Getting to Know Your International

 Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative”

This website turned out to be one of the best for me. Every time I click on this website there is something new to learn. This time I went through the new video segments of newsletter archives. There are a few videos, such as “brain hero”, “the foundations of lifelong health”, “what are innovations, afraid of innovations” and more. Some videos are in Spanish but most are in English. These recourses are wonderful not only for the educators but also for parent educational events as well. My number one choice is the foundations of the lifelong health. Jack Shonkoff, the director of the center on the developing child is in the presentation. Tom Boyce, the professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in Pediatrics, in University of British Columbia, Bruce S. McEwen Ph.D. Laboratory of Neuroedocrinology, the Rockefeller University, Bernard Guyer, M.D., M.P.H. John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and David R. Williams Norman Professor of Public Health Harvard University are the presenters in this video. They are explaining that the interconnection of receiving safe environment, early childhood education, and better health care as a child makes a huge impact on the life span of a human being. Mother’s well-being before the pregnancy is the starting point to a life time of vitality.

The Foundations of Lifelong Health Are Built in Early Childhood is a great video presentation of a wealth of information.

Reducing Developmental Barriers to Learning

This is another article that captured my attention. There are three video presentations included in this article.

The Early Childhood Innovation Partnership (ECIP) is a four-way collaboration among the Center on the Developing Child, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the True Point Center for High Performance and High Commitment. Even though there are opportunities for educator training and program improvement, the achievement gap is clearly visible in the nation. It is being proven again and again that not just the academic and cognitive development, but emotional, social, and behavioral development is equally important for the growing child.

The E. C. I. P.’s work is that interrelated neurobiology of emotional and cognitive development that provides the positive impacts on early childhood learning programs with,

a) Interventions that promote the development of executive functioning skills (such as behavior regulation and working memory)  

b) More effective prevention and early treatment of mental health concerns and behavior problems in young children.
The E. C. I. P’s aim is to combine scientific insights, practical experience, and creative risk-taking to generate new policies and practices that are,

·  Grounded in a unified evidence base derived from well-established scientific principles that can be applied across agencies and sectors;

·  Likely to produce greater impacts than current programs for disadvantaged young children and their parents;

·  Positioned to mobilize both public and private sector resources;

• Designed to be feasible and replicable (with adaptations as needed) in a broad array of political, economic, social, and cultural contexts. 

World Forum is another great resource that I have been following and I found this article there that I thought of sharing with everyone.

Caring about All Children
July 27, 2011

Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.
-Francesco Guicciardini

In her presentation at the 2011 World Forum on Early Care and Education (which can be viewed on the World Forum website), Lilian Katz shared a concern from her book Intellectual Emergencies:  Some Reflections on Mothering and Teaching...
"I believe that each of us must come to care about everyone else's children.  We must come to see that the well-being of our own individual children is intimately linked to the well-being of all other people's children.  After all when one of our children needs life saving surgery, someone else's child will perform it; when one of our children is threatened or harmed by violence in the streets, someone else's child will inflict it.  The good life for our own children can only be secured if it is also secured for all other people's children.  But to worry about all other people's children is not just a practical or strategic matter; it is a moral and ethical one; to strive for the well-being of all other people's children is also right."

While I was paying attention to the current issues in international early childhood arena, I could not think of anything better to share with everyone.

Please take a moment to see these pictures and read the article. If it is possible do what ever possible to make a difference.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/deepening-humanitarian-crisis-in-somalia/2011/07/13/gIQAASuSCI_gallery.html#photo=21

Reference:

Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/),

World Forum Foundation

http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/about-us/history-and-past-events/2011-world-forum/videos

The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Sharing Web Resources

• What specific section(s) or information seemed particularly relevant to your current professional development?

The information on child development research is always helpful for me as I am a person who is inclined to learn from research based information.

As I am trying to be a stronger early childhood education advocate, I find the research based numbers on the benefits of early childhood education interesting.

All the information I gained regarding the global early childhood education is always important as we can always learn from other countries and culture.

Diversity is a huge piece of the program that I work and the information on diversity is never too much for me.

• Which ideas/statements/resources, either on the website or in an e-newsletter, did you find controversial or made you think about an issue in new ways?

For me personally I do not appreciate when religion and politics get in the middle of something as important as early childhood education. People who are involved with early childhood or any other arena that matters for the future of the children of the world should not get personal beliefs involved. Everyone has a choice when it comes to personal beliefs to accept it or not. So for me personally it is controversial when someone’s personal beliefs get involved with a topic that matters to the world beyond any boundary.  

• What information does the website or the e-newsletter contain that adds to your understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field?

•  Novotney, A. (2010). The recession’s toll on children. Monitor on Psychology, 41(8), 42–45. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Freely Accessible Social Science Journals database. 

