When I Think of Research....

       Upon entering this course, my perception of research was very limited to the field and career that I was coming from in science.  In science, I was very limited to specific topics covering trace metal research which was limiting in itself.  I was also used to using the library at my job which made material that was not valid  not an option.  I guess I was very spoiled in that way.
       What I immediately found out entering the field of early education and performing research on topics that related to early childhood is that I was faced with unreliable and unvalidated sites such as wikipedia.com.  I was totally shocked to find out that anyone could alter that website at any time! Really?!  The only research sites that I had encountered in my previous career addressed studies that took place over years, method developments, charts, graphs, and other mathematical analysis that showed reproducibility among results.  This was very different to me.  What I have gained is a perspective on what research is valid and had the opportunity to research international childhood sites along with organizations such as the Children's Defense Fund and the NAEYC.  These sites were so informational and gave true life stories of how advocates and educators strived to make a difference in the lives of children.  I also realized how many fields were interelated and that with research with children and families that your initial goal or question, once researched, could not only bring forth answers but more questions.  I now have more of an appreciation of triangulation in all of it's forms and an appreciation for those researchers who make the attempt to recognize and are willing to collaborate with others for the benefit of children and families.
       My ideas on the nature of doing research has changed in the respect that I know now not to believe everything I read and the internet can be a scary place in so many respects.  What I did find though is that any idea that you might want to research, you can usually find information and in many cases for and against what your original hypothesis is.  I found that when I was researching ADD and ADHD that many articles discussed the benefits of children taking medicine to relieve symptoms while another article was completely against the medication. I am a lot more careful now about where I retrieve information from for research and am a lot less likely to search online versus using a reputable database such as the university library.
        In planning & designing research, I learned that it was much easier to design a study in my head than it was once I started researching it.  There is so much information out there that it makes it extremely easy to lose focus a waiver from the given path.  And the actual conducting the research study can be a lot more challenging than I had expected.  In some cases, finding participants for studies can be a challenge as well as conforming to the standards of ethics that are required in research as well as considering ethics and culture and being careful not to offend individuals in the process.
      Challenges that I encountered was trying to find research that fit into the time frame that I was searching for.  In my simulation, I was the relationship between more stingent curriculum and the amount of children diagnosed with ADHD in the last ten years.  I chose this time frame because I could easily find statistics on the increase in the number of children diagnosed with ADHD in comparable to 2000 but emerging common core standards and more stringent curriculum is a process that seems to be transpiring at different rates and different locations.  This has so far been a challenge to me but I would like to explore the topic further.
    My perceptions of the early childhood professional have been modified further in the respect that I realize that working in early childhood means a lot more than educating by implementing curriuculum and designing lesson plans.  It means taking the extra time to understand family dynamics, culture, diversity, as well as concerns, disabilities, and resources they may need.  I used to think that when I was leaving a career in scientific research that I was going to an easier career but what I have found is that in early childhood we have mutiple positions, requirements, and hats to fit every occasion; an educator, a caregiver, a friend, an informant and on some levels even a nurse. And I couldn't be happier!  See you next class!

Research Around the World

     Upon researching the Early Childhood Australia website, the first current international research topic that I found interesting was a news article titled "Sky show 3 Q asks " can we make children smarter?"(earlychildhoodaustralia.org)
      To discuss some insight on this question, Pam Cahir, the CEO of Early Childhood Australia spoke to 3Q about the biggest improvements to early childhood education in 25 years.  More babies and toddlers are in childcare than ever before, at the age when their brains are laying down the pathways vital for later learning, intelligence and social capacity.  (earlychildhoodaustrailia.org)  Pam Cahir also discusses with 3Q how new national reforms are ensuring childcare centers provide a nuturing environment that will have a long term beneficial effect on our future society for years to come.

