Sharing Web Resources

On the (https://www.globalfundforchildren.org) website I came across a publication regarding education. It makes reference to “no child left behind” it mentioned that that term also applies to children in other countries (mostly female) who may not even have to the opportunity to attend school because they have to work to help provide for their families. This seems relevant to my current professional development because often times we don’t think about these things that are taking place outside of our “world”. What if I had a family who has come from a culture who may not value education for girls because it is not a norm for them. This information will allow me to see things from their perspective and not judge them because their views are different from mines.
I can’t say that any of this information adds to my understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support early childhood without conducting additional information about other countries and their views on early childhood education.

I have learned that in order to gain a better understanding of the current treads and issues in the early childhood field we have to look at the trends and issues worldwide not just in our local communities. We never know when we will come face to face with families that come from cultures different from our own. It would help to stay current and be familiar with things that are taking place around the world.

Poverty Snapshot

Naitil (left) (sitr.org)


This weeks assignment was to get to know our international contact, unfortunatly I have yet to make a connect with anyone yet. The alternative assignment was to gather some information on child poverty in another county. As I was searching the web for an image of child poverty in Haiti. I came across some eye opening information that I have posted below. The direct link to the page is: http://icepoverty.pbworks.com/w/page/11217708/Block%205%20Group%206


Exploring Poverty in Haiti-A Snapshot of the face of poverty
As a single Haitian mother, Hosanna struggles to care for a boy, Naitil, she found living alone on the streets. He wears the same filthy clothes every day. “My skin itches all over,” he says, embarrassed at the bumps covering his skin.

Hosanna knows that the dirt rubs his skin raw, but she doesn’t have the money to purchase detergent, clothing, or shoes. If he doesn’t receive help soon, the dirt will continue to eat away at his skin, causing open sores to develop. This leaves Naitil susceptible to the deadly typhoid fever bacteria common in the local filthy river, his only source for drinking and bathing water.


Extent of Poverty in Haiti
Haiti is the least developed country in Latin America,

To attempt to grasp the severity of Haiti’s situation, consider the fact that four-fifths of its population lives on less than $2 USD per person per day. Furthermore, over half of the Haitian population, or approximately 4.5 million people, are considered extremely poor and live on less than $1 USD per person per day.




After finding this information I did some more research and cam across the worldbank.org website; some things I learned about child poverty in Haiti from this site is:

Children are lucky if they are able to attend school beyond secondary school which I would assume would be mid or high school.

The life expectancy for someone living in Haiti is only 57 years old. This could have a lot to to with the impoverished conditions they are faced with and they fact that only 25% on the children receive vaccinations and the lack of clean drinking water available.

When I tried to find a reason behind the lack of resources and poor living conditions I found that poor governing was to blame along with lack of economic stability. I'm sure that these factors have been taking place for many years and this did not just happen over night. Although I do not live in Haiti I feel some sort of connect because my grandfather and his family migrated from Haiti. People seem to have an idea of what needs to be done but who's going to do it and when is my question.

Sharing resources

The organization I selected was Global fund for children, the main focus of this organization is to help fund grassroots corporations and provide funding to insure that children have the lives they deserve. They work with other organizations to keep children education and away from the harmful lifestyle of sex trafficking, child laborers and other devastating existences. (https://www.globalfundforchildren.org)

One current issue that caught my eye on the website was the relief work they were still during in Haiti 4 years after the earthquake that killed 100,000 to 150, 000 people. The article talked about the different phases of emergency relief and what needs to be done at each phase. Currently Haiti is in the rehab phase, during this time they are “taking stock of the damage and prioritizing infrastructure reconstruction as well as rebuilding roads and utilities”.

Another I would like to share is often times when a country is hit by a natural disaster it is easy to forget things. After the event is no longer being televised and we are no longer connected we tend to forget about what that area is going through to rebuild. During that rebuilding process we also forget about everyday thinks like what’s taking place with children and education. I glad to know there are organizations like this who’s main focus is placed on helping children thrive in conditions that are not set up for them to do so.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Our assignment was to reach out to a professionals in the early childhood field in another country, to make connections and talk about trends. Unfortunately I have not heard back from anyone yet but I would love to be able to talk with other people from different countries to gain a better understanding of they way they do things and their outcomes.

I did find a new resource in the process of this assignment. The global fund for children is a program who invests in funding grassroots organizations to help children thrive. Most of their focus is in early intervention, they try to reach the children at an early age in order to make the most impact. If you are interested in learning more about The global fund for children see the link below.

Resources
https://www.globalfundforchildren.org/

My Supports

One of my largest supports is my husband, having him to help me with my son has been a major stress reliever. Prior to marrying my husband it was just my son and I, I had to pick him up and drop him off at daycare and school which it made times a little difficult for a single mother. After marrying my husband I realized that team work makes the dream work. Having someone to help out with daily task I once had to do alone is very helpful.  If I did not have him I would have to take my son to get haircuts and pick him up from school. I would have to change my work schedule which is not very flexible to begin with.

Another support system I have is friends, my laptop is not working properly and I really need to buy another one. We are currently closing on a new home so I can’t really go out and buy a new one.  One day I was on the phone with my best friend telling her that I didn’t know how I was going to find the time to go to the library to do my homework because I was having issues with my laptop and she told me to come get hers and I could borrow for as long as I needed to. This was such a blessing and if I didn’t have such a thoughtful friend I would have to try and find the time to get to the library to do homework.

One challenge I choose to imagine is not being able to get around free due to mobility issues. This would be difficult because we currently live on the 2^nd floor. We would have to move to a single story home with wide doors large enough for me to get around. I would also have to solely depend on my family and friends to transport my son around. With having these supports it would be near to impossible for me to leave my home and I would not be able to get around to care for my son.

When I think of Child Development

I think this cartoon is saying that all children should be assessed based on an individual bases. If not we set children up for failure.


Catherine

I would like to thank http://catherinewolpert.blogspot.com/ for providing us with post to expand my knowledge of child development. Your post are always very informative and thought provoking. Thank you for sharing your person and professional knowledge with us all.

Lah Lah

Thank you for maintaining such a detailed blog, you seem to be very passionate about your work with children and it shows in the quality of your blog. The information that you shared throughout this course has really broadened my knowledge of child development.

Assessment

The topic of assessment is very touchy subject for me personally because I have always been one of those people who don’t test well. I’m better at showing my skills in hands on try or way. When we think about what we want to children to learn in school I tent to think about teaching children how to problem solve. I think problem solving skills will help them through out life because it will help them figure out how to get “the answers”; process over product. To me testing is supposed to tell you what a person knows so that you can figure out ways to teach them. To me it seems like most of the time teachers are pressured to teach towards the test and not teach for children to gain knowledge and understanding. If we have research that shows children learn in different ways then why are we only testing in one type of way?

While conducting my research on assessment I came across a website that talked about assessing children in Asia on English language acquisition. I found that they assess their children in a number of different ways:

Performance-based assessment tasks
Self assessments
Peer assessments
Teacher observations
Portfolios
Quizzes and tests
Most of these assessments were familiar to me except the peer assessments, I do like how they use a number of different assessment options which gives children a way to display their knowledge and understanding.

I feel like we take away some of children’s creativity when we use the same assessments to test different learning styles and abilities.