Sharing Web Resources #2

I know this week we are focusing on web resources, but I wanted to include what Maria, my international contact had emailed me this week about Sweden and the poverty there.  I'm learning to email her earlier, so that I am able to get my responses in time for blog posts.  I thought her response was so interesting, I just copy/pasted the whole thing to share with everyone.

Hello Amber!

Poverty, what a difficult subject. It’s hard to define what poverty is. For me it’s when you don’t have enough money to buy food every day, and don’t have money to pay the most important bills, like the rent on your apartment and electricity and worse if you don’t have an apartment at all. And if you don’t have enough money to buy clothes and shoes.

If you live in Sweden and have children you get money from the government, like a child support, every month. You get 150 $/month for the first child. And if you have more children you get a “large family support“.

We also have another system, Government Healthcare, were you can get social welfare. So a child in Sweden should not live in poverty. But in the report from Save the children 13% or 248 000 children grow up in low-income family or are dependent on income support like social welfare. And the number of children who grows up in poverty has grown from last year.

Save the children says that the most exposed group of children is the children to single parents, children of parents who doesn’t have any work and children to immigrant parents. According to CRC, Sweden is obliged to ensure that all children have a fair standard of living, and that no child is discriminated against because of their social origins. Save the Children believes that discrimination exists in Sweden today, since the children living in economically disadvantaged families are at risk of poorer health, less educated, and less opportunity for recreational activities.

In the preschool we must report to the social services if we are worried about a child. But I have never had to deal with it at my workplace. But sometimes my colleagues and I think that some kids have fewer clothes and also outgrown clothes. The preschool have some clothes that the children can borrow if they have to. I hope that you got the answer that you need.

Maria. :)


Now on to sharing web resources....
   The more and more that I look at the site that I first chose, naecte.org, the more I do not like it as much.  It seems very limiting in what it offers, unless I sign up to be a member and I have a hard time wanting to be a member when I'm not super impressed with the content that they have on their main page.   For this week, and possibly for the following weeks, I chose to look at www. zerotothree.org.  I already signed up for the newsletter because I really like what this site has to offer.
    I looked under the policies tab on the website and I was pleasantly surprised by all of the great information that I found on what the federal government, state and communities are doing to support children.  From the way Dr. Grace spoke in the video segment, I kind of took on her thinking that politicians are not doing much in the way of helping children except when it helps their own agenda.  I found this not to be true.  There is an amazing amount of programs and intiatives out there that the government is working on.  The website links to OESE, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and there is a lot of information listed there as well.
   I decided to look up Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge because I have heard of it, but I was never sure what it really was.  The challenge is to increase the percentage of low-income children and disadvantaged children in each age group of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers enrolled in high quality programs, to design and implement high quality programs and have assessments that follow the National Research Councils.  The grant is awared to states that are creating these programs.  I didn't see the results though of who has been awarded these grants.
   The website also containted a lot of research-based information from neuroscientists and other scientists about brain development, challenging behavior and literacy to name a few.  I did not see anything on the page about economists becoming involved with the early childhood field though.
  Hopefully by the next blog post, I will have more opportunities to read newsletters on the zerotothree website and be able to share what these newsletters are discussing.   The website kept saying that the newsletters were not available at this time and to talk to the site administrator.  Hopefully they will be up and running soon.  It is a wonderful website and I probably should have chosen this from the start.


