UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education”

United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization

This site had some interesting topics, however, because of what we have studied throughout this course I was drawn to access and equity, quality and investment and financing. These three have been key issues when going to drawing board creating high quality learning centers. All three must come together meet everyone's needs. That includes students, families and early learning professionals.

"Countries often promote alternative services for poor children with limited or no access to mainstream early childhood services which can be cost-effective and pedagogically innovative, but often raise concerns about sustainability and quality". This statement was written under the access and equity section of this site. It startled me because even as one of the most wealthiest countries we still are unable to provide quality care to children poorer neighborhood. We set out to create programs that will those families however, that information is somehow lost or is never given to them. Then when services are provided the question of is it sustainable or is it a good school providing what children need to be grade school ready? We should be doing  much better in the U.S.

When it comes to high quality it is stated in this topic, quality, " High quality childcare, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, promotes motivation, confidence, good cognitive and linguistic development and school readiness." Our children have seem to lost the motivation to go school, they have lost an interest in learning which unfortunately shows in their low performance that leads to low-self esteem and lack of confidence in self. High quality childcare shouldn't even be up for question. It should be a standard for anyone opening a school that will service preschoolers.

Investment and financing is an age old battle it seems when it comes to early learning education. According to the article, we are not clearly not the only ones feeling this struggle to receive resources to provide better care. "The greatest difficulty faced by countries in their efforts to expand and improve the quality of early childhood care and education is the mobilization of resources." That is why it is now up to early learning professionals to really push for better finances and resources. We have to continue to show why early learning is such a great investment.

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Education Week

I have been subscribed to Education Week for quite some time, but never truly explored the site until these blog assignments. This week's issue has been eye opening, so I wanted to see what articles were on the site that dealt with equity issues. Came across the title, "Oregon's 'Equity Lens' Frames Schools' Take on Bias." Immediately I was intrigued, because quite honestly I don't think of Oregon as being a place where diversity would be on the rise. However, I was wrong.

In the article, "Oregon's 'Equity Lens' Frames Schools' Take on Bias" talks about the rise of number of children of the African American race, immigrants and hispanic students are growing rapidly in schools. They noticed a difference in achievement with children of color vs white students. "What they saw was sobering but not surprising: Despite attempts to close achievement gaps between students of color, immigrant students, and low-income students and their more affluent white peers, wide disparities persisted in student performance on state tests, graduation rates, school attendance, and college-going rates" In efforts to increase this achievement gap they adopted an "equity lens" "public policy statement explicitly acknowledging the salience of race and ethnicity in contributing to disparate student outcomes and committing to narrow achievement and opportunity gaps from cradle to career through a focus on race and ethnicity." While I do applaud the effort in Oregon and I want to see the positiveness int this article, it sits a little uneasy with me. It could be the wording.

I encourage you all to read the article and give your feedback. It is quite informative.


Resources

Superville, Denise. Education Week: Oregon's 'Equity Lens' Frames Schools' Take on Bias. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/06/01/oregons-equity-lens-frames-schools-take-on.html?qs=equity

Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative”

Due to me not hearing from my international contacts, I got explore Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website. The first thing I saw was that 200 million children do not reach their full potential developmentally by the age of 5. This is largely due to impoverished communities throughout the country. However, the Center on the Developing Child works globally to build a broader movement to achieve breakthrough outcomes for children around the world. They center promotes innovation in countries such as  Brazil, Canada, Mexico and as well as across a broader international platform called Saving Brains.

Saving Brains is partnership led by Grand Challenges Canada, Saving Brains seeks to improve outcomes for children living in poverty through interventions that nurture and protect early brain development in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life.  This organization/partnership has been quite intriguing and I just kept following links until I got to the official website of Saving Brains. I see that they have quite a few innovations that geared towards early brain and child development.

What stuck out to me was their Kangaroo Mother Care innovation. Kangaroo Mother Care improves survival, and potentially neurodevelopment, in preterm and low birth weight infants in hospital settings but its coverage remains low and the impact on brain development has not been comprehensively evaluated. This just had me to think that throughout this program it has been repeated how important that child/mother bond is and how it affects so many things before the child is even born. This is a prevalent issue in India where this innovation is being presented and tested. India has high low-birth weight with their infants which I discussed in a previous post. With this initiative they expect a 3 point increase in motor and mental developmental scores of low birth weight, an improvement in breastfeeding rates by 20%, early care seeking and reduced morbidity by 10% and community workers trained in counseling for KMC and breastfeeding support. I encourage you all to check out the website.