•  U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Institute for a Competitive Workforce. (2010). Why business should support early childhood education. Retrieved from http://icw.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/ICW_EarlyChildhoodReport_2010.pdf

• The RAND Corporation. (2008). what does economics tell us about early childhood policy? (Research Brief). Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2008/RAND_RB9352.pdf

Other than the web sites above, I used the Erikson Institution website for this assignment. The information I gained from all four are priceless. I printed them out so I can use them in the future as well. As Dr. Grace mentions, we must get involved beyond our work responsibilities. Advocacy is a very important part of the early childhood education.

• What other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field did you gain from exploring the website or e-newsletter?

The Global Fund for Children http://www.globalfundforchildren.org/

UNICEF http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html\

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/
National Head Start Association  http://www.nhsa.org/  
Pre[K]Now: A Campaign of the Pew Center on the States http://www.preknow.org/   

I am always curious about early childhood education in other countries. It is not a topic we see in the media very often. These (above) gave me the opportunity to explore not only the early childhood education in other countries but also the issues involving the children as well. The basic needs of life such as food, shelter, health, love and care are not that common in every part of the world. The poverty has taken over the carefree childhood of growing children in some parts of the world. The childhood innocence is taken away by the wars and how it effects the generation of young children are some of the insights I have gained so far.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

 “Over 600 million children world-wide live in absolute poverty - an estimated 1 in 4. In many countries, rates are much higher with over 60 percent of children living in households with incomes below international poverty lines. Over 10 million children under five still die every year from preventable diseases - the vast majority of them in developing countries. As one of the most powerless groups in society, children often bear the physical and emotional costs of poverty”. Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Center.  The Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre is a collaborative research and policy program which includes Save the Children, the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) and partners in China, India, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia.

I choose Kyrgyzstan as my choice of country to learn more about. Until 1991 Kyrgyzstan is a part of Soviet Russia. In 1991 they became an independent nation. Just as most of the countries in the world, they had to go through the shock of becoming an independent nation and facing the changes it brings. One huge change was having the ownership of land, livestock, services or anything that was owned by the state during the communist era. Widespread privatization and open economy created a different atmosphere in the country. Approximately sixty percent of the population is living on agriculture. Mining was also a huge part of the economy before the independence. It is being partially abandoned currently.

 According to the childhood poverty article, fifty-five percent of children in Kyrgyzstan are living in poverty in rural and urban areas (Yarkova et al, 2004). Childhood poverty is inseparable from the poverty of families and communities. Our findings, which are consistent with the findings of other research (e.g. World Bank, 2003) suggest that the most important factors underlying childhood poverty in Kyrgyzstan are living in a single-parent household and being a member of a young nuclear family where the parents are younger than 30 years of age.

 With these financial situations come the hardships of daily lives. Most of the families have children  skipping school to work in fields or mines. Most of the mines are constructed amateurishly and they are very dangerous to work in. The tunnels are only wide enough for the children to go in and bring the coal sacks out on their backs. The number of street children living in urban area has also risen. There are other survival and coping mechanisms created by individual families as well. Reducing the amount of food eaten, not buying meal products, reducing the heating of homes in winter time, cutting down wood or use of coal for cooking and heating, leaving the rural area to urban areas looking for work, visiting traditional healers due to lack of health care or un affordability of health care are some of them.

Childhood poverty Research and policy is paying special attention to issues regarding the poverty in Kyrgyzstan.

The research in Kyrgyzstan explored the following key issues:

• How poverty affects children and young people in Kyrgyzstan.
• The key reasons why so many children live in poverty.
• How key livelihood or coping strategies affect child wellbeing and their immediate and possible long-term effects.
• How childhood poverty and children's future life chance vary among different parts of the country and social groups.
• Evidence that intergenerational poverty cycles are taking place or developing and which groups of children are particularly at risk.
• Role of social and economic policies in causing and helping to tackle childhood poverty.

I am a person born and raised in a developing country. Some of these issues are not new, such as children in poverty working in the family fields, working in bazaar after school, sometimes cutting down on food. But, the information on changes after the independence and its effects on children and families are hard to believe. It is also unbelievable to read how young children are becoming the breadwinners of their families. How the children have their dreams and worries regarding their unknown future is hard to read.

As I was reading more articles on Kyrgyzstan following ones took my attention than the others. I hope these websites and articles will be helpful to everyone.

Children of Kyrgyzstan. By David Levene, April 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,1756789,00.html

“At the end of March, with help from the British-based charity EveryChild, I travelled to the central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan to work with street children in the cities of Bishkek and Osh. Kyrgyzstan inherited one of the least effective economies of the former Soviet Union and its transition to a market economy has been extremely tough. Now the republic is struggling to achieve economic stability. Sadly, poverty is on the increase and the level of services available to people is generally very poor”.  There is a slide show done by David Levene available in this article as well.