Resource
www.zerotothree.org

Getting to Know International Contacts-Part 1

    It has definately been an interesting week!!  My computer is not letting me connect to the internet and my boyfriend is out of town with his computer, so I'm writing this from my parents house...never a dull moment!!  I was able to create contact with two individuals, but only one has been emailing me back on a regular basis.  Her name is Maria and she is from Osterund, Sweden and she works as a preschool teacher.  I really enjoyed what she has to had to share with me.  She was excited to work on her English and there were  a few times in the email where I was a little bit confused as to what she meant, but overall, it has been great conversing with her.
    Maria works in a public preschool.  There are 3 departments in her preschool and a total of 54 children.   They are 1-5 years old in preschool.  Mom or dad stays home the 1st year of the child's life and they get paid by the government to do this (Wouldn't that be nice?).  In Maria's room, there are 3 teachers and they have 18 kids plus one resource teacher for a child with special needs.  The one thing I was a bit confused on was the age of kids she serves.  She wrote "2, 5-4 years old", so I'm not sure of the ages.
     There are five languages that children in her center speak:  Swedish, Finnish, German, Kurdish and English.  At school, all of the children speak Swedish, but for one hour every week, they meet with an adult who speaks their language.  It is the muncipalities job to find someone for that child to speak with, not the schools.
      She said that the most important way her children learn is through play.  She and the curriculum strongly believe that children learn best this way.  She sent me a copy of their curriculum, which was really interesting to look at.  It was very similar to what we use.  I would have included the attachment, but I was afraid it would take up too much room.
     Emailing back and forth with Maria has been very interesting.  I asked her about povery at her school and the area, but she didn't answer those questions for me.  I'm wondering if the language barrier is making it hard for her to understand what I was asking?  Learning about the Swedish early childhood school system has been awesome because I know nothing about it.  Hopefully you are all learning as well.

Web Resources

       The link I chose was www.naecte.org.  The website shares a common interest in Early Childhood Teachers Education, promotes professional growth, discusses educational issues, advocates for improvements, gives members access to conferences and position papers, and has a forum to discuss with other ECE educators.
        I first looked throught the Winter 2012 newsletter, which was their most updated newsletter.  I actually didn't find too many interesting things in the newsletter.  It talked a lot about upcoming conferences, which would be great to attend, but there are too far away and not really feasible for me to go to.
       I did come across a position paper that I really enjoyed though.  It was NAECTE's position statement on Early Childhood Certification for Teachers of children 8 years old and younger in Public School settings.  I chose to read through this because I have a strong belief that any individual teaching children 8 years and younger should have very specialized knowledge in ECE and have attended specialized degree programs to make sure they are best prepared to teach our children.  If you were to teach any primary, middle or secondary education classes, you would have to have a minimum of a bachelors degree, so why is that not the case with ECE?
      NAECTE has the same view that I do on this matter.  It states, "If children are to thrive in school and meet current expectations for acheivement, they need teachers who have specialized knowledge of child development and best practices in Early Childhood Education (NAECTE, nd.)  It also goes on to say that these teachers are better trained to deal with children from low-income homes and those who speak English as a second language.  Language diversity and language barriers are the issues that I chose to focus on this week and I think the better trained a teacher is, the better they are able to handle any situation, but especially those dealing with this population.
     The position statement also goes on to say that states should start requiring ECE certification and endorsements in order to be hired to teach and priority should be given to these teachers.  The position statement also says that teacher prep courses should be consistent with NAEYC.
      Being a teacher requires a love of children, but it also requires understanding of  how best to teach these children and what methods should be used.  A good teacher prep course is a much needed tool to go through in order to ensure that all teachers are quality teachers.

Issues and Trends in Early Childhood-Week 1

             Hello new classmates!!  This has been a very interesting and busy week!!  I went out of town on Thursday, so I have been doing most of my work not from house, which makes for one busy week!!  I have tried to establish contact with different professionals living outside of the United States through a few different ways.  So far I have been waiting to hear back from these people, so hopefully out of everyone that I contacted, I will be able to find at least two people.  Instead of looking through the websites that were given to us, I wanted to find acquantances of people that I knew. The first person I contacted was an old classmate I had that lives in China and I contacted her through our Walden email.  Facebook has actually been my main method of contacting individuals though and the method I have found most helpful.  The next couple that I contacted are not early childhood professionals, but I was hoping that some of their friends may be.  They live in Leeds, England and we met them a few summers back and recently went to London to visit them.  I'm hoping that they can help me find individuals in England that I can contact.  I sent them a message through facebook and they are on the hunt for friends that can help. I also had a family at work that moved to Germany that I have contacted and, through posting on my facebook what I was looking for, my great uncle gave me the email of a girl living in Ostersund, Sweden, who teaches preschool.  Facebook has been an amazing thing!!!  What a great way to get in touch with people all over the world!!  Hopefully I will be able to find someone soon!!  I also have a family friend in Italy that is a secondary education teacher, so I am going to send him an email as well.
    The website that I am choosing to look at every week is the National Association of the Early Childhood Teacher Educators or www.naecte.org.    I really liked what the website had to offer and I think this will be a great fit for me.  They promote professional growth, discuss educational issues, advocate for improvements in early childhood and have forums where you can discuss a lot of different issues.  For graduate students, it's only $45 to be a member for a year and once you do that, you have access to position papers, conference information and a lot of other things.  They also have job postings from all over the US, which is a nice feature.
  I hope everyone is having a great first week and good luck finding your contacts outside of the US!

