Final Blog Assignment

     After reading about the international early childhood field, it has made me very aware of all of the natural resources that we have available in the United States that I think we take for granted.  After reading about malaria nets used to prevent the spread of disease after the Tsunamini and the building of new schools and vaccinating so many children who were not vacinated before the Tsunami in Sri all in contribution from UNICEF, it made me realize that things are so easy for us.  Our children are given their first immunizations after they are born in clean hospitals with exceptional equipment and physicans and access to anitbiotics if needed through multiple hospitals and doctor's offices but yet with all of the resources we have, we put chemically processed foods into our bodies even that we have access to clean water and fresh fruit and vegetables.  The first consequence of learning about other countries is that I am more aware of what my own family eats and have been removing all of the foods containing anything chemically processsed from our household and will make our large garden part of our curriculum so other children may receive joy from growing their own fresh foods, which we will be sharing with the families.  We have all the resources, yet we are not always smart in the decisions we make.  The second consequence comes from reading about the game of " sit-ball", that was invented in Rwanda to make a handicapped child able to participate in sports without being viewed as different and letting other children experience how life is different when you have a disability.  This has given me more of an incentive to do exercises like this one with my own childcare children and to learn as  much about learning disabilites as I can to try and understand how a child feels who has one so I may better help them.  And the third consequence is that I am currently working on finding a way to make our state aware of the aspects that our current assessments do not include like dual language learners, imagination, creativity and our children's ability to play together.  I am starting with our immediate school district and hoping to receive some feedback with teachers in the area.  In the spirit of collegial relations, I am making more of an effort to teach children in care about the children in other countries and helping them to embrace their cultures and diversities to help them to find out more about their own cultural backgrounds so they may better understand what children in the countries they are from experience everyday.