Sharing Web Resources Week 4

While looking over the website (www.acei.org) this week, I came across the blog article titled "Promoting a Positive Childhood" and found it really interesting because of what we have talked about recently. They list some things that are important for every child and you could build on the list by leaving a comment. Here is the list:

Ten Pillars of a Good Childhood

1. Safe and secure places for living, with learning and access to health care, clothing, and nutritious food

2. Strong families and loving, consistent caregivers

3. Social interactions and friendships

4. Creative play and physical activity

5. Appreciation and stewardship of the natural environment

6. Creative expression through music, dance, drama, and the other arts

7. Education that develops the full capacities of the child—cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and ethical

8. Supportive, nurturing, child-friendly communities

9. Growing independence and decision making

10. Children and youth participating in community life.

I am very interested in the "Decade for Childhood 2012-2022". In this time we all need to put more energy into giving our children back their "childhood" and freedom to express themselves instead of making them conform toso much structure. Children need to be allowed to be CHILDREN! The Decade for Children was jsut so interesting for me and has so much information that pertains to everyone that has anything to do with children. Advocates from everywhere are involved with this and I have found myself joining and hope to do more with this project-just waiting for them to get back in touch with me. Our economy is vital to the health of our children so economists and others in these fields are involved by helping with research and hopefully more politicians will spend more energy on our children and less on politics. There are so many different links on this site that I am still exploring-but anything to do with global children and helping around the world and at home are on my list of things to do and advocate for.

One of the comments on the blog page had this listed and I thought it was perfect for sharing here: Thank you Aileen Puurveen-Abma

“S” social development “I can learn to reach out to others, share and have friends”

“P” physical development “I can learn to move my body that best expresses my abilities”.

“E” emotional development “I can learn to believe in myself and love who I am”.

“C” Cultural development “I can learn and celebrate who I am in the context of others”.

“I” Intellectual/ cognitive development “I can learn to succeed to the greatest of my ability”.

“A” Artistic development. “I can learn to freely express myself through the arts”.

“L” Language and land development. “I can learn to communicate to others and to the earth itself”.

This website has many areas that are adding to my knowledge about how to help children everywhere and how to get others involved by sharing this information with them.

Getting to know Your International Contacts

International Contacts After a rough start for making contact with profesionals outside the United States, I finally have two contacts I'm talking to-one in Denmark and one in Canada.

My contact in Denamrk wrote:
The poverty level in Denmark is not high, but it is increasing. I could not find the exact %, because, there several different ways to calculate how many poor people, and children we have in Denmark Our school system are for everybody, so in theory all children have the same rights, and level of education, in real life, some parts of the bigger cities have areas where the education lack a student standard. These areas are populated with a lot of refugees, emigrants and people with social problems.

At the moment the rich is getting richer, and the poor is getting poorer, and the politicians is a lot to blame. It is the private organizations who help the most, by helping with clothes, food and shelter.

In the area that I work, is no poverty at all, so my job is more to teach these children, that they are very lucky, and there are others who need help, and it is vital to show solidarity, and help others and share.

Rasmus

And for Canada this is what I was given:

Hi Susan, Just to give you a little info about myself. I am an ECE with my special needs and infant toddler diplomas as well. I have been working in childcare for many years and in many places in BC. I am currently managing a young parent program that is being run out of a local high school. We provide an infant toddler center and support for young parents who attend the high school as well as families from the communities. We are able to provide all of the food and diapers throughout the day for our children and help to give them role modeling and routine that they require. I believe that the poverty level in Canada is around 10-14% but you might need to check that stat. I believe that in our society it is mostly the middle income families who sometimes have the hardest times. Families who are below the poverty line in Canada are able to get government subsidy which covers a portion or sometimes all of their childcare costs. For the families who are just above the cut off line, they have to pay full childcare fees and most times it is their paychecks that are going straight to cover the costs of childcare.

There are many resources in Canada to help families who are below the poverty line and needing extra help such as subsidized childcare, food and clothing donation services, subsidized housing, counseling services, etc. There are many community services groups who are able to help out those in need and many resources available. At our center we are able to provide food, diapers and clothing for children of young parents who are not able to provide it for themselves. We offer parent group counseling services, weekly meetings, cooking classes, knowledge classes, teach self help skills, etc. I hope this helps. Sorry it’s not very much but if you require any further info, please let me know.

Thanks-Nicole

After getting this information I did more internet searching to see if I could find more information to go with the emails and I found a chart that lists countries and their poverty levels.

This chart shows us where our country stands compared to others and it’s a rude awaking for all of us to stop and really focus on what our priorities should really be.

Reference:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/29/491443/un-report-child-poverty/?mobile=nc

