Sharing Web Resources:

Teaching Tolerance a Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center found at:  http://tolerance.org. Has an article that goes along with this week’s discussion I found at http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-38-fall-2010/tapping-power-place, this article examines many American school problems that both rural and urban schools encounter. The article points out a few myths such as “In American popular culture, the word “rural” invokes images of sunny farms and little red schoolhouses—while “urban” means drugs, poverty and crime. But those who know the reality of both worlds will tell you that rural schools face many of the same challenges as their urban counterparts.” (Number 38, 2010) Some of the poorest schools serving children with many needs are rural. From a business perspective, urban schools have the ability to cut costs through consolidating schools and rerouting buses to adjust costs. Another area in the article that I found particularly interesting is Federal policy makers are shifting Title I funding away from rural school districts as policy makers feel the larger schools have a greater need than the smaller school. My question is who is really getting short changed in the end? I feel these policy makers need to consider the children and the benefits they gain rather than viewing them as monetary value. The article suggests that community needs to work hand in hand to produce a successful school in both the rural and urban communities. The new insight I gained was the information regarding the Title I funding as my children attend small rural schools that also rely on that funding in their budgets. Community members really need to speak to policy makers and advocate for out children regardless of the environment to which they live.

Getting to Know International Contacts-Part 1

            I find myself still waiting to here from anyone both emails I have sent and my colleague’s international friend. I have chosen the alternative option for this blog. The world forum is pretty awesome. I have never done a pod cast before so that was a learning experience in itself and I was intrigued by the different people that contributed from a variety of different areas in the Early Childhood field. I listened to two podcast one with Susan Lyon the Director of the Innovative Project in California and Maysoun Chehab she works for Arab Resource Collective she is the Director of Early Childhood program and practices in the Middle East. I sent their site an email requesting correspondence also.

            I reviewed the article posted on the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Center page http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/ . The country I chose to examine was Kyrgyzstan. I chose them as I had never heard of this place before. This country up to 1991 was apart of the Soviet Union and with new found Independence they are striving for a rapid transformation and thriving market economy. According to the article “Kyrgyzstan is now starting to recover from the economic shocks associated with transition and independence, and in 2001 GDP grew by 5.3 per cent. The majority of the population - approximately 60 per cent - makes their living from agriculture.”(CHIP) 41 percent of the urban population and 51 percent of the rural population live below the government poverty line with 18 percent unable to afford their basic food needs. Although at Independence Kyrgyzstan people had much higher levels of education and health since Independence they have began notice a decline in kindergarten, school enrollment and graduations. The poverty is forcing these children to go to work in a variety of jobs including agricultural but sadly trafficking and child prostitution. Tuberculosis is on the rise and affecting their teenagers. The government is in the processes of developing a Comprehensive Developmental Framework which has a 15 year goal to reduce poverty, promote growth create a good government, a fairer society and a commitment to childhood poverty. I found the goals to be pretty realistic and would like to see how well this plan works in five years from now. I found this to be interesting as I can’t imagine what a society must go through when they are breaking a way from a country that feeds them and claiming independence so that they can go on their own.       

Resources:

CHIP Child Poverty Research and Policy Center http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/

Sharing Web Resources

The websites I am reviewing to share are the National Association for the Education of Young Children found at:  http://www.naeyc.org and Teaching Tolerance a Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center found at:  http://tolerance.org  .  The NAEYC is a resource for teachers which cover a variety of topics related to the early childhood field including policy, national and international trends and issues, classroom ideas, conferences, resource tools and research topics.  The website provides a mass amount of resources for early childhood professionals from publications to accreditation, past issues, and leadership opportunity programs to name a few.    

           Teaching Tolerance website contains information related to discrimination.  The website has tabs for their magazine, professional development, classroom activities, teaching kit, and a mix it up publications.  The current issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine features an article that caught my attention is entitled, “Bully at the Blackboard”.  The article discusses a veteran teacher of 38 years that lost her patience with a kindergartner and called him, “Piggy, piggy!  Oink, Oink”.  The other children in the class followed suit (Koenig, D., Daniels, R. H., fall, 2010).  This article is fascinating and shows the affects that we as teachers have on the children we teach in both a positive and negative fashion.

According to Dr. Twemlow children as well as teachers bring their own background and experience to the classroom.   “What teachers need to know is that our brains are hard-wired to obey those in charge,” says Twemlow.   Dr. Stuart Twemlow is well-known for his research on teacher bullying, including a 2005 study in which 45 percent of sampled teachers said they had bullied a student at some point in their careers.  If bullying was seen as a process, not a person anti-bullying programs would be more successful (Koenig, D., Daniels, R. H., fall, 2010). 

Teachers bullying students interested me because the bullying is usually thought to occur between students when it happens in the classroom.  I am reminded again of the importance of self-evaluation and daily reflection. We must always be aware of our limitations and appropriate steps to take to alleviate built-up stress. I found the article informative and thought provoking as our patience gets tested in the classroom daily and I never thought about the teacher doing the bullying as it is our job as educators to prevent this type of occurrence.

Reference

Koenig, D., Daniels, R. H., fall, 2010.  Bullying at the Blackboard.  Teaching Tolerance.

http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-40-fall-2011/bully-blackboard

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

For the class 'Issues and Trends in the Early Childhood Field', we have been asked to contact two Early Childhood professionals outside of the United States. The purpose is to learn the trends and issues from other professions and exchange experiences. I am excited about this assignment as I love to learn about new cultures and places that I am unfamiliar with. I find this to also be a challenge as I am at a loss for resources and I am a shy person which doesn’t help very much when it comes to networking. I have used the links provided http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance, I used the Global Alliance link and selected a few different emails which I introduced myself and explained my reason for wanting to establish communication and I am still waiting for a response from someone. I have also spoke with a colleague at work who is trying to help me get introduced to her friend who is in Europe teaching Early Childhood.

 I chose the site NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER EDUCATORS http://www.naecte.org/ (Newsletter: http://www.naecte.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=29 ) to study during this class. I am thankful for this opportunity because it will give me first hand information and a new understanding of Early Childhood Education around the world. I am also joining http://acei.org and http://naeyc.org to engage closely in the organization to broaden my understanding and deepen my contacts.