Issues and Trends in the Early Childhood Field- Final Blog Assignment

Over the past 8 weeks I was able to establish contact and communicate with an international early childhood professional form Finland.  I also explored the website, newsletters and links from the Division for Early Childhood.  I also had the opportunity to read the blogs of my classmates and learn new information from their international contacts, organization research and podcasts.  These resources have enriched my professional development by providing me with new information on issues that were covered in addition in our required resources.  My colleagues supported me by posting valuable information and also by commenting on my blog posts and bringing up important points and questions.  

  

One consequence of learning about the international early childhood field for my professional and personal development is that it has made me more aware about the intricacy of the field and how one main issue can have multiple related issues within it.  A second consequence is that I have also learned about the inequities that exist internationally.  A third consequence is that the issue of high-quality programs and education is widespread and that a lot of it has to do with a teachers and professionals education, appropriate compensation, policies and funding.  While every program or school strives for high-quality the factors that affect this goal are always the same.

One goal for the field related to international awareness of issues and trends and the spirit of collegial relations would be to have every early childhood professional establish contact with another international professional.  Not only would this help with awareness through the sharing of information and collaboration, it would also encourage collegial relations that contribute to the spirit of the early childhood field and the passion of the people involved.

Getting to know international contacts- Part 3

Here are some thoughts on quality from my international contact from Finland:

• Issues regarding quality that are discussed is the education of teachers and other workers, the content of early childhood education including the amount of children's play, the teacher's ability to handle every child as a person and give an opportunity for every child to develop and learn individually but notice if the child needs special education and provide it to them. 
• In addition to all this teachers should be able to handle a group of children, not only two or three children at the same time. A teacher is expected to be the professional of child development and early years learning.
• Professional development requires thinking. In my opinion, teachers get good abilities from education to develop their professionality but it's only the beginning. The development requires different situations where teachers' have to reflect their work as a teacher, learn from their success and mistakes and develop their thinking. Teachers grow professionally every day while working, but the growing demands support from colleagues and from the director of kindergarten.
• My professional goals at this moment are to improve early childhood education by doing reserach of children's learning and try to influence on early childhood education that children could be able to feel well and enjoy in learning. As a teacher my goal is to give every child the confidence to learn new things, to create possibilities for children to find learning inspiring and get them to realize that the world is full of interesting new things and even the ones who are struggling with learning would find their own ways to learn and trust themselves as learners.
• My one ultimate dream is that kindergarten teachers and their work would be more appreciated and the understanding of the importance of early childhood education would increase. One thing that should definitely improve is the salary. It's way too low considering the demanding and hard work that kindergarten teachers do everyday.

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I also found some information on UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education” webpage.

-UNESCO advocates for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programmes that attend to health, nutrition, security and learning and which provide for children’s holistic development.

-Today, early childhood policies are placed within a broader context of social development, gender equity and poverty reduction.

-It is important to note that pre-primary education must promote the child’s holistic development and should not be implemented like early primary education.

(UNESCO, 2014)

These three insights relate to my professional goals.  First, I agree with and believe in the holistic approach when working with children and strive to uphold that ideal in my work.  Second, I understand the impact of early childhood care and development and its affects on greater social issues and try to keep that in mind as I assist children and families.  Last, I also find it important that early childhood education does not loose sight of  the developmental, emotional and social skills that are so important in the early years.  While I understand the importance of preparing children for academic success I also understand the importance of play and hope to share this information with colleagues and families in throughout my professional career.

Reference 

UNESCO. (2014) Early Childhood Care and Education. [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/

Sharing Web Resources

I followed a link on their social media feed and it lead me to a media segment where Dr. Jennifer Greene of the University of Illinois explains a little about the workshop she will be presenting at the Division for Early Childhood’s 30^th annual International Conference on Young Children with Special Needs and their Families in October.  She gives an overview of what she is going to discuss in “Mixed Methods Design and Alternative Representation of Data.”

I searched the area of the site that explains more about DEC Special Interest Groups which are:

-a group of DEC members who have a shared interest on a particular topic. The purpose of a SIG is to engage members and provide a forum for dialogue around a specific topic of interest. SIGs are independent, autonomous communities for DEC members to gather information, learn about resources and share ideas with other who have similar interests

The 6 current topics are:

1.      Early Intervention

2.      Leadership

3.      Research and Practice

4.      Professional Development

5.      Student

6.      International

The DEC urges members to get involved in SIGs:

•    To develop collaborative relationships and learn from their colleagues
•    To explore and discuss topics of interests within the field in a variety of formats (i.e. electronically, by teleconference, through web-conversations, face-to-face, etc.)
•    To build community within DEC
•    To gain opportunities for professional growth, to develop relationships, network with other DEC members in the US and internationally
•    To gain leadership opportunities as desired

 (http://www.dec-sped.org/)

The newsletters I have been receiving are all focused on information about the upcoming conference.  I did receive a newsletter about the DEC bookstore and saw a few interesting titles like Quality Inclusive Services and Supporting Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.  Although I did not have access to these titles I am sure that they address the issues of excellence and equity with regards with children who have special needs.

