Positive Research- Week 3

Twelve years ago a close family friend was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.  When he was diagnosed he was given 6 months to 2 years to live.  He was part of a study that was testing out a new medications to hopefully help with some of the symptoms of ALS.  Well, 12 years later he is still alive.  He is in a wheelchair and can no longer make intelligible speech, but his mind is fully functioning and worked up until about 2 years ago from home.  He gets to watch his kids grow up and they still go to Disneyland and the Rodeo every year.  It may not be about kids, but it is a positive one and has been very positive for his family.  He does not know if he was given the actual medication or the placebo pill, the research is still being carried out. 

I also know a family who has been involved through the University of Washington in a sibling study about the effects of Autism on sibling groups.  They feel that this has been very successful because they are provided with a lot support from the University research team.  This family has two children with Autism.  The family feels a lot of the questions they have had about why both their children have Autism have been answered.  This study will continue for a long time, but they like the support they are getting. 

Week 2- Personal Research Journey

The chosen topic for the simulation is inclusion programs in primary grades in elementary school (inclusion meaning that both general and special education students are served in the same classroom).  My three sub-topics that I chose were:

1) why preschool is inclusive? How does it work? And why it works?

2) differences between early childhood teacher certification and kindergarten through 12th grade general education certification. 

3)   design of early childhood programs verse the design of kindergarten through 12th grade programs and how that affects children with disabilities.  

As for what I know so far, is that I need to dive into my research.  I am unsure about what information I will find or if I will find the "right" information regarding to inclusion in primary grade. Although information regarding inclusion is abundant! I do know of friends who work in other school districts that currently are using an inclusion model and it is working.  I plan on talking with them, my principal and contacting other schools that may or may not have inclusion programs.  

I am interested in how other teachers feel about inclusion, what works, what does not, etc.  I do not feel inclusion is for every child, but I do feel it is important to consider for each child (even though it might not work).   I am an inclusion teacher for primary grades, I support general education teachers in including all of our students.  It is important for me because I love when I see inclusion working (not that it always does).  I want to find out more information on what other programs and districts do. 

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Week 8- Issues and Trends: Change, Contexts, Consequences, and Constraints Revisited

Three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field:
1) Programs and practices- discovering about other countries run their programs can help us, in the United States, evaluate our programs.  It can help with changing and implementing new ideas and it can allow us to see where we have done a good job.  
2) Policy making- other countries that might have good policies for early childhood we can model our policies after it or we can know what we do not want to do.
3) Greater understanding- it is good to learn about other countries early childhood education programs because it allows all people a greater understanding of education.  We are able to examine similarities and differences and be problem solvers together.  Therefore, there is a greater chance of spreading quality early childhood education to all. 


My goal is to keep up with communication for early childhood educators.  I hope that through communication we can help more children that has ever been reached before.  I hope that through education not only for children but their families that we can begin to build a stronger voice for children who are experiencing adversity. 

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.

Sharing web resources- week 6

I followed a link that was called The Early Head Start National Resource Center.  The first topic I noticed was about infants and toddlers and biting.  My students are not infants and toddlers but I have three biters.  This particular area took me to an online lesson that provided information regarding biting and what to do about it.   

The newsletter I received this week,  from zero to three,  focused on little kids and big questions and gave a link to online parenting podcasts. I decided to listen to one about the influence of media on young children.  I struggle with the amount of TV or computer time children are exposed to.  Ellen Wartella talks about that there is educational media and that babies are engaged with media.  She stresses how you can pick media that is appropriate for all age groups and how to be cautious about selecting media. 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zttpodcastseries/podcast/Ellen%20Wartella%20FINAL.mp3?s_src=podcast&s_subsrc=media 

New insights that I learned from the newsletter is that zero to three has made a contract with the National Center on Professional Development Systems and Workforce Initiatives.  Their goal is to help develop comprehensive professional development system. I think this falls into place with equity and excellence because early childhood programs that use zero to three may look to this as an important part of the staff development of early childhood educators.





 

Part 2... Podcast and Harvard's "Global Children's Initiative"

After looking over several podcast from the World Forum website I came across TJ Skalski, who the principal of the Mother Earth's Children's Charter School in Alberta, Canada, which is the only Charter school that has a focus on the indigenous people. It was interesting to listen to her speak about how the MECCS has evolved over the last several years.  When Skalski became principal she was the 5th one who had come in 5 years.  She discusses that when she arrived that children were missing strong work ethic, they were damaged, wounded, hungry, depressed and were feeling like they had no worth.  Her goal was to give them hope, build their dreams and inspire them to do something with their lives. 

Skalski, T. (Performer). (2010, April 16). Tj skalski [Audio podcast]. World Forum Radio. Retrieved from http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/current-work/world-forum-radio


Reviewing the "Global Children's Initiative Fact Sheet" was very interesting.  Three insights:
1) Mental health is under-addressed.  There are significant implications for the broader heath and development of children and societies urgent need to identify how big this issue really is getting.  Their goal is to identify the problem and develop appropriate ways to meet the needs of children and their diverse cultures they come from.
2) Another goal of the "Global Children's Initiative" is to use science-based and a developmental perspective to work with children who are in crisis and conflict situations. 
3) Lastly, there is a push to educate people in leadership positions internationally about the investments of the earliest years in life.

Global children's initiative. (2011). Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/

Looking a little deeper... zero to three

•  A specific section that really has stuck out for me is the mental health section under the behavior and development tab.  Currently, I have three students who are currently under evaluation for mental health issues.  It is something that I have not dealt with and I am trying to do my best to help them through their day.  It has proven to be challenging to help them each individually and to use strategies that are very beneficial for them.  They are all very different children, but they share the same common characteristic of violent outburst.  I would highly recommend looking through some of the articles. 

I read an article from the website called, getting ready for school begins at birth. The article gives great ideas on what to do with your child, but it does use the term "school readiness." I have grown not to love this term because all kids are ready for school, they may not have certain skill sets, but will be coming to school regardless if they are ready.  To me, the term feels like you have to be 'ready' in order to attend school.  However, besides the term the article offers great ideas for parents, one that would be very beneficial to handout to parents to help in all academic areas and social/emotional development.   I wonder if a different terminology would be more appropriate?

I searched for neuroscience on the website and I was linked to a podcast called, Early childhood development and public policy: closing the gap between what we know and what we do.  It talked about closing the achievement gap here in America and how research as proven time and time again that a early start helps children who at risk tremendously in the future. This issue I think is really important when we are considering issues and trends in early childhood.  We see it all the time the achievement gap when children are in elementary school and we see children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds being referred to special education services.  This falls into education reform and working from the bottom up, instead like Dr. Grace mentions this week working from the top down.  We must start with our youngest learners!

Link to podcast