International links

One personal consequence of learning about my international contacts' experiences is to realize that many issues such as underfunding are international. This gives me hope that if we work together there is the possibility for change. One professional consequence is that I have gained a different perspective on issues like poverty. I am much more grateful for what I have here. Small problems seem to pale in comparison to what some people face. Another consequence that is professional and personal is that my passion has been reignited. I will advocate for quality education for all.

I think a goal should be to be aware of the situations in other places. I tend to focus all my attention on my classroom and my school. As a profession we need to broaden our focus and share good practice everywhere.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts - part 3

Both of my contacts were able to respond to this week's questions. My sister in Canada has many opportunities for professional development available to her. The district and the school run between 6 and 8 pd days per year. There are workshops after school hosted by the district. Each teacher completes a growth plan every year that is reviewed with the admin staff. There are limited funds available for out of city/province pd opportunities. My colleague in Hong Kong notes that the richer private schools have many quality professional development opportunities. Smaller schools have less resources to work with.

In Hong Kong an issue that my colleague brings up is the push for student learning to be self-directed, for learning to be authentic and truly inquiry based. She works in the environment of the IB Primary Years Program both as a teacher and a member of the school evaluation visit team. The program strongly encourages this type of learning. She relates that to achieve this there must be an environment that "creates a safe space for teachers to innovate and test out new ideas" and that this takes time and effort from everyone involved.

My sister's professional goals are to improve in areas like guided reading, digital files and portfolios, use of the interactive whiteboard and communication with parents. She dreams of smaller class sizes, less paperwork and more support. She is challenged like many of us by a vast array of needs and not enough resources. The professional goals of my colleague in Hong Kong are quite different. She would like to focus on inquiry based learning and do some research into the development and fostering of basic skills using this approach. She wants to find a way to balance 'toolbox' lessons with inquiries, so that children will be able to use the new 'tools' of learning in their inquiry. Her hope is to understand the inquiry learning method in depth and be able to share that knowledge with others. Her biggest challenge is exhaustion. Working with young children requires a ton of energy. You need to model excitement for learning and motivate them to want to learn. She then goes home to her own children, one of whom is currently the same age as the children in her class. Her professional dream is to be a published author and retire from everyday teaching. She would like to share her enthusiasm and knowledge in other ways like as a story-teller or running writing workshops. She, like many of us, is tired of the constant paperwork and bureaucracy involved with teaching.

Sharing Web Resources - part 3

 The website that I chose was the ACEI site. I've only received one newsletter to date. One of the outside links that I found was to the site www.education-transforms.org. This site shows with clear graphics and concrete examples the ways that universal education affects economies, health, population and the environment. It was updated and relaunched to coincide with the UN general assembly in September that was looking at new developmental goals for post-2015. It ties in well with this week's topic as it shows that education impacts many areas of development.

       The section of the website that I chose to explore is called "Global Gateway: International Comparisons and Scenarios". It highlights the different international assessment tools that are currently in use such a PISA, PIRLS and TIMMS and gives current updates on the results of these assessments. It also spotlights different countries that show excellence in education and countries that are moving towards excellence. There are links to all the different assessment websites. One that I found interesting was the PIRLS report. PIRLS stands for Progress in International Reading Study. The report has many sections and one is devoted to looking at the effect an early start in literacy can have on the results. The report states "[a] supportive home environment and an early start are crucial in shaping children’s reading literacy." (Mullis, Martin, Foy & Drucker, 2012, p 10). This confirms what I've read in other articles that argue the importance of early education.

      Being an international site, there are many stories and links to international projects to provide education to all children as well as national projects in different countries. This has shown me that the push for excellence and equity is a worldwide fight. Education is a cornerstone to development. As such, developing countries are working hard to achieve an educated population. In countries that are already developed, equity and excellence are also ways to fight poverty and ignorance. True democracy relies on an educated and informed voter to make a choice.

References

Association for Childhood Education International, (2011). Global gateway: International comparisons and scenarios. Retrieved from http://acei.org/global-gateway/international-comparisons-and-scenarios

Mullis, I., Martin, M., Foy, P., & Drucker, K., (2012). PIRLS 2011 International Results in Reading. Retrieved from http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/pirls2011/downloads/P11_IR_FullBook.pdf

UNESCO, (2013). Education for all global monitoring report. Retrieved from http://www.education-transforms.org/en/

Getting to know your international partner - part 2

Unfortunately this week I have not received a reply from either of my international contacts. Instead I did the alternative assignment and explored the website for the Global Children's Initiative through Harvard University. Here is the link: http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/

The Global Children's Initiative was launched by the Center on the Developing Child to advance the integration of approaches to health, survival and development in the earliest years of life worldwide. They are working to build "a portfolio of activities in three domains: early childhood development, child mental health and children in crisis and conflict situations" (2013). The stated goals of the center are to help educate high level policy makers about the science underlying child development, to support multi-disciplinary research projects and to build leadership in the field.

Two of the projects that caught my eye were a study about how an anti-malaria campaign in Zambia is impacting child development in the region and a project that is helping to bring high-quality education to Chile's four to six year olds in Santiago. Both projects will provide longitudinal data that can then be used to fuel policy and further study.

I also found a podcast from Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) called "Early Childhood Classrooms of Excellence". What struck me most about this podcast was the emphasis that was placed on developing early literacy skills in pre-school. Several times the interviewee said that children needed to be ready to read in kindergarten. Although the program they talk about does include some learning through play I find this a disturbing trend. Pushing children to read before they are developmentally ready can have serious long term effects. Some children will develop an aversion to reading and will then spend their school career finding ways to avoid it.

References

Harvard University, (2013). Global children's initiative. Retrieved from website http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/

Intercultural Development Research Association, (2008). Early childhood classrooms of excellence. Retrieved from website http://www.idra.org/Podcasts/Resources/Early_Childhood_Classrooms_of_Excellence/