Child labor in Kyrgyz coal mines. By Natalia Antelava, BBC Central Asia correspondent 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6955202.stm

“Like many of its neighbors, Kyrgyzstan never recovered from the collapse of the Soviet Union, which destroyed, among other things, the country's once-thriving mining industry. The coal mines were abandoned, and the infrastructure left lying in ruins.
After years of watching the government fail to revive the economy, people turned to excavating coal themselves. But the mines they dug out were often too narrow for adults, and so fathers began bringing in their sons. No one knows the exact number of children working in Kyrgyzstan's coal mines. Locals say the government refuses to acknowledge the problem. Officially these children may not even exist. Yet we saw them at every coal mine we visited. They work all year round, under the blistering heat of the summer and in the freezing temperatures of the harsh mountain winter”.

Counseling eases the pain for troubled children in Kyrgyzstan by Galina Solodunova
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/kyrgyzstan_34989.html

“For 30 years, Dr. Ageeva has dedicated her career to helping children and adolescents overcome issues of drug and alcohol dependence, violence and sexual abuse. She serves as faculty chair of the psychology department at the prestigious Kyrgyz-Russian Slavonic University. Dr. Ageeva approached UNICEF with a very specific goal in mind: to develop a partnership for an education and skills program on the treatment of traumatized youth and troubled families. UNICEF agreed to the proposal and a summer workshop was planned to kick off the program”.

Reference:

• http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/index.php/action=documentfeed/doctype=pdf/id=98/

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,1756789,00.html
• http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/kyrgyzstan_34989.html
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6955202.stm

Sharing Web Resources

• Provide the name and link for the organization you selected, and a brief description of the organization’s focus,

Early Learning News is a part of NAEYC web site. I read several articles in the early news. Below is some of the excerpt that caught my eye.

http://www.naeyc.org/newsroom/inthenews

“Despite a clear trajectory downward, our priorities are still elsewhere. The Federal Government currently spends $7.00 on the elderly for every $1.00 we spend on children. We dole out more than $900 billion a year on the military compared to $300 million on all kids programs, including education. We spend 5 percent of the federal budget serving debt, and only 4 percent more than that serving children.”- The child first movement.


“According to the American Association for the Child's Right to Play (and, yes, it seems we do need such an organization), approximately 40 percent of the elementary schools in the U.S. have eliminated recess from the children's day. The primary reason, of course, is the need to focus on academics. With all of the standards to be met and tests to be taken, there simply isn't time for something as "frivolous" as recess.” -Children’s right to play.

Yet another major long-term study, this one published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has conclusively demonstrated the link between weight gain and junk food. The study showed that soda is "the number one problem related to weight gain," Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the Nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, told MSNBC. But that is not the story that major food companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola or Mars Co. want you to believe. A new report by ABC suggests that these companies are willing to pay scientists to help produce evidence refuting the link between bad health and a bad diet. The terms of the payments, of course, do not explicitly require the scientists to fudge study results. But scientists who receive big grants from major food companies have been known to testify in favor of junk food in court and in front of Congress. Some have compared such scientists to those who obfuscated the link between smoking and cancer before it became incontrovertible—which casts "big sugar" in the same role as "big tobacco." -Junk Food Producers Pay Scientists To Fudge Link Between Health And Nutrition

• Provide the name and link for the international website you selected, and a brief description of the organization’s focus,

UNICEF home page http://www.unicef.org/index.php
UNICEF home page for videos, radio, and the podcasts        http://www.unicef.org/videoaudio/index.html
I learnt a lot from these two resources. They both are about what is going on in the world regarding children. I have known about the wonderful programs done by UNICEF in Sri Lanka but I feel that now I am much more aware of them and much more curious about them. One common topic in podcasts was the financial struggles children and families face with all over the developing world. Beyond the school books is a very inspirational series on resilience of young children as well as young adults.

• Identify one current issue/trend from the newsletter and/or from the website that caught your attention June, 2011 the early learning news on NAEYC.

NAEYC early learning news has given attention to obesity and food choices that adults put in front of the children. Power that unhealthy food makers have on the political and research arenas. It worries me to learn how these industries are working for the better of themselves and worst for the young children.

Another topic that I was able to find in several related articles is the improvement of early childhood education in the nation and what other countries are doing successfully.  Finland, Norway, and Singapore are few of the countries that have the best early childhood education programs. They encourage teacher education to improve the teaching and practices in the classroom.

There were several articles regarding Autism, ADD, and ADHD. Parental depression and its effects on children were also discussed.  

• Share if there was anything else you learned from studying these resources related to the topic of this week

Please watch these video on UNESCO web site. I am a person who is fascinated about the brain development. There are few YouTube videos on brain development among the other video that really caught my attention.

Here is the link to UNESCO videos http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/all-videos/

While I was watching these videos there was one specific video on migration. It is discussing one major reason behind the immigration as environmental factors. Climate change is also a reason behind the migration, not only the economic factors there are other factors behind migration. There is no choice for the people other than leaving where they are to find food and water to live. I spent long time watching all these videos and learning from them and I hope my colleagues will be able to do the same.