Reference

May 2012-News coverage: Sky show 3Q ask "can we make our children smarter?' featuring Pam Cahir, CEO, ECA Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodaustrailia.org.au/early_childhood_news.html

     The second international research topic was in a media release from February of 2010 titled " Fair, inclusive, quality education every child's right; Early Childhood peak bodies welcome increased support for children with a disability." (earlychildhoodaustrailia.org)
     Increased support for children with a disability to access early childhood education and care services will see huge long term benefits for their development according the Early Childhood Austrailia (ECA) and Early Childhood Intervention Austrailia (ECIA).  (earlychildhoodaustrailia.org)  Ceo Samantha Page said that children with a disability have the same rights as all children and additional rights because of the disability.  (earlychildhoodaustrailia.org)  Where there are barriers to children accessing early education and care services, we should be doing everything possible to overcome them.  (earlychildhoodaustrailia.org)  ECIA National President, Ms Denise Luscombe addresses that all children have the capacity to succeed, when they are properly supported.  She goes on further to say " Children with disabilities, like all children, will make good progress when early childhood educators and support professionals  have high expectations and they are fully included."(earlychildhoodaustrailia.org)  Services and support professionals must be given the necessary resources to fully include children with a disability and to achieve high quality outcomes for children.  Extra funding announced by the Federal Government will be a great help towards insuring the needs of children with a disability in early childhood education and care services would be met." (earlychildhoodaustrailia.org)

Reference

February-Media Release-Fair, inclusive, quality education every child's right; Early Childhood peak bodies welcome increased support for children with a disability Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodaustrailia.org.au/early_childhood_news.html

Under the Early Childhood Australia website I found an interesting section called Research themes and under this I found the topic of global warming and climate change it addressed the need for children to know and understand climate change.   Tracy Young from Swinburne University of Technology  addresses the questions " Why do young children need to know about climate change? and "Are we sure this is happening? (earlychildhoodaustralia.org)  It may be confronting to dent the scientific informtaion about global warming, but the evidence is now overwhelming.  Recent reports from the United Nations intergovernmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) prove that vast quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, created by human activities, are warming the planet.  as the former United Nations secretary-General Kofi Annan has said the question is not whether climate change is happening but whether, in the face of this emergency, we ourselves can change fast enough. (earlychildhoodaustralia.org)  Climate change will directly affect the lives of young children both now and in the future.  It would be irresponsible for us not to share this information with children, to give them opportunity to learn how their actions impact on the health of the planet.  This knowledge enables children to learn how to be part of the climate change solution and teaches them they can make a difference.  (earlychildhoodaustralia.org)

Reference

http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/resource_themes/sustainability_global_warming_and_climate_change.html

Other noteworthy information that I found on this site was resources for children and families dealing with brushfires posted on January 2013

Many families, Early Childhood Education and Care(ECEC) services and communities around Australia have been affected by the recent bushfires.  Early Childhood Australia offers the following resources to assist families, children, and communites through this difficult time.  (earlychildhoodaustralia.org)

Tasmanian government bushfire recovery page
Including General Health and Financial Assistance Information:
www.dpac.tas.gov.au/news_and_features/bushfire_recovery(http://www.dpac.tas.gov.au/news_and_features/bushfire_recovery)

Disaster resources
From the Australian Child & Adolescent Trauma, Loss & Grief Network:
www.earlytraumagrief.anu.edu.au/disasters(http://www.earlytraumagrief.anu.edu.au/disasters)

Bushfires and children

Bushfires can be a cause of major trauma to children as well as adults.  Research shows children who have been directly affected by bushfires can experience emotional distress for a long time after the bushfire has happened .  This can be related to the experience of having to leave their homes, fears about their parents' safety and fears about the future as well as actual experience of the fire.

Reference

http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/pdf/papers/Bushfires2003.pdf

Relationship Reflection

Relationships that we develop throughout our life time have an amazing impact on who we truly are as individuals.  The top picture is my Vo, she was a truly amazing and loving woman who made such an impact on me as a young child with her caring and loving ways.  She always had this belief that was passed down from her mother that no matter how poor you were, you could always find a way to share with those who were without.  I have never forgotten that about her because even though we are blessed with a warm place to live, food to eat and clothes to wear, it can change in an instant so we should always be thankful and appreciate life every day.  The next picture is our wedding day and well as you can see by the four beautiful healthy children we now have, our relationship is working! The next picture is me with my oldest daughter.  We were never so happy then to be parents and she was truly a blessing and even though now she is in middle school, I feel just as close to her as I did then.  The next one is my two youngest, Tyler and Ally, they are the best of friends and quite the little comedians.  The next picture is my neighbor Annie, she has been part of our family since we moved here.  Annie and her husband are the kindest people you will ever meet and we have so lucky to have neighbors who are so warm and kind, you don't always find that now a days.  The next picture is my oldest and youngest, Ashley and Ally, they just adore each other and I love what a great role model our oldest is for the younger children. The next picture was my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary.  They were such a great couple, stood by each other through wars and poverty, they were truly sole mates.  The next one is my second oldest Abby and Tyler, they have that kind of sweet and sour relationship and he kind of drives her nuts but then they just love each other, depends on the day. And the last one is the four kids together, what can I say but true love and happiness.

