SHARING WEB RESOURCES

February 15, 2014

Reflecting many years ago when I was an undergraduate student doing a research paper on child development that I discovered the importance of brain development. In searching the internet for the latest article from the magazine Zero to Three I discovered the issue on "This Issue And Why It Matters": According to Stefanie Powers "During a child's first 1,000 days of life, a nurturing responsive relationship between the child and engaged, invested caregivers positively influences the child's physical, social, and emotional health across the lifespan".

Children's overall development is closely connected to the development of the brain. Although all aspects of development are interrelated, different areas of the brain contribute to children's development across the different domains.

• Physical development is influenced by the motor cortex or band in front of the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe for hand-eye coordination, and thetemporal lobe for hearing.


• Social development is influenced by the limbic system, the frontal lobe, the site of reasoning and planning functions, and by the development of language.


• Emotional development also is influenced by the limbic system and the frontal lobe.


• Cognitive development is influenced by the frontal lobe, the site of planning and thinking functions, and by the temporal lobe for development of language abilities.

Example: Reading and the Brain

Children learn language through experience. When adults read to children, neurons connect and a vocabulary builds.  When adults and children read a favorite book again and again, connections in the child's brain become stronger and more complex.

Talking about the story also contributes to brain development. As adults discuss the storyline with children, even more new words are introduced. Vocabulary increases, and children starts to learn the process of conversation. 

Watching television or listening to a recorded story does not have the same benefits of live conversation.The interaction in give and take conversation is the key experience that wires the brain to develop language

It is essential that infants received the love, touching, and all the motor senses that's needed to develop normal and wired to connect with the world around them. I have seen many children in my life time not able to communicate or comprehend the simplest things as retaining the alphabets' and now I understand that these children missed the necessary brain development; which is critical in life to get a head start in life.


References:
Early and middle childhood. http://www.fcs.uga.edu/ext/bbb/brainTimeEarlyChild.php
This issue and why it matters. http://www.zerotothree.org/about-us/areas-of-expertise/zero-to-three-journal/34-1-ednote-toc.pdf

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 2

February 8, 2014

International Contacts China, Rwanda, and Three Caribbean Nations





 Assessing the state of child mental health services in
China;
 Developing and evaluating family-based strategies
to prevent mental health problems in children affected
by HIV/AIDS in Rwanda; and
 Addressing child maltreatment and mental health
outcomes in three Caribbean nations (Barbados, the
Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname).
To strengthen their policy relevance, each of these
projects is being designed to include an economic component
to analyze allocation effects in the supply and

demand for services.

Children in Crisis and Conflict Situations
The Global Children’s Initiative is currently exploring
potential synergies with the Harvard Humanitarian
Initiative and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for
Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of
Public Health, both of which have extensive experience
working in emergency situations across the world. The
goal of this effort is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration
that incorporates a science-based, developmental
perspective into the assessment and management of
child well-being in a range of natural and man-made
crises, focusing on both immediate circumstances and
long-term adaptation. Two issues are the initial focus of
activity in this domain:
 Exploring comparable approaches to surveying
child status in post-earthquake Haiti and Chile.
 Bringing the science of child development into
strategies for addressing acute malnutrition.

Building Broader, More Diverse Leadership Capacity
in Research and Policy
Finally, and central to the Center’s core mission, an
array of education and training activities will be incorporated
into all of the thematic areas described above.
The first dimension of this work focuses on building a
sustainable infrastructure to support the productive
engagement of Harvard students and faculty in a diversity
of global settings. The second dimension focuses on
developing opportunities to provide leadership training
for individual researchers, policymakers, and institutions,
primarily in the majority world.

Sharing Web Resources

February 1, 2014

What specific section(s) or information seemed particularly relevant to your current professional development?
The specific section important to my current professional development is "School Readiness" which allow students a smooth transition. Students should be academic prepared since kindergarten requires so much more than the past. (ZEROTOTHREE) World rounded articles to enhance the latest trends and issues to help all professionals be abreast on all topics.

Which ideas/statements/resources, either on the website or in an e-newsletter, did you find controversial or made you think about an issue in new ways? 
This statement has had a great profound effect on my teaching because it made me wonder was I reaching all of my children and knew how to reach each individual child needs.
"Quality early learning has a long lasting impact on children, their well-being and their ability to learn. The early years of a child's life-ages birth through five are the most important years in his or her development. Research shows that children who experience stable, high-quality child care perform better in grade school, high school, and beyond."

Ninety percent of brain growth occurs from birth to five years of years age.
A child develops the ability to reason by the age of five
By the age of three, many children know 1,100 words

It is extremely important as early start and preschool educators; we must be prepared as highly-qualified educators to know how early children learn best and the importance of early learning for later school success. Furthermore as high qualified educators how to help disadvantaged children to close the achievement gaps despite advantage achievement children. Since we as a society lives in a competitive global world, therefore our early childhood children should be able to compete global with confidence and they  and their families depend on us to give them this edge.

