Posts
The
organization I have chosen to learn about and subscribed to e-newsletters is
the National Institute for Early Education Research, at http://nieer.org. This organization’s main focus is
to provide research-based advice to professionals in the early childhood field,
those who make policy decisions, and researchers in order to create and
maintain high-quality early education. They also work with policy makers on the
state and national levels and other organizations to stimulate research
projects and disseminate information into the early childhood field.
This week I
browsed a couple of articles found on NIEER’s website that spoke of the
importance of early education. One focused on how quality early education can
lead to closing gaps in skill-sets in the workforce for the future, while
another focused on how quality early education reduces the chance of children
requiring retention, remedial services, or special education. The issue is
clear: quality early education is key to future success in children, and as
such, needs to be supported more by policy and funding. Despite the clear
benefits of quality early education, the current programs are not abundant, and
so many children who may be considered “at risk” do not receive the services
they so need!
I learned
quite a bit from the resources of this week. Much like adapting curriculum so
it meets the learning needs of individuals and is culturally responsive, it is also
important that teaching strategies are individualized to the different issues
children may be facing, such as immigration (the change of coming to a new
country) or displacement of children and families through wars, as they may
need different supports. It is also important to not just acknowledge a child’s
culture, but to actively teach acceptance and social justice through structured
experiences and modeling it in our lives.
Caroline, I always enjoy reading your posts and learn so much. I have utilized several articles through NIEER, but until reading your post, I was unaware that a specific web page existed. For me, that's valuable information, and I will definitely look further into that.
ReplyDeleteYour comments from the articles stressed an important, often forgotton, aspect of dealing with children. Even though we are busy learning to be culturally responsive, we need to remember that each child is unique. Immigration and displacement of families are huge issues. What about something like behavior? We have rules, but do we think about the children in our classroom prior to devising these rules? Do young children totally understand to use indoor voices? One of my girls screamed in the class, and told me, in no uncertain terms, that she screamed indoor, so she used an indoor voice.
We need to look outside of the box to truely accept each child, and in most cases, information needs to be shared amongst parents. Only then will acceptance and social justice be realized; the continuity between home and school is a missing piece of many puzzles.
Hi Caroline, I think it is true that the early years education can make a big difference in a child's later life. I have studied a website called the International Step By Step Association, and it focuses on promoting the equal access to the high quality early years education for all the children. I think it is an important point, as many minority groups or immigrants, they still do not have the fully access to the early years educational programs. As we all know the significance of the early years education. I do hope every child can have this chance, especially for those low income families, I hope their children can be educated to change the family's situation in the future. Thank you for sharing:)
ReplyDeleteHi Caroline,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about your organization. It is so important in education these days to be using research based strategies in the classroom. What a great resource your organization is to provide that to teachers' in one stop! Quality education is so important and you are right it is essential that teachers' be aware of all the issues children may be facing! Thanks for sharing a great website.