Final Blog Assignment

Some consequences of learning about the international early childhood field is that I was given chance to learn about life for professional in the early childhood field as well as children in other areas. I was able to see that other places stuggle in this field just like the USA. When I look at some of the issues we have in America I can breath a little easier because after taking this course I see that other countries have a harder struggle than we do. Another consequence is that we as professionals are not in this alone. We have individuals advocating on the behalf of the ealry childhood field all over the world.
I was not able to contact any other professionals in the field but I gained a lot of insight by reading the post of classmates who were able to contact other professionals.
One goal for the field is for all of us early childhood professionals to be able to connect some kind of way and advocate for change together.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

Adolescent girls in the northern Tanzania districts of Shinyanga Rural, Kahama and Micheweni are confronted with poverty, early marriage and pregnancy and an overall low prioritization of education in their communities.

Reading this information is so unfair for the females in this area. I work with the young people at my church and I showed them this because this year we have four children grauduating and two are males and two are females and the weird thing is the boys want to go to college and the females are having to be pushed. The boys had to be pushed to finish high school. One of the boys was pushed all the way from his early years in school.

“presuming competence"

The principle of “presuming competence,” is to  Assume that a child has intellectual ability, provide opportunities to be exposed to learning, assume the child wants to learn and assert him or herself in the world. To not presume competence is to assume that some individuals cannot learn, develop, or participate in the world.  Presuming competence is nothing less than a Hippocratic oath for educators. It is a framework that says, approach each child as wanting to be fully included, wanting acceptance and appreciation, wanting to learn, wanting to be heard, wanting to contribute.  By presuming competence, educators place the burden on themselves to come up with ever more creative, innovative ways for individuals to learn.  The question is no longer who can be included or who can learn, but how can we achieve inclusive education.  We begin by presuming competence.

So many times educators think the exact opposite. They look at a child and assume things that are not there or they might be there but due to the child's environment and we as professionals do not work with them to the level that we need to.

Sharing Web Resources

I went to event tab on The Divison for Early Childhood website. I thought it was very neat that it had a spot to allow outsiders to be able to upload events that they are having for early childhood programs to the site. This is really good because it gives the world a chance to see and participate in local advocating. Also they have a lot going on in the month of April for children and their families.
As I was searching one area of the site I saw where a father was reaching out trying to get his son in an ealry childhood program and was having problems because of his son handicap and everyone giving him "professional" reasons for why they could not enroll him.
There is a new forum that is about to take place for addressing challenging Behavior and it is a National Training that is going to take place.
This website showed me that their is still a lot of inequity that takes place for young children with disabilities and after reading I think it is higher in this area than any other age group.