What information does the website or the e-newsletter, contain that adds to your understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field? 

Why Business Should Support Early Childhood Education
ICW/Institute For A Competitive Workforce
http://icw.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/ICW_EarlyChildhoodReport_2010.pdf

RAND  LABOR AND POPULATION
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/2008/RAND_RB9352.pdf 

What other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field did you gain from exploring the website or e-newsletter?

Mobilizing Science to Revitalize Early Childhood Policy

Shonkoff, Jack P. Issues in Science and Technology26.1 (Fall 2009): 79-85.

Current early childhood programs should be viewed as a promising starting point for innovation, not a final destination that simply requires increased funding. Remarkable progress in neuroscience, molecular biology, and genomics has provided rock-solid knowledge that underscores the role of positive early experiences in strengthening brain architecture, along with compelling evidence that "toxic" stress can disrupt brain circuits, undermine achievement, and compromise physical and mental health. Evaluation science also is providing the means to differentiate effective early childhood programs that should be scaled up from underperforming efforts that need to be either strengthened or discontinued. It is time for policymakers to strengthen efforts to equalize opportunities for all young children by leveraging the science of child development and its underlying neurobiology to create the framework for a new era of innovation in early childhood policy and practice.

As a society as a whole we must become advocates for equal/fair early childhood for all families and their childen regardless income and ethic group. It starts with day care centers owners being highly educated and their staff members. Furthermore utilize staff development and updated training along with magazines and tapes as coed accessible. 

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part I

January 25, 2014

I have selected two new international countries since I have not received any updated information regarding their Early Childhood program. I have selected Morocco and Ghana.


Egypt: My contact is Mr. Hicham MOUKRAM
The Child Poverty and Disparities in Egypt: Building the Social Infrastructures for Egypt’s Future study is the first comprehensive study in Egypt which focuses on both poverty and childhood and was in early 2010.  The eight dimensions of poverty considered in the study (income, shelter, food, education, information, health, sanitation, water) are interrelated and interdependent. Deprivation of one right is likely to affect a child’s ability to enjoy other rights. The study reveals that one in four Egyptian children (more than seven million) live deprived of one or more of their rights to be children and enjoy their childhood. Around 1.2 million children live in absolute poverty, which means they are deprived of two or more rights.

The brighter we make the lives of our children, the

brighter the future of our nation.

Ghana: Definition of Child Development 
and Educational Outcomes 
Child development refers to the ordered emergence 
of interdependent skills of sensorimotor, cognitive– 
language, and social–emotional functioning, which 
depend on the child’s physical well-being, the family 
context, and the larger social network.7 Educational 
outcomes in this paper include school readiness, reten­
tion, drop-out, educational achievement, and years of 
schooling completed. School readiness refers to skills 
children need to profit from the educational experi­
ences of formal schooling.8 School readiness is gener­
ally defined as a broad set of skills that affect children’s 
ability to learn in school: physical health, motor skills, 
self-care, emotional and behavioral self-regulation, so­
cial skills, communication skills, pre-academic skills, 
attention, and curiosity and motivation to learn, al­
though some argue that it should be limited to literacy 
and numeracy skills.

Sharing Web Resources

January 18, 2014

ZERO TO THREE

www.zerotothree.org

Zerotothree is a national, nonprofit organization that provides parents, professionals and policymakers the knowledge and know-how to nurture to early development.

This Issue and Why It Matters

This article deals with the misconceptions and myths regarding immigrant families in the United States. People believed that immigrants fall into one category of homogeneous of higher risk of living in poverty, suffer from poor quality health care, and lack access to quality early care and education. However many immigrants are borne in the United States and legal citizens; therefore they have strengths of immigrant families, such as health benefits related to higher rates of breast-feeding and immunization, better nutritional status in newcomer families, the greater likelihood of children living in two-parent families, and the positive effect learning multiple languages may have on cognitive and neural development. In addition, we as United State citizens have to speak up and help end the misconceptions and stereotypes remarks. 

Reference

http://main.zerotothree.org/site/DocServer/ZTT29-2_nov_08.pdf?docID=7241

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

January 11, 2014

Part 1:

HEADQUARTERS

Abbie Raikes
Section for Basic Education
UNESCO Headquarters
ha.raikes(at)unesco.org

In 1945, UNESCO was created in order to respond to the firm belief of nations, forged by two world wars in less than a generation  that political and economic agreements are not enough to build a lasting peace. Peace must be established on the basis of humanity’s moral and intellectual solidarity.