Getting to know international contacts- Part 2

My international contact from Finland shared her thoughts about the issues of excellence and equity in the early childhood field.  She shared her individual thoughts and personal experiences and reminds to regard them as solely her own and that other Finnish kindergarten teachers and early childhood education experts may think differently about these issues.  I am glad she pointed this out as it is easy to make generalizations and assumptions.  She had some interesting things to say.

About excellence:

• We say (or at least some people here say) that early childhood education (ECE) should be high-quality and given by educated professionals. Education is really important for everyone who works with children in early childhood education field but I don' know about the word quality when it comes to children. Well, of course it HAS to be high-quality teaching and care but I think that the quality is so hard to measure in that sometimes one can start to measure wrong things and in the end the measurements don't show if the early childhood education is actually what it should be. Few things of course tell a lot and they are teachers and other workers education (as high as possible), size of a child group (I think in US you call it a kindergarten/preschool class), enough time to play and do things that children desire and what they are interested in.

• Our government is forming a new act for early childhood education. The present act is from 1973 so anyone can understand that it is time to renew it. And its focus is more on children's social welfare than on education so we need a new act. Children's social welfare is of course an important issue as well but ECE is not social work and kindergarten teachers are not social workers. Good, thorough and modern law for early childhood education is definitely one thing what comes to excellence. Now we just have to wait and hope that it's going to be good. In addition to laws we have National Curriculum Guidelines on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Finland (see here in English http://www.julkari.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/75535/267671cb-0ec0-4039-b97b-7ac6ce6b9c10.pdf?sequence=1) which gives guidelines for our early childhood education but is only a recommendation and not compulsory to follow.

• After the publishing the document ECEC has moved from Ministry of Social Affairs and Health to Ministry of Education and Culture and the emphasis of ECE has changed from "ECE as a social operation to ECE as an educational operation". Laws and curriculum guidelines helps excellence and equity in the early childhood field.

• Early childhood education is excellent when children have enough time to play, wonder about the world and do things they desire and they can do these things with peers and with educated adults. This doesn't mean that children shouldn't be taught new things or they could always do only the things that they want to. That is why teachers and other educators have to know children and give them opportunities to learn new things.

• Learning should be fun but some things children learn when they don't have that much fun (e.g. learning to play with some new things or with new children is not always fun at first but when a child learns the rules and the way that play should be played and his/her new friends it will be fun) and here I think adult has a big role.

• Adults have to see what is good for children and that is why teachers have to be educated. By teacher's positive attitude on learning new things and making learning interesting, children engage more on learning and get feelings of success and want to learn more. Because young children's learning is very complete it's important to teach and raise a child in cooperation with parents.

• Parents of course know their own child best and they are their child's experts. Teacher’s role is to be expert on learning and child's development and of course manage group of children and all of their learning. And I believe that early childhood education gives something to children what she/he doesn't experience with her/his parents and family.

• One important thing is planning. Teacher should have enough time to plan the teaching and activities in kindergarten. Well planned education provides excellence in the ECE field in every places.

About equity:

• In Finland every child has the subjective right to participate in municipal or private (all private ones are non-profit) kindergarten or family day care (usually at the childminder's home). As I mentioned earlier the amount of fees are in relation to parent’s salary). It seems that the subjective right is an issue that arouses opinions and discussion. Some people don't support it and some think it's the best thing for children development and learning. Those who don't support it, argue that children who have parent(s) home with younger siblings or are unemployed should be home with their parents. In my opinion, every child despite her/his background should have access to some kind of early childhood education outside home where they could spend some time per day with educated kindergarten teacher(s). This may not concern the youngest children (maybe over 2 or 3 years-old) because it is proved that babies should be and develop with their parents. Of course children with working parents have the right to take part in early childhood which usually is kindergarten. We have discussed that the government would take the subjective right away from children who don't suffer from social problems but I actually don't know what is the situation at this point with that issue.

• All children with working parents don't go to kindergarten. They may have nanny at home or they go to family day care at the childminder's home. The problem with different nanny’s is that they are not always educated and the quality can vary. On the other hand, I have seen great childminder’s so the issue is not that simple. Childminder’s may be educated and usually they get pedagogic support from their bosses who usually are kindergarten bosses as well. The ideal is that every child gets good and professional teaching and care which is individually designed in collaboration with parents.

• When talking about social work and teachers I don't mean that teachers should close their eyes when it comes to social issues but they are specialized in teaching and they should solve social issues in cooperation with social workers and other experts on that field. Teachers should support families when they are struggling with social issues because a child is a whole and when a child feels well she/he is strong enough to be interested on the world around them and learn new things