NAEYC

I appreciate the NAEYC website so much. There is so many resources and new findings that make it interesting just to explore the website and see what I can learn from.

Specific sections that caught my eye and have been the most useful to me are the links located at the top of the webpage providing resources and publications. I think it is always a great tool to stay up to date on the newest publications and research that is being shared about the world of early childhood development and with these links providing so much it makes it easy to read at least one new thing a week.

NAEYC presented an article “Playing it Safe,” which was all about how to protect children on a playground. At my program we recently had a little girl fall off of the play structure and break her arm, this event made me want to find effective ways to keep the kids safe while letting them enjoy the outside time.

I was not able to find specific examples of how economists, neuroscientists or politicians support the EC field, but many articles have some kind of contributions from research provided by members in these fields. NAEYC also has links to see changes in the federal, state and governments are doing in your local area. With these links being provided it makes it easier to find what is happening in your local government and if changes need to be brought to light.  

References:

http://www.naeyc.org

Childhood Poverty

In the first blog assignment, I had to go the route of watching the podcasts which in turn has me doing another alternative this week, due to the fact that I have not heard back from anyone.

For this blog assignment, I read about childhood poverty in Kyrgyzstan. In 1991 Kyrgyzstan broke from the Soviet Union and sending the economy into "shock therapy".(CHIP) This shock therapy made the economy make a drastic change that they are just know starting to recover from. During the shock period 60% of the population was considered in poverty.(CHIP) Now that there is some stabilizing 47% are considered in poverty with 13% in extreme poverty. (CHIP)

For the income level of the county health and education were ranked in the highest, but this is now rapidly decreasing. 60% of the county is working on agricultural crops that are not providing enough income to support themselves. (CHIP) Children are dropping out of school to work, bringing children work rate to 24%.(CHIP) Children are becoming homeless or "street children," some are turning to prostitution, while others are being trafficked.

Learning more about the poverty in Kyrgyzstan is devastating. In America, we have several resources for those who are poor and living in poverty. In Kyrgyzstan, almost half the nation is living in poverty preventing them from providing opportunities to help their citizens.


Children in Kyrgyzstan working.
                         

References:
http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/index.php?action=countryo

http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/index.php?action=photos

Sharing Web Resources

I selected the organization The National Association for the Education of Young Children, otherwise known as the NAEYC. The focus of this organization is to work on behalf of young children by setting standards of excellence for programs and teachers while providing the latest research and techniques of how best to work with children.

The issue that I selected to focus on from the website was something I felt the organization was focusing on since it was displaying two articles on the same subject of technology in the early childhood field. During my undergrad, I was able to take a class that showed useful ways to incorporate technology in the elementary school setting, but I never put into thought how to incorporate it into the early childhood setting. As I pay more attention to technology all around me, I recognize that even children as young as those in the EC field are using technology and can master it; therefore there is a need for the classroom to change.

This topic can relate back to the subject for this week because just like how the diversity of our population is changing, so is the advances in the resources we have to work with. We have become a more technological society and this trickles down onto the youngest of our society and as leaders we need to teach them the proper ways to use it.

References:

http://www.naeyc.org/

Professional Contacts and Resources

Professional Contacts:
When starting this blog assignment, I found it very difficult to find sources in other countries. I eventually searched on "Google" for universities in other countries. I was unable to find any programs in which specially worked on early childhood education.
I then decided I must use the alternative portion of this assignment. I listened to the podcast of Maysoun Chehab who is located in Lebanon and TJ Skalski located in Canada on "World Forum Radio."

Website:
I selected the NAEYC website to study. I selected this website because for many of the other classes we have used resources from their studies and every time I have learned something new and useful. I look forward to researching more about this organization.

References:
http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/current-work/world-forum-radio/

http://www.naeyc.org/