As you can see, my family is everything and I don't know what I would ever do without them.  To be honest, neither me nor my husband, planned on a big family.  We didn't have a huge family growing up or anything and I think we weren't sure that we would be the best parents but our children have become the best teachers and we couldn't love them more.  We try to see our parents often but they live pretty far and it is sometimes challenging to meet up with them so having extended family like our neighbors has been a blessing.  I think the positive things that come from relationships is the feeling of being needed and people wanting to be around you.  We don't drive fancy cars or have fancy clothes, everything is for our family and we would much rather be home with them than any place else.  I think the hard part about developing relationships as an adult with a family is that everyone is just so busy, it is hard to keep in touch and with us being such a big family, it becomes a challenge visiting people whose house my not be accustomed or for that not child proof.  That can be really challenging.  I can honestly say that my relationships with my children is what has prepared me for work in the early childhood field.  I always loved children but being a chemist was my career and it wasn't until we had four children that I made the change in careers.  My children have taught me a few things about life and family but also about myself.  I never would have had the nerve to make such a drastic career change but with those little smiling faces, support from my husband and parents, I made the leap to where I am today and I have never been happier.

"My Supports"

If I had to describe factors that are supportive to me within my daily environment, I would have to start with my family.   This may sound funny but my five year old Abigail in many ways helps us to start the day.  She is the first one up and she gets her twelve year old sister up and motivated even before her alarm goes off and she is right there to make sure she gets going every morning.  I can't say that Ashley is all too excited about this but to me Abigail plays a vital role in helping the house to get up and go.  Allyson and Tyler get up a little later and they are both always so quick to give you a hug and make you smile.  It is the best way anyone could start their day. My husband is actually running the childcare with me now and I depend on him a lot to greet really early parents while I am getting our kids ready and running up to the bus stop twice a day before eight am. As well as my family I also have wonderful neighbors whom I see on a daily basis and are just wonderful to my whole family.  They are always there for every birthday, school event, dance competition, cheering competition, family cookout, and also to talk whenever we need them.  There is many times when my children were sick and I needed to get them medicine or a gallon of milk and my husband was almost an hour away at work and they would run to the store or come sit with the children while I ran out.  I don't know what I would do without them.  And then there is my parents who are always there when I need them and without them I would never have had the confidence to leave my career as a chemist and open a childcare.

There are many other supports that get me through the day that are not for emotional support but practical, such as my coffee maker.  With four children and working twelve hour days and school, that cup of coffee is very much needed!  My planner, computer, calculator, and log book are all items I use ever day not just for my house bills, to run a business but to attend school as well.  Other supports would include my vehicle to transport the children back and forth, the bus drivers that transport my children back and forth to school, their teachers, dance teachers, cheering coach, other cheer moms, and of course my childcare moms who without their families and income I would not be able to run a business where I can be with my own family as much as I am.

Now that we run a business together, I could not imagine doing it again without the help of my husband and the emotional support of my family.  Nor could I imagine not having my neighbors, my parents.  My challenge would be for the both of us to finish the programs we are in and extend our business to include a summer Sea Lab program.  Having a business that already exists and the many families we care for, we would need to keep their business and as many of them have refer us to other families who need childcare and in the years to come also remain with us through the expansion if we are lucky.  We would help from the many friends and family who helped us to build our home in 2005 and we would need to be able to plan financially by setting money aside if possible and sticking to our budget with the use of the spreadsheet that was creating in evaluating the profit and loss of the business.We would need direction from our licensor along with required professional development.  And an engineer to design the plans for the addition.  But mainly without the need for childcare, none of this will even be a possibility.

