Final blog

There were many things that I learned from our international contacts. I learned that the United States is so focused on education and money that we have forgotten about the fundamentals of learning. We as a nation have forgotten about play. Even as adults we need to play (a different kind of play but play), we need to refocus our efforst on teaching children the basics while they are playig. If we continue to focus on education only and keep forcing academics on our children they will get burnt out and not want to learn at all. We need our children to be the future and in order for them to do this they need to be educated in a way that they enjoy it.
I have also learned that in many other countries their education system still incorporates morales and values. While we have a large melting pot of nationalities and traditions we still have nothing that we teach the children other than abc's and 123's. There needs to be some focus on ethics, or values that we hold as a nation. We teach right and wrong but never anyhthing that dates back to our ancestors unless its through family at home.
Another thing that I learned is that we have some of the same issues and trends as other countries. We have the basics of financial troubles, and trust in where we place our children. We have the education delima. We need our early childhood teachers to be educated in order to educate our children. This holds true both in Brazil and Haiti, the two countries I spoke with.

If I could choose only one goal I would have to choose more communication. If we could communicate more openly with other countries' educators we might have a chance at becoming more peaceful. If we coudl understand why other countries teach the things they do and if they could understand why we teach the things we do, we may all be able to come up with a way of creating and equalibrium in the early childhood field. The rules and standards vary so much in the united States alone, that if we could create a standardization across countries we could accomplish anything we wanted to.

I have enjoyed working with all of my classmates and wish them the best in their future classes and professions in the early childhood field, thank you to all who have responded and posed questions to me durring this course.

international contacts

I emailed my contact in haiti and recieved no response but Cintia from Brazil was more than willing to share her thoughts with me.
She stated that in her center they are doing a new program that requires all of the teachers to be certified and possess a certificate or a degree of some kind in the early childhood field. she said that this requires the school to help pay for some of the education that the teachers are lacking. Cintia saidf that this excited her because now she has an opportunity to go back to school and further her education. another requirment that is being instated is that the teachers are now allowed to focus more on their lessons that the children want. She said that it is much like a curriculum that allows the students to chose what they want to learn about. She said that this way feels more natural to her and is looking forward to this change.
As stated before the school now has to help provide so the teachers can further their education as to where before the center required only some college and first aid and cpr training.

I told Cintia that my 15 year plan is to open my own center and have it prosper. I want to offer a center where all children are welcome no matter their financial state. I want children to be offered a chance to shine and have the skills they need and more when they enter primary school. My short term plan is to apply for a newly opened position at work and become an administrator.
When I asked Cintia what she wanted to do she replied by saying that she too would like to offer all of those things to children but does not want to be in the administration or own her own center, she said that she simply wants to be the best teacher she can be and have the knowledge to be able to provide for her students in the ways that they need. She wants to have a work place where everyone is respected and valued for their skills as a teacher and not have to deal with the he said she said gossip that goes around.

NBDCI cont.

While I was looking around the site, I became disappointed because there was little I had not seen. They did not have many outside links to follow and not much on what we are studying this week. As I continued to search around I found an article that was in a newspaper about WalMart. As I often shop at WalMart and have heard pretty nasty things about them in the news lately I was intrigued, I followed the link and found that WalMart had donated $300,000 to the NBDCI to help promote healthy eating habits in American families. This was apart of a campaign done by Michelle Obama to help healthy eating habits become better known and more affordable.
One thing i did notice was the link that I talked about last time, the organization is offering a challenge to states to see who can have the highest percentage of licenced operating centers. This may have potential to relate to this weeks discussion, if a center is licenced, they may be in the running for being accessible and available to all walks of life. This may help promote their business and allow families to afford to take their children to daycare. This may create a new way to find excellence within daycare centers in your community and not just a Babysitting service.

I am sorry to say that there was not much else that related to our topic this week. I am a little disappointed with the site that I have chosen for this course. I thought it would be more informative and have links and potential to help the black communities and their families. The site or organization is doing wonderful things to help but has yet to show a lot of it on their website. Many things are the same from week to week. The most interesting thing about this site, to me, is the black history facts that are always listed on the side of the site page. Those change from day to day and I find them fascinating.

Brazil and Haiti

I spoke with Cintia, from Brazil, and she stated that in her country she notices that people are more concerned with keeping traditions alive than having children gain global knowledge in schools. She said that when a child enters a childcare center that they are not required to meet and type of standards tests or quarterly reviews like in America. The child does learn basics that help them on their way to primary school but the push for excellence is not as hard in her country. The people that fund the childcare systems in Brazil are mainly privateers and can set the standards of learning to whatever they wish. She also stated that while the curriculum is based very much on traditions that she has begun to notice a change in the last 2-3 years. The children are now more curious about what is around them and thus the system has begun to bring in a little bit of global thinking.

Sandra on the other hand, from Haiti, stated that the children in the childcare system are there because their parents want them to be able to make something of themselves and be able to provide for their family one day. The children that enter daycare, she said, are usually trying to avoid being another statistic and end up with some type of disease from roaming the streets. Sandra also said that the people of Haiti are currently still trying to clean up from the earthquake that devistated their country, and that any type of scheduled learning and hint of normalicy is good for the children. The people are still living in tents and trying to clear debrie from the island. When they send their children to daycare it allows the parents to get more done and be able to not have to worry about them running the streets or being in danger with all of the clean up.

To me it seems that the countries like America are the ones who are so severely worried about education and becoming a global threat, educationally. Many other countries wish for their childrento prosper and live healthy lives. We in America are too concerned with how much we know, how much we make, and how good we look to others.