UNESCO

One of my goals is to open a home based early childhood education center where the curriculum is student driven.   I believe that home based education is one of the resolutions to the lack of access and quality for all children to ECE.  The UNESCO website states that “Countries often promote alternative services for poor children with limited or no access to mainstream early childhood services which can be cost-effective and pedagogically innovative, but often raise concerns about sustainability and quality.”  ( UNESCO )  I think hoe based centers address the need for access and quality.  because programs are smaller, children can be given more personalized attention.  Teachers can work with parents at a more in depth level than is possible than if they had 30 students in a traditional center.  It would also be easier to govern quality of the program because due to scope and size, flaws would be easier to spot and address.

The website discusses the difficulty of financing ECE services.  They mention that tapping the private sector is an alternative solution.   I don’t agree that this is the path we should go in America.  I think ECE should be placed under the auspices of the Board of Education in each state and funded with the same tax dollars and income streams that currently fund government subsidy programs for daycare.

They also mention the issue of coordination across sectors to ensure a level of consistency and quality in ECE.  Many counters have addressed this challenge by consolidating ECE under a single department, which I agree s the way to approach this issue.  It seems that the more people and departments are involved, the more room there is for error and confusion. 

"Access and Equity | Education | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization." Access and Equity | Education | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNESCO, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. <http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/access-and-equity/>.

Web Resources, continued

In reviewing the website for the National Black Child Development institute, I came across even more information than last week, shared below.
A link under the resources page leads to a report entitled “National Summit on Educational Excellence and Opportunity for African American Males” written jointly by the U.S. Dept. of Education and the Council of the Great City Schools.  The report takes on the issue of the failure of urban schools in addressing the needs of the African American male demographic.  Discussed in the report specifically are “steps that schools and others should take to increase African American male access to rigorous core instruction, elevate the quality of education, strengthen personal and social supports needed to bolster their achievement, and overturn the low
expectations that were born of one group’s misbegotten sense of superiority over another.” (Council of the Great City Schools, pg 1)
On the Events page information is detailed regarding the 44th annual NBCDI conference in Detroit, MI during October of 2014 with the theme of  "Bright Past, Better Future.”  Looking at the agenda for last years conference, attendees can expect to see workshops along the lines of Closing the Wealth Gap: Building Individual and Community Assets and Social Emotional Development Through A Cultural Lens: Pre-School to Third Grade.
I am looking forward to receiving a newsletter that may have more information about the upcoming conference.
While researching the issues of equity in education I came across data that illustrates the significant gap in spending allocated to white vs. Black schools.  The data showed “that schools with 90 percent or more students of color spend a full $733less per student per year than schools with 90 percent or more white students.”  (Spatig-Amerikaner, pg. 5)  If the gap in funding was closed the funds could be utilized to “pay the salary for 12additional first-year teachers or nine veteran teachers.  Alternatively, this funding could pay for any number of other useful personnel or resources such as school counselors, teacher coaches, or laptop computers.” (Spatig-Amerikaner, pg. 7 )
Another phenomena resource I came across while perusing this website was www.firstbook.org.  This is a link to a non for profit agency that “Once you are registered, you will be able to receive access to the: • First Book Marketplace, offering new books at 50 to 90 percent off retail prices • First Book National Book Bank, offering free books (pay only for shipping, typically at 35 to 50 cents per book) • Book grants through First Book’s local Advisory Boards.” (NBCDI, pg 4)  This resource is huge for both teachers and parents who have tight budgets but still ant to provide that critical book collection in order to help children develop literacy early.


"National Summit on Educational Excellence and Opportunity for African American Males." Council of the Great City Schools, 27 Aug. 2012. Web. <http://www.cgcs.org/cms/lib/DC00001581/Centricity/Domain/88/Blueprint%2082312.pdf>.