Kangaroo Mother Care

Resources 

http://www.savingbrainsinnovation.net/projects/0725-03/#innovation-summary

http://www.savingbrainsinnovation.net/projects/0725-03/

Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (2010). Global children's initiative. Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/about/what-we-do/global-work/

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Education Week (Newsletter): Transgender Students and Bathrooms: What should schools Do?

    

This week I got an email for this article and I was instantly intrigued as the transgender bathroom debates have been going on for weeks now. I personally do have an issue with it. It just personally makes me uncomfortable. However, when you talk about it in the schools, now you have to think about children's safety. For one, there is more going on in these school bathrooms than some people will ever know. I don't think for parents the issue is transgenders using the bathroom, its the questions that parents and teachers are going to get asked by the children. How do we prepare for that? How do we explain that? This is a very controversial topic and makes me wonder what are our priorities when it comes to schooling. Is the fact that a child who identifies with being a girl and wants to use the girls restroom that big of a deal in a school setting?


No Small Change: Targeting Money Toward Student Performance
This article is located in the reports and data tab under Quality Counts. Here you will see a number a list and charts that discusses money and how it used to better resource schools. However, I did note that they are talking about public schools and not necessarily childcare. It is good to note how they are coming up with better ways to fund schools. Just to see what policymakers see that needs to be changed

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

Unfortunately, I have not received a response from my contacts. I will pursue that more aggressively this week. Hopefully, I will hear something soon. 

However, I did learn a lot about poverty in India and how it affects the children in that country.

The country I chose is India. The first and second insights that I will share is the fact that India’s indoor air pollution is among the most serious threats to health for children of under five years old. A rather large number of pregnant women in India are exposed to biomass-related indoor air pollution which increases the risk of low birth rate. 

Why is biomass so common in India? Well, that reason being is that biomass is cheaper and some families lack access to modern fuels. Biomass such as wood chips, particular types of garbage, corn and even animal fats, can all be converted into energy. 

The second insight is how do we combat indoor pollution. There are two ways to go about doing this according to Child Poverty Insights. One is to replace biomass fuels with safer fuels. And the other is to reduce the amount of smoke generated by bio-fuels. Could you imagine living in an environment where you had to constantly inhale the smoke of animal fat and garbage?

All of this information is mind blowing to me. It honestly allows me to see how fortunate we are here in U.S. I couldn't imagine bringing a child into such a hazardous environment know these dangers. 

References

http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/Child_Poverty_Insights_TERI_June_2013.pdf

Sharing Web Sources

Sharing Web Sources

The website I've been subscribed to for quite some time is Education week! I get weekly emails with different articles each week. This website is basically everything education for leaders and policy experts in the pre-k field! This website is source for data, news, tools and more to help those in their research from a policy standpoint and teachers that are in the classrooms.  It has blogs, "opinions", discussion boards and so much! I haven't read as much as I should but its a good resource to have in your back pocket! They even have a tab for teachers that's like a teacher's corner that deals with everything teachers. One article title that grabbed my attention quickly was, "Catholic School Allows Transgender Teacher to Keep His Job". So there are a variety of topics. I sure will get back to looking at this site more often. It's really jammed pack with great things. Its a must have!

References

Education Week http://www.edweek.org/ew/index.html

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Establishing Professional Contacts 

and Expanding Resources

I sought information from the UNICEF Ireland and New Zealand. Both of these countries are fighting two different things. I chose these two countries because they both fighting for very important causes to help our children now and in the future.

In New Zealand their focus is basically on all areas that affect the human being from birth well into adulthood. Their focuses are child poverty, child protection, child labour, HIV and AIDS, environment and climate change, child survival and development and sustainable and developmental goals. All these factors could make and/or break a person. And they are willing to shine a light on these issues in this country so that children can have a fighting chance.

In Ireland they are for similar issues Those include health, innovation, education, nutrition, water and child protection.

I decided to sign up for the Harlem Children's Zone newsletter and explore their website in the coming weeks! They are doing great things the families in their communities and are making huge impacts in the lives they come across. The numbers alone are mind blowing to me. For instance, 1,450,000 healthy nutritious student meals prepared by HCZ  food services, 7,000 youth across HCZ are participating in Healthy Harlem fitness and nutritious programs. Which means they are decreasing the possibility of childhood obesity and helping children build healthy relationships with food and exercise.

Resources

Ireland https://www.unicef.ie/mission/saving-lives/health/

Harlem Children's Zone http://hcz.org/

New Zealand https://www.unicef.org.nz/