This week I conducted a conversation with my foreign contact. Molly has been living and working in the Marshall Islands for two years. All of her first- and second-grade students speak Marshallese, and Molly teaches them English. The population is so small that two grades are put together to save money on teachers. This means that the children have varying language abilities in her classroom. Molly has learned a lot of Marshallese, but still struggles with communicating with her learners. There are not a lot of jobs in the Marshall Islands because they have to import a lot of their goods. This means that poverty affects the children in Molly's classroom greatly.
Molly says that some children arrive at school without shoes or adequate clothing. Most of her children do work for their families' farms after school or help with fishing. The US government pays for a lot of the school's resources, so the children are well fed during the day, but Molly says that the children sometimes do not appear to have eaten enough, or they are tired and can not focus. She also says that the children get sick more often and are not able to come to school than when she worked in New Hampshire. The school closes once a month or so because of illness but medicines are at least available to the children from the government. Molly says the situation in the Marshall Islands seems that poverty is more visible and that it affects children more than when she worked in New Hampshire.
What I have realized is that poverty is a global issue that affects children much in the same ways. Molly discussed health and safety, adequate shelter and clothing, and more. These issues are certainly relevant in the continental United States in terms of homelessness, food insecurity, and more. The issues Molly talked about with her children and being able to focus and appearing hungry are things that we see here in New Hampshire. The difference is, of course, that there are a lot more programs here to help with children in poverty. Unfortunately, we do not have a widespread 'cure' for poverty and we have not found a systemic solution for these vulnerable children.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Sharing Web Resources
The web resource I chose is the National Association for Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE). This organization focuses on teachers that interact with adults in the field or adults entering the field of early childhood. My ultimate goal from getting my Master's degree is to become a teacher of new professionals in the field and to conduct training's for teachers. Personally, I have seen a decline in opportunities for teachers in my area to receive professional development. A community-funded program in my area that offered classes for teachers' ongoing professional development recently closed their doors. My colleague Deb spoke with me about the financial and temporal concerns she has as a result of this change- she now must enroll in college course to make up her professional development hours required by licensing (D. Danforth, personal commuication, 28 December, 2016). The climate of professional development for teachers and professional preparation for teachers is an ever-changing dynamic and can only be effective with strong and informed leaders and teachers of these professionals.
The NAECTE puts forth position statements and a newsletter to keep teachers of early childhood professionals up to date with current trends. Their newsletter is mostly news about the organization (board member changes, events, etc.), but their position statements are truly effective and informative for those seeking information about trends and best practices in our field. After reading the position statement describing the code of ethics for early childhood adult educators, I learned so much about what it means to truly prepare teachers. First, it is our responsibility to help (adult) students learn the difference between commonly accepted practice and best practice (NAEYC, NAECTE, ACESS 2004). The NAECTE demonstrates their commitment to all stakeholders in the process of teaching children, outlining their ethical responsibility to (adult) students, to children, to practicum sites, to colleagues, and to higher education institutions. The NAECTE provides adult-education candidates with a holistic perspective about what our society needs in order to improve teacher preparation programs.
One specific aspect of improving teacher preparation programs and early childhood programs that the NAECTE details is providing a more cohesive and aligned teacher certification process. They suggest that teachers of children five years and younger should have extensive coursework and some experience working with young children (NAECTE, n.d.). Given what we know and have learned about the significance of the early years on brain development and the ability of the teacher to help the child and family maximize their potential, I would have to agree that teachers of young children should possess content knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to be effective in their work. Recently I had a conversation with a colleague and we discussed a childcare center she worked for several years ago where the director had a business degree and no background in early childhood (T. Chaffee, personal communication, 16 January, 2017). The NAECTE definitely has some relevant informations to my work as a teacher and hopefully as an adult educator. I hope to learn more about this organization as our coursework continues.
References
NAEYC, NAECTE, ACCESS (2004). Code of ethics; Supplement for early childhood adult educators. Retrieved from http://naecte.org/wp-content/uploads/ethics.pdf#page=1&zoom=auto,-39,798
NAECTE (n.d.). Position statement on early childhood certification for teachers of children 8 years and younger in public school settings. Retrieved from http://naecte.org/wp-content/uploads/ECE-certification-position-statement.pdf
The NAECTE puts forth position statements and a newsletter to keep teachers of early childhood professionals up to date with current trends. Their newsletter is mostly news about the organization (board member changes, events, etc.), but their position statements are truly effective and informative for those seeking information about trends and best practices in our field. After reading the position statement describing the code of ethics for early childhood adult educators, I learned so much about what it means to truly prepare teachers. First, it is our responsibility to help (adult) students learn the difference between commonly accepted practice and best practice (NAEYC, NAECTE, ACESS 2004). The NAECTE demonstrates their commitment to all stakeholders in the process of teaching children, outlining their ethical responsibility to (adult) students, to children, to practicum sites, to colleagues, and to higher education institutions. The NAECTE provides adult-education candidates with a holistic perspective about what our society needs in order to improve teacher preparation programs.
One specific aspect of improving teacher preparation programs and early childhood programs that the NAECTE details is providing a more cohesive and aligned teacher certification process. They suggest that teachers of children five years and younger should have extensive coursework and some experience working with young children (NAECTE, n.d.). Given what we know and have learned about the significance of the early years on brain development and the ability of the teacher to help the child and family maximize their potential, I would have to agree that teachers of young children should possess content knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to be effective in their work. Recently I had a conversation with a colleague and we discussed a childcare center she worked for several years ago where the director had a business degree and no background in early childhood (T. Chaffee, personal communication, 16 January, 2017). The NAECTE definitely has some relevant informations to my work as a teacher and hopefully as an adult educator. I hope to learn more about this organization as our coursework continues.
References
NAEYC, NAECTE, ACCESS (2004). Code of ethics; Supplement for early childhood adult educators. Retrieved from http://naecte.org/wp-content/uploads/ethics.pdf#page=1&zoom=auto,-39,798
NAECTE (n.d.). Position statement on early childhood certification for teachers of children 8 years and younger in public school settings. Retrieved from http://naecte.org/wp-content/uploads/ECE-certification-position-statement.pdf
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Establishing Contacts and Expanding Resources
In order to connect with two professionals from around the world, I first looked through the links to NAEYC and UNICEF and found no luck. Eventually, after a lot of Googling, I was able to find two professional's email addresses by looking up a town (in my case, London UK and Vancouver BC) and finding websites of elementary schools there. Then I looked at the contact info for those schools and determined if there were teacher's email addresses. I wrote a (hopefully) polite letter explaining how I found them and what my purpose was contacting them. I sent the email on Thursday, so I do hope that I hear back soon from at least one! My tip would be to use my method if you're having issues finding email addresses on the two resources for the blog area this week.
For the resources, I right away chose the National Association for Early Childhood Teacher Educators. I had never heard of this organization and I am very excited to find it! After browsing briefly through their website, I can tell that this truly matches my interests because I want to teach new professionals after I get my degree. I am excited to see what this course has in store for us and more excited to hear back from my global contacts!
For the resources, I right away chose the National Association for Early Childhood Teacher Educators. I had never heard of this organization and I am very excited to find it! After browsing briefly through their website, I can tell that this truly matches my interests because I want to teach new professionals after I get my degree. I am excited to see what this course has in store for us and more excited to hear back from my global contacts!