence and mental health. You can read the descriptions about the books or texts that were suggested. However, you cannot download them without buying them.

This week we talked about the three barriers: accessibility, awareness, and responsiveness. Zero to Three had great resources for parents to use when finding a high quality program. One resource that I found was “Choosing Quality Child Care”. This goes into detail of what questions to ask a facility and themselves while looking. The resource also gives in detail what the program should look like, how it is ran, and what types of things should be seen physically. There were links to regulation laws and liscensing. I thought that that this was an amazing resource that all families should have when seeking child care for their children. The direct link is: http://www.zerotothree.org/early-care-education/child-care/choosing-quality-child-care.html.

Week --Sharing Web Resources

This week on the Zero to Three website I checked out some of the outside links. One of the links that I looked more in-depth at was the Early Childhood Website: https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/ehsnrc. There was so much to do from there. For being 24 and in the generation of the internet, I am not a big fan of it. I never had internet until I was in college. It still feels weird to click a link on something like a webcast. However I found one really interesting from just reading it. It was called “Early Head Start and Child Welfare: A Compelling Collaboration for Supporting Families and Young Children Webcast”. It is an 86 minute webcast where professionals sat around a table discusses ways the two organizations worked together to provide a stable learning environment for children. This conversation brought up how the children were affected developmentally and how to work with children in a child care setting. The great thing about this webcast was that I could take notes with the PowerPoint that they provided with it. There was also a guideline that could be printed out to show when things were talked about. I collected all of these resources. I may not have listened to the whole thing from start to finish but I got to skip around and check out the different topics.

                This week the e-newsletter gives resources about domestic violence and mental health. You can read the descriptions about the books or texts that were suggested. However, you cannot download them without buying them.

This week we talked about the three barriers: accessibility, awareness, and responsiveness. Zero to Three had great resources for parents to use when finding a high quality program. One resource that I found was “Choosing Quality Child Care”. This goes into detail of what questions to ask a facility and themselves while looking. The resource also gives in detail what the program should look like, how it is ran, and what types of things should be seen physically. There were links to regulation laws and liscensing. I thought that that this was an amazing resource that all families should have when seeking child care for their children. The direct link is: http://www.zerotothree.org/early-care-education/child-care/choosing-quality-child-care.html.

Week 5 getting to know your international contact

There was no contact this week:(

I explored the Harvard University's "Global Children's Initiative ".  I read about the Zambian Early childhood development project. It discussed how the area and the surrounding areas were working on an anti malaria initiative. This program worked on all areas of development and assess the outcome of the program. The program is continuing today after the first year showed great suits. One thing that really hit my interest was how al. Areas of development were assessed. I would like to know what type of  steps swerve taken within the program to work on the development of the children. Another thing that was interesting was the health of the children came first. A child cannot grow or develop in ill health . Searching the website I see may pho of the programs look at the health of children first.. Before sent other help starts.he program also mentioned fine motor skills as a huge importance in these children's development. I found this to really spark curiosity in why. The results state that fine motors allow for children to succeed in school. It's harder if those fine motors for writing and other activities are not there. Found this interesting due to not hearing this stated before in other readings. I know as a professional how important fine motor skills are.howepver nanny readings only have a small segment for fine motors. This project takes into account that fine motors is very important.

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/

Early Step Programs

This week I looked more into the U.S based groups that the Save The children organization sponsored. This program looks into Early Childhood development and the children who are from low income families and affected by poverty. This really resonates with me as a professional due to the fact that I work in an Early Childhood Program and have seen only a few families come trough that have been impacted by poverty while enrolled in my class. I could see myself getting involved with a program like this or this program. I would like to learn more about this program as more information comes to the website each week. I have signed up for the news letter and weekly emails from this organization. One of the pieces of information that really struck my interest is that 34 million people are affected by poverty in which 10% of that (3.4 million) are children. That is extremely high. This organization deal s with policies in Early Childhood and the poverty issues when it comes to money and getting back on track, and the health of the children are issues that are dealt with by politicians, economists , and neuroscientist. I understand that no matter the issue or trend being discussed can be taken from any of these point of views and can be influenced by these point of views.

Getting to know your internationally contacts.

So this week was rough in getting in contact with the few people I had emailed, facebooked, and set letters to. Due to some family circumstances, I have not been able to be by a computer. I received an email that was more of a generic letter from a school in Ireland, stating that they are glad to hear from me and would like to hear more. I am waiting on them to send more information. I probably wont hear from anyone directly. I have also recently got in contact with an old friend from high school who was teaching in a international school. I hope to spend more time talking to him about his experiences. He said he was out of town for a few days but when he gets back he will contact me.

This week I went to SAVE the CHILDREN website. I found a blog that really interested me. The blog post title was called "Why Primary Education Matters" by Martine De Luna. She stated that 57 million children globally don't go to school. She says that the children at her school are grateful for the fact that they get to go to school even though they have to walk through mud and swim the river to go to school. She makes the connection between literacy and poverty. I found that most interesting. I am looking into finding research to see what other professionals are saying and learning.

Sharing Web Resources

The organization that I chose to explore more is Zero to Three. The reason why that I chose this website is because  I work with children ages 1 to 3. I feel that I will benefit from this website in my own professional development. The website for this organization is: http://www.zerotothree.org/. I also used this link: http://zttcfn.pub30.convio.net/child-development/from-baby-to-big-kid/. This link is to the news letter that the organization puts out each month. Of course I just subscribed in the middle of the month so I have to wait till the beginning of October to receive my first news letter. I cannot wait to receive the news letter. I feel that I don't get enough news/reading on information that is and can be directly connected to me and my job.  This is going to be a great way to start collecting more professional resources for me to keep up to date on Early Childhood news and information on development, care, and more

The President’s Budget Proposal: A Groundbreaking Moment for Our Nation’s Babies is the article that really caught my attention. THis article states that the federal budget is increasing money allocated to Early  Childhood. President Obama is stressing the importance of Early childhood development. Even though this article is from April I feel that to see this news now, it creates a great feeling compared to what has been in the news lately.    One of the things that was really cool about this site is people can write and professionals answer back. The website allows people to ask questions and talk about their experiences. One lady asked if using two languages in a home would benefit the child. THe professional wrote back explaining the benefits of dual language and how to promote it.  http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/early-language-literacy/qa/dual-language-delay.html. The part that I really thought was great was it was a lengthy response. THe professional went into depth about the information and really could benefit not only the women that wrote in but others as well.