Final Blog Assignment

During this class (Trends and Issues in Early Childhood Field through Walden University) I have learned many new, exciting, and intriguing things. To end this course, I would like to state some things that I have learned and a goal for the field that I have.

Three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field.

1.     1.   I think the biggest aspect that I have learned about is the time restraint on the educational realm, especially in the early childhood field. Time is not devoted enough to the early childhood field in other areas around the world, and it should be. I now know the greatest gift I could give to the education field around the world is my time and effort to help all students receive a proper education.

2.       2. An indirect consequence that I have learned about is truly how lucky I am to be involved in a great education system. All of the United States education systems might not be perfect, but it is more developed, more researched, and more valued than in other countries. I am glad that my students and my future children will be involved in an education system that has more opportunities for success in the future.

3.     3.   The last consequence about learning about the international early childhood field is just realizing that other small children around the world are not given the chance at a standardized schooling system. It makes me want to go and help develop other systems throughout the world. It also pushes me to go and explore different education systems as well. I hope one day I am given a chance to do this.

My goal for the field related to international awareness of issues and trends in the spirit of collegian relations

-          My goal for the field is to just keep people from all over the world to keep talking and developing the field. Education will only help the world in the long run, so giving ideas and talking about education would benefit everyone. I know that I will keep in touch with the international contacts that I have made for this class just to learn and explore new options available to myself and to give to others.

International Contacts Part 3

This week I talked exclusively with my contact from Mexico about their education system. I wanted to see what current issues were being discussed, along with his personal thoughts about the education system. Below are the questions I asked followed by his responses. I was shocked and surprised by some of the responses, but in the same sense, felt unified in some of the same stances in education that we have together. I am overall pleased with the interview that I conducted this week, and I hope it brings you insight too about the education system in Mexico.

What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work?

Right now the main issue being discussed in my town is the low enrollment rates. When new elected officials come into office the enrollment status of the students always changes. The reasoning for this is because their parents might not think it is safe for them to go to school, their families need more help elsewhere, or the new educational changes are not beneficial according to the families. Education in my town is of very low acceptance which is looked at as low quality. The older students are the ones that drop out quite frequently. We are now trying to get our officials to put education as a top priority for the town at the moment.

What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

There is room for professional development, but not the same as in the U.S. Our professional development consists of mostly meetings on how to incorporate the town and cities more into the educational system to make our system stronger. We also have book studies every 3 months which I find very helpful.

What are some of your professional goals?

My goal at the moment is to finish my five year contract in this Mexico school district, and then move to a neighboring school district in a major city. In the city I feel I could better reach the children and families to inform them about the education system and how positive it is. In the city there is also room for growth in the field. I eventually want to move back to the U.S. and teach again in a town populated by Mexican immigrants.

What are some of your professional hopes, dreams, and challenges?

                                                                                                                                             

A hope for me right now is to get these Mexican children on track for a brighter future. It is hard to see each generation turning into the generation before them and not making much progress. This is my biggest dream and biggest challenge rolled together.

Sharing Web Resources

I have a wonderful website that I would like to share with all of my graduate school friends. This website is called, “Technology for a Global Early Childhood Education”. This website is geared towards helping early childhood educations find resources and information about using technology within the classroom. I know that I am always looking for new ideas, including the use of technology. The link to this site is http://globalearlyed.wordpress.com/.

In this website they have many links and ideas on how to make a classroom global in the sense of technology. This would mean making sure that every student understands technology, how to use it, and how to adapt different technologies for new usages. Looking at the one article provided on their website titled, “Global Education: Bringing the World to Your Classroom” it has shown me how lucky the students that are in the United States are with the advancement of Education. Other European countries along with China and Japan have great technology resources within the classroom. Because of this according to the article, this is why these children are advanced in their schooling. They are advanced because of the use of technology to make items concrete and be able to visit “globally” to understand and see different concepts.

I would highly recommend visiting this website. This has truly helped me become a more educated teacher in the sense of technology just by viewing this website.

International Contacts Part 2

This week I did some major reading and talking to my oversea friend that is currently in Spain. I learned so much about education in Spain this week that really tweaked my interest.

The way that the “politics” of school in Spain is very different than what I am use to. This is what my friend and I talked about mostly this week. There were three things that I found very interesting. The first thing was that in Spain, parents can pick what school to send their children to, even if it is public. This means that some children are transported 30 minutes to an hour each day to get to school. Schools are also rated on their preference. Most popular schools are very hard to get into and a lottery system can be used or a donation to the school to get a child into the system. Another thing I found very interesting was the classes that the students must take. All students must take an advanced art class when they get to “high school” which would include: volume, technical drawing, design, and audiovisual communication just to name a few. They also must take a foreign language which is not unheard of. The last requirement that I found radical was a class in tourism. This class is a requirement for graduation and offers topics on how to create tourism and tourism of other countries. The reasoning behind this is to create a greater appreciation of other cultures and people within the world. The last thing that I found out about the “politics” of school in Spain is that I want to touch on again is their school hours. They go to school 7-1 Monday-Saturday. I am still shocked that this is possible. I do not know how all the curriculum fits in this day, but I would love to see it work. I am just shocked at these hours and somewhat jealous of them as well, even though I think school on Saturday would be hard for the United States now with all the stigmas of the weekend and how weekends have become so busy for many families.

The article I read this week was titled, Current Issues in Comparative Education. I was reading this article and trying to relate it to all the information about education in Spain that I have learned so far. I found that in the article they state, “many developed countries have begun to turn their attention to “very early” education of children from birth to pre-primary age” (2009). This is true of Spain as well because they have the option for parents to send their children to school at the early ages of 3-6. It was a very good comparison that Spain and the United States both value early childhood education. The article also talked a lot about African Education and what the issues are with their system. I am glad to say that in Spain and in the U.S. we are not in such educational debt as they are. Textbooks go missing and get ruined, there are not enough supplies to give every student materials, some students do not show up for days, and there can be over 70 students per class (2009). This made me thankful for our education system and for Spain’s as well.

Although no education system is 100% fool proof, I feel that countries that put emphasis on education and have money to support education are well on their way to making sure that every child has a proper education. I hope in the future, I get to see changes to other developing countries in the educational world as well.

Teachers College, Columbia University. (2009). Early childhood care and education: Worldwide challenges and progress. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 11, 1–44. Retrieved fromhttp://www.tc.columbia.edu/cice/Issues/11.00/PDFs/11_Complete_Issue.pdf