UNESCO strives to build networks among nations that enable this kind of solidarity, by:

·         Mobilizing for education: so that every child, boy or girl, has access to quality education as a fundamental human right and as a prerequisite for human development.

·         Building intercultural understanding: through protection of heritage and support for cultural diversity. UNESCO created the idea of World Heritage to protect sites of outstanding universal value.

·         Pursuing scientific cooperation: such as early warning systems for tsunamis or trans-boundary water management agreements, to strengthen ties between nations and societies.

·         Protecting freedom of expression: an essential condition for democracy, development and human dignity.

Part 1:

The first initiative step I took was to browse through the list of contacts you had provided for us to choose from than I found the one that interest me the most. Therefore once I selected this country I found it to be interesting and educational. 

Mission

©UNESCO/Katy Anis

The foundations of human development are laid during the child's early years and thus early childhood requires an integrated approach to the child's care, development and learning.

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) is more than a preparatory stage assisting the child’s transition to formal schooling. Today, early childhood policies are placed within a broader context of social development, gender equity and poverty reduction.

UNESCO leads the international policy drive for an integrated early childhood care and education system that encompasses both the well-being and holistic development of the child. Our mission is to support early childhood policy development with the aim to build a solid foundation for a child’s lifelong learning.

UNESCO actively works with Member States in their efforts to develop and strengthen their national capacity to meet the first goal of the 2000 Dakar Framework for Action, which aims to expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education for all.

Part II:

I selected ZERO TO THREE because as a preschool teacher and desire to teach early childhood education as higher learning instructor I wanted to know how a child develops from the early years of life. Furthermore I find these years as foundation years whereas children can soak up all the knowledge parents and educators can provide or feed them. During this age children love the surroundings and use their five senses especially their hands and mouths. Therefore as teachers we have to be ready to allow them discover their own world by using their imaginations.

We welcome you to ZERO TO THREE’s website. ZERO TO THREE is a national nonprofit organization that provides parents, professionals and policymakers the knowledge and the know-how to nurture early development.

Neuroscientists have documented that our earliest days, weeks and months of life are a period of unparalleled growth when trillions of brain cell connections are made. Research and clinical experience also demonstrate that health and development are directly influenced by the quality of care and experiences a child has with his parents and other adults.

That is why at ZERO TO THREE our mission is to promote the health and development of infants and toddlers.

We know that as babies, the way we are held, talked to and cared for teaches us about who we are and how we are valued. This profoundly shapes who we will become.

Early experiences set a course for a lifelong process of discovery about ourselves and the world around us. Simply put, early experiences matter. We encourage you to learn more about very young children, early development and the work of ZERO TO THREE by exploring our site.

I contact each association with great interest and truly want to develop a strong commitment to education and by using their resources will enable me to have a better understanding in other countries and a professional educator.

"My Supports"

December 7, 2013

I have been pursuing this master now for approximate the last seven years off and on with much support from my family and dear church members. As of today I feel I have found the greatest school of all and wish I knew about this many years ago. My sisters are my biggest advocates for me to complete my education and pursue my doctor degree. Furthermore if I talk about dropping out or stopping school my oldest sister Cathy always say you can do it Diane. Constance my sister next to me throughout my life remains me that we always have the exact same ability as our mother. And Jackie my youngest sister think I am very smart by asking me to write her paper and says Diane you are smart and a great writer. The reasons I say this is because sometimes I feel things are so overwhelming for me. For started I have to take care of my mother who is total bed ridden that demands full care. Sometimes when I don't feel like getting up out of my bed I have to get up every morning very early. Even before I go to work in the morning I have to get up at 5:00 a.m. and fed my mother. Then go to work with preschool children, which work never ends until I go to bed. In addition, my nephew is a great encourage by saying you can do it and it seems like I can't write he says you need to pray. And the greatest of them all are my children. Michelle tells me that you can do it and I am very proud of you. My son Michquel says I have faith in you and know you can do it and this will help you farther down the road. My pastor two daughters periodic asks me how are things going in school that makes me feel good and lets me know they are concern.

It would be quite difficult to continue to pursue my education without this supporter with family and friends because it gives me direction, comfort, self-actualization, aid, help, and preservation. Therefore through these supports I believe nothing is impossible for me to attain my goals and plans. They allow me to know to be patient and work diligent with the hope of God in my life. Put him first and do everything I can humanly do and he will do the rest for me. Also I remember my favorite scripture in the Bible Jeremiah 29:11 For he knows the thoughts he as towards me, said the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give me an expected end.

I can't imagine not having my siblings, children, nephew, and church family not by my side as encourages and supporters. I believe it will not dauber my spirit but not halt by education and life because God is my most up lifter and shield of all. Therefore I know "I can do all things through Christ which strengthen me" Philippians 4:13