Spatig-Amerikaner, Ary. "Unequal Education: Federal Loophole Enables Lower Spending on Students of Color." Center For American Progress. N.p., 22 Aug. 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2012/08/22/29002/unequal-education/

"NBCDI & First Book: LOVE TO READ." National Black Child Development Institute, Fall 2013. Web. http://www.nbcdi.org/sites/default/files/resource-files/CHT%20Fall%202013d.pdf

Brief Glimpse of ECE Around the World

This week I visited the Center on the Developing Child, Harvard university, to glean some insights as to what is going on in other parts of the world in the field of Early Childhood Education.

Because of a lack of information on ECE and child development in Zambia, the ministry set out to create an assessment to administer to children to determine whether the state of readiness of children in that country for school upon entering for the first time.  The exam did a good job of utilizing appropriate assessment instruments.  Children were experiencing difficulties in showing readiness for school based on test items that required use of a pencil, which may children had not been exposed to due to lack of ECE.  However, when asked to complete tasks such as “stringing beads onto a shoelace, putting beans into a cup, unbuttoning and buttoning a shirt and playing a variation on nsolo (a traditional game).” ( Fink 2012 ) they were able to demonstrate mastery of fine motor control using these familiar skills.

In Chile a program is underway to improve ECE by addressing teacher development as well as health factors that contribute to the development of children.  This seems to be an example of a holistic approach towards child education/development that takes into account physical health in a child’s ability to learn, much the same as here in America we are concerned with how food insecurity impacts children in the classroom.

In Brazil the government is developing a national system of ECE, apparently due to a realization that in order to be globally competitive they need to invest in their children.  They are in the process of gathering experts from all over to develop the skills needed to create and implement policy in the educational field.

Each of these countries has common threads running through their efforts to develop ECE in their society.  First, equity in terms of making sure ECE is available to all children.  Zambia is approaching this by first correcting the absence of data available on the state of ECE in their country while Chile and Brazil are addressing equity jointly with excellence by initiating programs to development quality education as well as ensuring children’s needs are met in terms of physical health as well.

Fink, Guther, Beatrice Matafwali, Corrina Moucheraud, and Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski.The Zambian Early Childhood Development Project 2010 Assessment Final Report. Rep. Center on the Developing Child Harvard University, Dec. 2012. Web. <http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/zambian_project/>

Weekly Blog Update

During an observation of a high school biology classroom in which the teacher was a young White woman, and the students were all Black (about half male), I was told by this teacher not to be afraid of the students.  Now, I found this comment both amusing and disturbing.  I am a Black woman, but because of a very light phenotype which includes green eyes, I am often mistaken for White.  This woman assumed that I was coming from her culture – the culture where you are taught to be afraid of young Black men and to take their high energy, debate oriented and macho personalities as aggressive and disrespectful.  In the Black culture, we tend to engage in heated debates, we tend to be more physically expressive and we tend to challenge authority to prove itself.  If you understand this, then a White teacher can develop effective interpersonal relationships with her students.  The article I read today on the National Black Child Development’s website discussed the vital importance of approaching Black students from a culturally aware perspective.  Interventions that work with White students are likely to fail Black students.  Black males respond better to lessons that are more physically and verbally engaging – these kids aren’t the ones to sit silent and listen to a lecture.  In the article, White teacher are told they need to start having dialogues that introduce them to Black culture or else they won’t be effective.

Well, the report could be controversial, because there is a defense mechanism that pops up where Whites tend to relegate everything back to a racial issue so they don’t have to address it.  It is an ancestral guilt that sneaks up because of slavery.  And while this issue is abut race, it is about race in the sense of culture.  There is no need for Whites to feel as if they are being attacked for their deficiencies in pedagogy – if it is not your culture, no one blames you for not knowing, but you need to learn.  Simple.  The blame comes in when you refuse to learn, when you refuse to address the stereotypes in your head and debunk them.

There is no specific information on the website about how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field or the issue of teaching in a cultural context.