MY SUPPORTS

     Coming from a person that has been through two deployments due to my boyfriend being in the Army National Guard,  having a support system built around me is something I hold very dear.  I have learned that their are people I can count on and also activities I can do to help alleviate stress not only during deployment, but also through non-deployment periods as well.  I chose to look at the three things in my life that I currently rely on for support everyday.
      The first support system that I have on a daily basis is my boyfriend.  He supports me through any and all things and is always there to listen or help me really put the important things into perspective.     
    My co-workers are another support system I see on a daily basis.  I feel very lucky to work for a great organization and I have a few close co-workers at work that I can share pretty much anything with. 
      The last support system I use on a daily basis is exercise or some kind of physical activity.  I've always been an active person and currently I play indoor and sand volleyball, slowpitch softball and I've taken up running in hopes of completing a half-marathon in the very near future.  My boyfriend is very active as well and when I stop to think about it, a lot of our life involves around being able to take advantage of being physically active.  We've been very fortunate to be able to go backpacking in Europe the last two years and traveling is something we plan on continuing doing in the future, so being physically able to do that is extremely important to me. Without these three things (and my family and close friends, who I don't always see everyday, but very much still rely on), my life would be completely different.  I'm not sure that I would know how to function without one of these three things.
    The challenge I chose to imagine is not being able to walk and becoming wheelchair bound.  I would need all of my supports even more.  I would probably have to look into other support systems as well.  My boyfriend would possibly have to become partially my caregiver as well, since our home isn't wheelchair accessible.  I know that he would do anything he could for me though.  As far as work, I feel like they would support me any way they could and our work is wheelchair accessible.  I'm not sure how well I would be able to do at my job though because I move around frequently and that may be difficult in a wheelchair.  My family and my close friends will forever support me, so I don't worry about losing their support. I think the area of my life that I would struggle most with is that I wouldn't be able to be physically active like I have been and do all of the things I enjoy doing so much.  For a large part of my life I have always defined myself by my physical ability, playing sports, running races, etc. and losing that would be very challenging and unknown for me.  I'm not sure how I would handle that and it is scary to think about.  It really makes me realize how lucky I am that I get to do these things everyday.  Everyone needs supports in their lives and a huge support for me would be gone.

My Connections to Play

"The very existence of youth is due in part to the necessity for play;  the animal does not play because he is young, he has a period of youth because he must play"-Karl Groos

"Creative people are curious, flexible, persistent and independent with a tremendous spirit of adventure and a love of play"-Henri Matisse

I have to first start out by saying how much fun this assignment was for me.  I just had a conversation with my mom about a month ago about some of the things I used to play with and they have saved almost everything!  I was so excited to hear that and I wanted to share some of my favorite memories with all of you.  I included more than 3 pictures, but I just couldn't stop!  I never realized how much stuff I had when I was  younger and I feel so grateful for it now.  My parents were huge supporters of my play.  I don't remember them playing with me, but they allowed me set up tables in our basement and some of my baby doll stuff in another area and I could just play and play away down there all day without interruptions.  My extended family were also supporters of my play because they would give me more of the things I loved to play with for my birthdays and at Christmas time!  Again, I feel so lucky as I look back on this. My brother was born when I was almost 5, so eventually he would play with me as he grew older and he was a great sport about playing with "girly" toys.  The last group that supported me as I played were my group of girlfriends that I met in kindergarten.  I remember going to their houses and they would come to mine to play the day away. 

