Getting to Know Your International Contacts--Part 3
My contact in Africa, Eric Atmore, did not respond to my two emails that I sent, so I explored UNESCO's "Early Childcare Care and Education." My goals that I wrote in the Foundations course were:
*To better myself in the field of early childhood education
*To positively impact the quality of life for young children and their families
*To nurture and support my staff so they will continue to have balance with their
personal and professional lives
One article that I read was "Better Monitoring in Sight for the Well-being of Young Children." This article parallels with my goals as I work hard to empower the children, families, and teachers in becoming socially and emotionally well balanced competent adults. Thirty early childhood experts from around the world met in Paris in 2010 to develop a holistic index to improve Member States' ability to track progress towards quality early childhood care and education (ECCE)-the first of the Education for All (EFA) goals (UNESCO, 2014, p. 1). It is a huge challenge to keep pace with the changing world and making sure that all children receive the skills needed in this increasingly knowledge-based economy.
Another article, "Vox Pop: What are the Three Most Important Skills a Child Should Learn?" is also similar to my goals as I want to recognize children and their families as a group, but relate to them as individuals. Children should be thinking critically about who they are and how they relate to their world around them, in a social and political perspective...(Sahni, 2013, p. 2). Children, and sometimes their families, need to learn life skills and core values along with respect for the different cultures. \
One insight I learned when exploring this website is that internationally, countries want to place more emphasis on investing in girl's education. In the United States, we take education for granted. But in poorer countries, education is not readily available to everyone, especial females. Girl's make up half of 140 million children who are out of school (UNESCO, 2011). Education for females results in better health, stronger families and communities, and lower maternal child mortality. UNESCO supports the provision of school meals and encourages parents to send their daughters to school. By the year 2015, one of the six goals set by Education for All is all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities have access to, and complete, free and compulsory early education (UNESCO, 2014, p. 1).
Sahni, U. (2013). Vox pop: What are the three most important skills a child should learn?
Education UNESCO Bangkok. Retrieved from, http://www.unescobkk.org/education/news/article/vox-pop
UNESCO. (2011). A winning equation. Retrieved from, http://www.unesco.org
UNESCO. (2014). Better monitoring in sight for the well-being of young children.
Retrieved from, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems
Jill,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. I also researched the UNESCO website. I enjoyed the two articles you read up on, they sound very interesting. It is a huge challenge to keep pace with the changing world. I missed the Vox Pop article, I am going to go back and look that one up. Sounds like something I would like to read further into. I also noticed the emphasis on investments in girls education around the world. We do take advantage of the education here in the U.S. where females and males receive an equal education. It's a shame that in some poorer countries, girls don't get the chance to receive an education like the rest.
Thanks for your post
Hello Jill,
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed because I was not able to connect with a global professional. I decided to explore the NAECTE organization. The article that I researched was A Promising Strategy for Connecting Future Teachers to the Lives of Diverse Children and Their Families. This article contained information about students and their families. Some students, families, and teachers spent 30 hours of service together learning about diverse families. They focused on family events at different schools and parent involvement in these invents.
I also agree that we take education for granted. Not all children have the opportunity to get the same education. There is a not of inequity in the early childhood field. Socioeconomic status is an important factor that helps to determine who attends preschool. Such things as income level, resources, cultures, geographic location and communites are just a few things that determine what kind of education a child gets. An insight that I gained is that everyone is not treated the same and equity should not be limited to a single population. Everyone child shoud have the opportunity to get a quality education.