Extra: Dependable Information for Parents and Teachers

The National Scientific Council for the Developing Child is part of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.  Over the last ten years or so extremely useful high quality information has been presented by the Council regarding early development of the human brain.  As an early childhood professional, I recognize this information as having great relevance to parents and teachers of young children, and I highly recommend that parents and teachers become familiar with the breakdown of topics regularly presented in this newsletter.  The format is easy to use, and includes high quality video.  Articles are well written. The language used is easy to follow and understand.  Information and ideas are succinctly presented.  I suspect that the information being disseminated by the NSCDC will have a tremendous impact upon the most basic and fundamental ways in which parents and teachers understand and interact with young children.

Happy reading!

In Brief: Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning

The International Aspects of the Early Childhood Field

The level of diversity occurring in early childhood classrooms in the United States is far greater than the level of diversity encountered by many other countries.

The level of tolerance and acceptance offered toward people of other cultures is far greater in the United States than in many other countries.

Educators of the U.S. are considered by other educators to be far more experienced in implementing classrooms of diversified cultures.

     Topi of Finland and his wife Monika of the former East Germany became my contacts from outside the U.S.  After getting married and having their son, Topi and Monika immigrated to the U.S.  Their son Tomppa, was a student in my classroom two years ago.  This family has been very generous in sharing information regarding their thoughts about education in Europe and education in the U.S.  With gratitude I thank both of them for kind contributions to my understanding of the education and societies of Finland and Germany.  The following information was offered through interviews I conducted with Topi and Monika.  

     "Topi and Monika both feel that education in the U.S. is far more culturally responsive than education in Europe.  By comparison, Topi points out that, “Prejudices against immigrants in Finland are a problem and should be addressed.” (T.  Heikkero, personal communication, 11 May 2012).  Likewise, Kotkin reports that, “nearly a third of E.U. citizens describe themselves as decidedly ‘prejudiced’ against the continents current immigrants” (Kotkin, 2005).  With that said, Topi also believes that immigrants should make every effort to adjust themselves to U.S. culture and not the other way around.  He says that he and Monika are in the U.S. because they value certain aspects of American culture that are non-existent in Europe.   In regard to academic outcomes, and as a professor at our local community college, Topi points out that despite the large amounts of money spent on education, the return, in the form of student outcomes, is minimal.  He notes that students come to the college not knowing algebra, grammar, or foreign languages.  The fact that children learn so little in U.S. schools is, “of great concern for many immigrants to the U.S.” (T. Heikkero, personal communication 11 May 2012).  When I asked Topi what he most likes about American culture he said, “Creativity, productivity, freedom, lack of sinister nationalism, cheerfulness, flexibility, expressivity, ability to communicate, and pragmatism.” (T. Heikkero, personal communication, 11 May, 2012) When I asked Monika the same question, she said, “America has a gift.  It has the gift of multiculturalism.” (M. Heikkero, personal communication, 11 May 2012).

Sharing Resources-Part 4

As recommended, I took a close look at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s website.

Moto:  Building Peace in the minds of men and women.

UNESCO is a MASSIVE United Nations Subgroup, which in and of itself supports 5 sub-subgroups- One of those 5 sub-subgroups is EDUCATION.  Within the EDUCATION sub-subgroup 22 “themes” are focused upon including, but not limited to: Early Education, Inclusive Education, and Languages in Education.  Geographically UNESCO interacts with groups from Africa, Arab States, Europe and North America, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean.

One aspect of the site that I found of interest to myself and related one of my goals to create an Early Learning and Teacher Education Institute of Northern New Mexico was the section on resources, which is packed with hundreds of substantive articles, news, videos etc., related to what we are learning in the Walden U. ECS program.