The play that I participated in when I was younger definately shaped who I am today.  I would like to think I have good social skills and this came from years of playing with other children and my siblings.  I always remember being able to have free time to play and I was never forced and I have a strong belief that is how play should always be. I also feel that my early play shaped me for the career I am in today with children and understanding their love and need to play.  I also have developed a love of travel and I think this was also learned through years of play and using my imagination to go places.

I do see some similarities to the things I played with as a child to the things children play with now:  baby dolls, play houses and Barbies.  Children are still playing with these and acting out what they see in real life.  There are a lot of differences though too.  I see very few children playing outside like I used to and if they are it is usually with some kind of electronic device in their hands.  Children also watch way more television now than I did as a child and for a lot of children this has taken away their time to be out playing and enjoying their childhood.  I would hope that all young children are able to experience the kinds of wonderful play opportunities that I was able to have as a child and also still go outside and get a little dirt on their clothes and enjoy the great outdoors.

 One of the my most memorable items that I played with was Precious Places.  I loved to set up the houses, buildings and roads and leave them for months on end, returning to them as I wanted to play. 

I was a huge fan of Pee Wee's Playhouse on TV and I remember loving to watch the show and play with his house.  I don't even remember now what the show was about.

 I was a huge fan of baby dolls and I played with them all the time growing up.  I started with Cabbage Patch Dolls and I got one of the babies below when I was a little bit older. 

 I had two apple trees in my backyard growing up and while we didn't have a huge yard at all, my parents let me take some of my baby dolls and their play things out there. I loved to be outside when I was younger and I loved playing underneath those trees.

 These last two items, Barbie and Samantha, I got when I was older than 5, but I just had to put them on there.  I loved to play with Barbies and I loved to dress Samantha and comb her pretty hair. 

Relationship Reflection

My boyfriend, Shawn and I have been together for almost 6 years.  He is wonderful and supports me in everything I do.  When I wanted to go back to school for my Master's, he was the one encouraging me to do it the most because he knew how badly I wanted to and how much I enjoy working with young children.  We have grown up since we first started dating and through multiple deployments we have learned how to be strong, independent people while gaining important communication skills along the way that has enhanced our entire relationship.  Deployments also taught us what really matters and counts in life and we actually count that as a blessing that we learned through these deployments. We have just recently started to travel and it has really forced me to go outside of my comfort zone and learn about the world around me and I love him for that.  He is my companion through all things in my life.

My family has always supported me 100% in everything I do.  My dad and I were very close when I was young and my mom is still one of my best friends.  They have both taught me the value of hard work and that is why I'm where I'm at today in my career.  My brother and I have always been close and since growing up and moving out of our parent's house, we still maintain that closeness and we actually both work for MWR through the Army at our local military installation.  My family has always been big fans of sporting events and I really think there are values to be learned through sport competitions.  The biggest two are teamwork and respect and I've applied those to my career working with children.  The picture below was taken before our first Packers game at Lambeau Field....what an awesome experience!!!

My sister and I have grown closer and closer as I grow older.  She is six years older and moved about 8 hours away when I was young, but with cell phones and skype, we are able to communicate on a regular basis.  She has 3 beautiful girls and I love to spend time with them when I can!!  She is a wonderful mom and still works full-time and I strive to be like her someday when I have my own children.  I have seen through her that you can have a balance of a career you love and still be dedicated to your children and husband.

The three ladies below are my girlfriends from college and we have still remained close even after graduation.  It is harder now that we are all so busy, but we all email and facebook regularly.  We may actually get all 4 of us together on the same day in a few weeks....a rare feat!!  Two of the three are education majors and teachers as well and those same two gals are working on their Master's right now too.  Anytime I have education related questions, these are the girls I go to.  We have also supported each other through weddings, births, and other not so pleasant experiences.

The last relationship that I cherish is the one with my best friend, Leann.  We've known each other since grade school and went through middle school and high school together.  We went to different colleges, but could always pick up right where we left off whenever we saw each other.  Our families are close too and I don't know what I would do without her in my life.  She is my support system when things go wrong and she cheers me on through everything.  She went on vacation with my boyfriend and I in January and we made so many more wonderful memories!  It was awesome to have that experience with her.