My Childcare

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.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 3

       I still have not received response from my international contacts so for this week I studied the " Early Childhood Care and Education" webpage on the UNESCO website and studied three papers that I felt were good resources issues that we are we are currently facing in the United States in regards to dual language learning, universal standards and curriculum, and finding funding resources to improve early childhood programs.
      The first article of interest was "Papua New Guinea's Vernacular Language Preschool Programme."(UNESCO.org)  Papua New Guinea is an island nation in the South Pacific north of Australia and east of Indonesia and is the of the developing countries that has a bilingual education policy, which was launched in 1995 when the vernacular  language movement began and required that the formal education system included vernacular language education in the initial years of a child's education  with a gradual transition in the use of English as one of the languages of instruction. (UNESCO.org)  Papua New Guinea is the world's most linguistically diverse nation with 823 living languages spoken by 5.2 million with only 50,000 of the people speaking English as their first language and unless individuals reside close to towns, they have very little exposure to the English language. (UNESCO.org)  In 1979, Bougainville Island expressed concern that the English only school systems were alienating their children from their own language and culture because if children did not pass secondary school entrance exams had to return to villages but were unable to integrate into village life so the Islanders proposed giving two years of preschool education in their own language before primary schooling, this scheme became known as Tok Pies Pri Skul (TPPS) or "vernacular language preschools." (UNESCO.org)  During the 1980's three other communities followed the initiative and the Vernacular language preschools spread throughout the country and with involvement from the provincial government, the movement later became part of the government's Education Reform policy  and remained in the realm of non-formal education from 1979-1995 and had no standard curriculum requirements, less qualified teachers who were mostly volunteers . (UNESCO.org)
     Another article I found of interest was " Mandatory Funding for Early Childhood Education: A Proposal in Brazil." (UNESCO.org) Brazil has a mandatory education fund for primary education called FUNDEF (Fund for the Development of Primary Education and Teacher Development) and requires that 60% of the local governments education budgets to be spent on primary education, which helped increase enrollment in primary education from 92.7% in 1994 to 96.4% in 2000 and brought the country closer to the ideal of universal primary education and benefited children from marginalised populations.  (UNESCO.org)  Policy-makers were encouraged by the success of the FUNDEF program and are now drafting a Congressional Bill to establish a mandatory funding scheme for early education, 0-6 year olds, with hopes of similiar results and will expand early education in the country. (UNESCO.org)  This effort takes on great challenge due to the current funding system for early education.  With a three-tiered government system consisting of federal government, states, and municipalities, FUNDEF usually excedes it's 60%  budget and the allocated 40% left over for early education is often diminished to very little due to municiple spending.  At the level of local governments, which are directly responsible for allocation and execution of budgets for basic education including early childhood education and is currently putting the issue up to debate on whether to seperate a mandatory fund for early childhood.  Recently , the President made a firm committment to fighting literacy and pledged that major investments would be coming in the area of early education but programme options have not been fully explored. But hopefully if the conviction of concerned policy-makers resonates with the public, then perhaps a bill will be passed for funding for Early Education, despite the odds against it.  (UNESCO.org)
     The third article of interest, titled " Curriculum in Early Childhood Education and Care," discusses the ongoing dilemna facing curriculum designers.  (UNESCO.org)  On one hand,  there is the need to guide personnel in early childhood centers especially if they have limited training and education but must also be broad  and contribute to a child's overall development and prepare them for later success in school and because of the learning patterns of young children, social-emotional and cognitive process at their own place through play and active methods so a detailed cognitive curriculum may not be the best approach so the aim is to encourage a shared sense of purpose between parents and early childhood centers to promote social and cultural values important for society ensuring a certain unity of standards.  (UNESCO.org)  In a study of children in the Reggio Emilia schools who utilized a negotiated curriculum which encourages identify  formation, positive attitudes, communication and negotiation results in children.  (UNESCO.org)  The results from this study are that the learning  achievements were high when conducted by well trained professionals.  To conduct an open framework approach like this one staff must be well trained and well supported and requires advance knowledge of child psychology  and strong pedagogical training, research in several countries highlights the link between achievement rates in programmes and these requirements but these conditions and requirements are often hard to come by in developing countries. (UNESCO.org)

References:

Wroge, D. (2002).  Papua New Guinea's Vernacular Language Preschool Programme  Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001373/137383e.pdf

Choi, S.  (2003).  Mandatory Funding for Early Childhood Education: A Proposal in Brazil  Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001374/137406e.pdf

Bennett, J. (2004).  Curriculum in Early Childhood Education and Care Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/00137401e.pdf