Because New Mexico, at this time, has no institutions providing high quality early childhood teacher education, and certainly not advanced degrees in early childhood teacher education, I was drawn to an UNESCO article entitled, “Mobile learning for Teachers in North America:  Exploring the Potential of Mobile Technologies to Support Teachers and Improve Practice.”  This technology includes online learning such as the advanced degree in Early Childhood Studies, offered by Walden University of which my colleagues are able to take advantage.   Without this MS in ECS offering from Walden, my options for greatly advancing my EC studies in New Mexico are zero.  The name of the article (reference above) basically says it all.  The article delves into great detail about the way in which mobile technologies, including social networks can be used for professional development, and teacher support.  Part of my idea to create an Early Learning and Teacher Education Institute of Northern New Mexico, is to enhance the natural link there is between Santa Fe University and Walden University, both operated under Laureate Education Inc.  With this link it is proposed that a small part of the Santa Fe University be utilized to house an extremely high quality early learning center for children birth through age 5, and to make Walden U.’s online program accessible to current and pre-service teachers in Northern New Mexico.   As teachers earn their online degrees, they will have access to the early learning environment for hands on practice working with children, in well-established high quality environments. This proposal is intended to create an ideal environment in which to learn for children and teachers. 

Continuing on this theme of environments, the title of the next article which I would like to recommend is, “A Place to Learn:  Lessons from Research on Learning Environments” (UNESCO, 2012) also a UNESCO article.  This article reiterates the importance of early learning environments.  To quote:

In the race to achieve Education for All (EFA) goals by 2015, the importance of creating optimal conditions to enable and sustain learning has sometimes been overlooked as a ‘peripheral’ factor in the provision of quality education.  However, a rapidly expanding body of research on the conditions of learning suggests that physical, social and organizational environments in which teaching and learning processes take place have a more central role than previously acknowledged. As the evidence gathered for this report asserts, the design and management of learning spaces is fundamental to the achievement of positive learning outcomes as well as to the health and well-being of learners.  Simply put, good learning environments foster quality learning, and bad learning environments do not (UNESCO, 2012, p. 9)

Montessori “teachers” are taught that in actuality the “well-prepared environment” is the teacher, and what most people would call the “teacher” is actually the facilitator of that environment.  And on the same page of thought, John Dewey stated rather succinctly:

The environment consists of those conditions that promote, or hinder, stimulate or inhibit, the characteristic activities of a living being.   –John Dewey (UNESCO, 2012, p. 9)

Just out of curiosity, I rounded out my investigation of the UNESCO website, by doing a search for Maria Montessori “anything” through out the education documents.  Although not surprised, I was sufficiently impressed that 207 articles published by the UNESCO site, at least in part, make reference to the Montessori method.  In browsing some of the articles, I learned about the “UNESCO Prize for Peace Education” (UNESCO, 2002).  The prize is awarded in recognition of outstanding activities aimed at promoting peace building by  individuals or institutions.  The 2002 award went to City Montessori School in Lucknow, India.  Drs. Jagdish Gandhi and Bharti Gandhi started the school in 1959 with 5 students and 300 barrowed Rupees.  The schools spread throughout India and now serve over 42,000 students.  Yikes!  Co-founder Dr. Bharti Gandhi, wife of Jagdish Gandhi, has a PhD in Child Psychology (UNESCO, 2002).

Another tidbit I learned was that UNESCO was formed in 1946 immediately upon the establishment of the United Nations.  None other than Jean Piaget and Maria Montessori headed-up the initial governing board.  One of the first significant documents drawn up by the organization was the “Rights of the Child”, which Maria Montessori was asked to author (Bokova, 2012).  I knew about “Rights of the Child” by Maria Montessori, but I did not know that it was written as a UNESCO document.  Live and learn.

I have found the UNESCO website to be a wealth of up to date and highly relevant information regarding the global perspectives of education.  I cannot imagine what it takes to keep a site this large up to date and functioning as well as it does.  Kudos!

