Week 7- International Contact

I did recieve a bit on information from a friend who is living in Japan working at an international school. Here are two conversations we had, first I asked:

Okay, this week we are studying poverty. What do you see in the country you are in? And what do you see in your professional workplace?

Also, how does Japan value education and more specifically early childhood education (ages birth to 9)? If you know... for example are their many daycare or preschools/kindergartens, do you know if they are private or public (tuition based)?

How are young children valued in Japan? Do you see different classes or gender differences?


"- In our FIS (Fukuoka Internation School) community most of the families are wealthy. It is about 15,000$ a year per student. A lot of important families in the city have the students come here. In the workplace the school provides us withing a housing allowance, along with daily stipends such as transportation. This allows all the teachers to live a similar lifestyle.
- Our community values early childhood education, but i don't believe the culture does. our prek and k classes tend to be our biggest ones because there is no public k or prek. They do have nursery school, but it isn't very academic centered. Once the student gets to first grade about half will transfer to Japanese schools.
- Children are highly valued here. There are a lot of stay at home moms or dads. The students typically go to school until 6pm or so. The parents really value there child's education. I don't really see different classes or gender differences in our community."




I thought that it was interesting her comments that in the international community early childhood education is valued but in the culture it is not. 



I also asked her this weeks questions...

* What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work? What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

"In my contract I get a stipend for professional development. We are becoming a IB (International Baccalaureate) school so there are some training's we need to take. These are most often in different countries so it is expensive to go to these. That being said I think that there is much less professional development in international schools. It felt like last year I could go to tons of training's and such, but I'm lucky if i get to go to one this year." (Last year my professional contact taught in the United States)

* What are some of your professional goals?
"My professional goals for this year are creating kindergarten benchmarks that align with our school standards. I am also working on assessments that align with the benchmarks. Lastly, we are creating our 6 PYP (Primary Year Programing) unit maps."

* What are some of your professional hopes, dreams, and challenges?
"Something that is still a challenge to me is my age. This year I feel like i had to start over proving to the staff that I deserve to be at this school. My hopes are to stay at this school long enough to help the school grow. There is a lot of work to be done to get them up to par with US schools. I also hope to stay here long enough to get a good recommendation and get a new job at an international school in Germany."
 
Like Alex, a challenge of mine is my age.  I am young, I know it, but I am very dedicated to the profession of education.  Sometimes I sit in meetings and everyone parents, my team members are 20 years older than me. I have had some parents flat out ask me "How long have you been teaching?, I also tell them this is my 3rd year teaching, but I have been working with children with special needs since I was little.  Luckily, I have created some amazing relationships! :)  I thought it was interesting that Alex mentioned this because when I taught in China, it was the opposite.  In China they valued that I was a young teacher.