Sharing Web Resources

Blog Week 2: Sharing Web Resources The organization I selected for further research is the Association for Childhood Education International, www.acei.org and I chose this because they cover a wide range of issues that affect children around the world. Their focus is on the rights of children everywhere and to make it possible for children to get an education no matter where they live, to have educators that are knowledgeable on early childhood issues and development. As stated on their website: • To promote the inherent rights, education, and well-being of all children in their home, school and community. • To work for desirable conditions, programs, and practices for children from infancy through early adolescence. • To bring into active cooperation all individuals and groups concerned with children. • To raise the standard of preparation for those actively involved with the care and development of children. • To encourage continuous professional growth of educators. • To focus the public's attention on the rights and needs of children, and on the ways various programs must be adjusted to fit those rights and needs. The topic that I found interesting and important for me is “How climate change affects children and youth” for me this affects children everywhere because we are having more and more major storms, floods, earthquakes and other types of nature related weather problems and they come from what we are doing to our world. I found the article very enlightening. Again as stated on the site this affects children around the world and it affects the whole child-living conditions, education, medical, and the ability to get food. Here is what the website tells us: Issue in Brief Climate change is a serious and real threat to children’s well being. In many areas of the world children’s lives are being disrupted by the shifts in temperatures and increasingly severe weather conditions. Today, they are few areas of the world that are not being impacted by climate change and these changes can also have a significant impact on a child’s ability to attend school. Very sadly severe climate changes may also support conditions that impact a child’s ability to survive. In extreme conditions, changes in the climate may cause a dangerous decrease in water supplies or droughts that result in the tragic deaths of young and old. Climate changes, such as overly dry or wet seasons, may also encourage conditions that contribute to the expansion of deadly diseases such as malaria, which kills thousands of children every year. Climate change can alter the resources available in communities by impacting food supplies and crops. This not only directly affects food availability for children and community members but it may also decrease their ability to trade goods with others creating economic instability in entire regions. Even in less severe cases climate change can still affect a child’s ability to receive an education. All over the world changes in weather patterns that result in extreme conditions such as heavy snow fall, floods, storms and intense heat may force schools to change locations, to close or may significantly decrease the quality of the learning environment. Climate change is impacting children lives and it can seriously affect a child’s access to and participation in school. www.acei.org: Association for Childhood Education International

Week 1: Professional Contacts and Resources

Week 1: Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources This week I was not able to get a solid contact from all my emails, still waiting for someone to hopefully come through. While waiting I went ahead and listened to the world forum foundation’s episode 6 with Meridas Eka Yora who is the founder and director of the institution Fajar Hiayah for Islamic Education and Director of the Yayasan Fajar Hidayah Foundation. Meridas developed three boarding schools for children orphaned as a result of that devastation in Aceh. Aceh, a special territory on the Southern tip of Indonesia, was the closest land to the epicenter of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, in which more than 225 Indonesians were killed and 500,000 left homeless. Meridas talked about how he started the foundation and that it helps many children and has grown to over 2,000 students as well as other children in need. There are seven schools as of 2009. (www.worldforumfoundation.org) The organization that I am interested in is the: Association for Childhood Education International (www.acei.org). This organization was founded in 1982 and they are involved on the international level so they can help advocate for children everywhere. ACEI also advocates for teachers and parents. They have a blog, radio broadcasts, e-news and global news as ways to communicate. I will continue to explore and share over the next eight weeks.

Break before next class!!

Hello everyone, Hope everyone is enjoying our little break from class-getting many things done for work before the rush begins for EDUC-6162, Issues and Trends in ECE field. Is anyone going to be in class with me? Hope everyone did great in our last class and relax for the holiday and get ready to jump in again :-) See ya on the 4th!!

"My Supports"

“My Supports” The supports I have around me are my family: husband, daughter and son. These are my immediate supports because these people help me stay focused, give me the support needed to continue my education and do the job that I love. My husband has been by my side for over thirty years and supported me in whatever I wanted to do, we have always helped each other achieve our dreams of education (while in the Air Force it was his dream to obtain his Bachelors and become an Officer) and when it was my turn to continue my education (after our children graduated high school) I returned to school and obtained my Associates degree at the same time my daughter graduated from George Mason University with her Bachelors degree. My daughter supports me by being there for me to bounce ideas off of and help me understand how to put my thoughts onto paper when I need it. She is there for me when I am having a rough day and I am there for her as well. My son supports me by being my computer wizard and helping me to learn new things for my education and job. He is always just a phone call away for me to ask how I do this. All of these people support me through my goal of getting healthy and fit again-by cooking me healthy meals, going on walks or bike rides with me. My challenge would be to move to another country again and have to leave my support system behind and start over. Even though I have lived overseas many times, I always had my family with me and now my children have their own families so I would not have those supports with me. I would have to build new relationships with new co-workers and neighbors and for me this would be hard because I am really an introvert and do not make friends easily. I would have my husband with me so that would be a big support to keep me grounded and able to start over, I would be linked to my children by email, skype and the phone. The other challenge with the move would be learning the language in order to do my job-this would be an intense learning experience, but again with my husband and new co-workers it would get done. If I did not have my supports, I feel I would have a harder time at succeeding in my new job and home. I would need to find a way to take them with me while I build a new support system to help me succeed.

My Connections to Play

Adults are obsolete children-Dr. Seuss www.quotegarden.com We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing-George Bernard Shaw www.quotegarden.com "Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood, for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul." Friedrich Froebel http://www.childsplaymagazine.com/quotes/index.htm When I was young I would play outside all day with my friends and family. We loved to go exploring because we lived in the country and had alot of fun climbing trees and just seeing what nature had for us to find. I used to enjoy playing outside on our tire swing and playing games at night around the neighborhood. My siblings would play games and explore with me even though they were older than me. This helped me to grow closer to them and learn young about how rules can change from one minute to the next. I was an outside player when I was growing up and still perfer to be outside whenever possible. Both at school and at home outside play was encouraged and we also had family time when we would play games together (board games and outside games ). Play was encouraged-but I grew up in the 1960's and the electronic age had not hit yet, so that was good. Today I think play is alot different because so many children do not play outside. Today children play inside on electronic devices or are watching television. When I was growing up children played sports and got together outside-today children play some sports, but also get together to play computer games and other inside activities. Play time is being taken away from children today in many programs and being replaced with more desk work and for me this needs to be changed back to how it was when i was growing up and you had recess two to three times a day and you played outside most of the time.

These are some of my favorite things to do and play with even now with my grandchildren-we are always playing outside and making up games to play. It is great to watch them explore and ask questions about the world around them. I instilled in my children a love for the outdoors and we are all trying to do the same thing with all the grand children.