References:

Bokova, I. (2012, May 24). The significance of lifelong learning in today’s world / role of UIL with some historic milestones. UNESCO Presentation, Hamburg, Germany. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=216455&set=4FDCE851_3_475&gp=1&lin=1&ll=1

Orville, Hans d’; Stark, Clare; Siebold, Caroline. (2006). Dialogue among Civilizations: the Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Dialogue among Cultures and Civilizations for Peace and Sustainable Development, Hanoi, Viet Nam, 20 and 21 December 2004; 2006. UNESCODOC. Retrieved June 16, 2012, from http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=148378&set=4FDCB6ED_3_422&gp=1&lin=1&ll=1

UNESCO. (2002). UNESCO prize for peace education. Paris, France. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=129085&set=4FDCE60B_3_392&gp=1&lin=1&ll=1

UNESCO. (2006, 2008). Strong foundations: early childhood care and education;EFA global monitoring report, 2007; 2006; 2008. UNESCODOC. Retrieved June 16, 2012, from http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=147794&set=4FDCB6ED_3_422&gp=1&lin=1&ll=1

UNESCO. (2012). A Place to learn: lessons from research on learning environments; 2012. UNESCODOC. Retrieved June 16, 2012, from http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=215468&set=4FDCE984_2_34&gp=1&lin=1&ll=1

UNESCO Office Bangkok and Regional Bureau for Education in Asia and the Pacific. (2008). Compendium: conventions and laws guaranteeing all children the equal right to a quality education in an inclusive setting; Philippines; 2008. UNESCODOC. Retrieved June 16, 2012, from http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=158523&set=4FDCB6ED_3_422&gp=1&lin=1&ll=1

Sharing Web Resources-Part 3

Making contact with other professionals from outside the U.S. continues to be a challenge.  However I am learning a long the way.  I have signed up for several discussion groups through LinkedIn.  They include:

• ·      Early Childhood Education, Child Care, and CCR&R Professionals Forum
• ·      Early Childhood Research Professionals
• ·      Early Childhood Technology Network
• ·      Early Childhood Today
• ·      Education in Developing Countries
• ·      Experienced Early Childhood Consultants
• ·      PDK (Phi Delta Kappa International

Through “Education in Developing Countries” I was able to connect with Edwin Grage who is the director of “Global Campaign for Education – USA” http://www.campaignforeducation.org/

Mr. Grage has suggested I use his name to make contact with Yvette Murphy who is the director of Advocacy and Outreach for the Association for Childhood Education International http://www.acei.org/about-us/about-us.html

While browsing the ACEI website, I came across a very interesting article entitled, “Measuring Child Poverty:  New League tables of child poverty in the world’s rich countries.”  The article focuses on two significant but highly different ways in measuring poverty.  One study measures poverty through deprivation of two or more items considered “normal” for children in developed countries.  The other study measures poverty through relative income.  This is a 40 page document and every bit of it is interesting.  Below is just a snipet:

"‘Real’ poverty

It is often argued that relative poverty isn’t ‘real poverty’. Real poverty, it is said, means lacking basics - enough food to eat, adequate clothing, a dry home, an indoor toilet, hot water, and a bed to sleep in. Once you leave such basics behind and start drawing poverty lines based on statistical notions like median income, it is argued, you end up with results that fail to make intuitive sense and so fail to convince either politicians or public. Can the child poverty rate really be said to be rising, for example, at a time when the incomes of the poor are also rising? And can there really be more children in poverty

in the United Kingdom or the United States than in Hungary or Lithuania (as shown in Figure 1b)? Or are these findings just statistical artefacts produced by a definition of child poverty that is in effect based on a concern not with poverty but with inequality?

Such are the arguments that push many to reject the relative income measure and to embrace instead the direct measurement of deprivation. Does the child have three meals a day? A few books in the home? And a roof that doesn’t leak? Isn’t this a much more intuitive measure, and one that is more capable of winning public understanding and support?

Direct measures of outcomes like deprivation do have advantages over indirect or ‘input’ measures such as household income (see Box 2: The problem with incomes). But the trouble with the argument that deprivation measures ‘real poverty’, whereas relative income does not, is that the intuitively appealing idea on which it rests is that poverty should be measured in an absolute rather than a relative sense. And from here it is but a short step to the belief that the deprivation index presented in Figure 1a is an absolute measure whereas the median income method used for Figure 1b is ‘only’ a relative measure.

This is a mistake. Both are relative measures.  The deprivation index is based on the kind of possessions, services and opportunities that most people would consider normal for a child growing up in a wealthy country today. In other words, it is relative to both time and place. Twenty years ago, for example, such a list would not have included an Internet connection. Go back a little further in time and ‘having at least one meal a day with meat, chicken or fish’ would not have been regarded as normal. In fact the longer the historical view the more obvious it becomes that poverty is an essentially            relative concept. Any poverty line intended to represent a minimum acceptable standard of living in the industrialized world today implies higher standards of food, clothing, housing, water supply, sanitation, health care, education, transport and entertainment than were available to even the wealthiest households of previous eras.

The whole idea of defining child poverty in an absolute sense therefore rests on shaky ground. Unless we wish to argue that the threshold should be set at the minimum income necessary for sheer physical survival then there can in fact be no such thing as an absolute poverty line.

The real debate, therefore, is not whether poverty lines should be absolute or relative, but how and how often they should be updated to reflect changes in the living standards of society as a whole. If the decision is taken, for example, to draw an ‘absolute’ poverty line at some fixed point and to update it only for inflation, then this means that a relative poverty line is being anchored to an arbitrary point in time.As the years pass and incomes rise, such a poverty line is likely to fall further and further behind the norm for the society and to become less and less useful.This is essentially what has happened over the last half century in the United States (see Box 10:The United States: redrawing the line).

The obvious alternative is to update national poverty lines in such a way as to track the norms and living standards of the society. But how often, and by what method? Should the line be updated irregularly in an ad hoc way, subject to political pressures and the competing influences of different interest groups? Or should it be updated in a regular and systematic way in order to preserve its relationship with contemporary living standards? In which case, setting the poverty line at a percentage of each nation’s median income and updating it every year might, after all, be a strong contender.

This is why the Innocenti Report Card series, in common with both the European Union and the OECD, continues to use a child poverty line based on a percentage of median household income.

Why, then, is it necessary to complicate the picture by adding a second measure? Why introduce the Child Deprivation Index?" (Adamson, P., 2012)

References:

Adamson, P. (2012). Measuring Child Povery:  New league tables of child poverty in the world’s rich countries ( No. Report Card 10). UNICEF-Innocenti Research Centre. Retrieved from http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/660

Making Professional Contacts- Part 2

Unfortunately making professional connections has been fraught with illusiveness.  However I remain undaunted.  I have made contact with 2 early childhood professionals in Finland, but discussions have had to wait until after June 2, which is the beginning of the summer holiday for Finnish schools.  On my Facebook page I have posted a status soliciting professional connections with early childhood professionals in other countries.  Finally on LinkedIn, I have joined a dozen early childhood groups, and have posted a request for professional contacts on with a group known as "Education in Developing Countries".  We'll see what happens.

En lieu of having a discussion with an actual contact, I visited World Forum Radio, and listened to the podcast with Barbara Jones (not our dear classmate).  After listening to the podcast I learned that Ms Jones is a Montessori teacher in an old remolded school house in Falmouth, Maine.  I think part of me would love to do the same thing.  After receiving her Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Ed. Ms Jones became disenchanted with public schools of the time, and went looking for a method of teaching that was more conducive to the needs of children than adults.  She took a job in a Montessori school, became acquainted with the method, and pursued her Montessori teacher training at the Montessori St. Nicholas Center in London, England.  After receiving her training Ms Jones, and through a series of serendipitous events, Ms Jones was able to buy old boarded up school house in Falmouth, Maine, and open a "modified" Montessori school, which has continued, for the last 25 years, to be known as the Falmouth Child Development Center.

Hopefully by the end of this class term, I will have more than few contacts with early childhood professionals... maybe even a few from other countries!