WK 7 International Contacts - Professionalism

My South African contact has been an inspiration to me and has been so enthusiastic about responding to my request. This week I asked her to tell me about professional development in South Africa as well as professional goals for herself.  Instead of trying to repeat her words, I have posted her response below.

I am busy with my Masters in Early childhood education and one of my goals is to get the Doctorate in Early. Childhood Education. I am convinced that indicators of possible learning difficulties can be identified in young children and through perceptual exercises and other interventions can be prevented!!!! My dream is to train teachers in this highly specialised skill. With a doctorate in Education, I would have the credibility to lecture internationally in my spare time (holidays).
I am in my deam job and would not relinquish my work with dyslexics easily!! I work with dedicated, knowledgeable colleagues iin a caring, empathetic environment and I am constantly inspired. AND I am learning much from the wonderful children. MaryJo, there is no feeling in the world like seeing a young child succeed. Believe me!!
Finally, your initiative in e-mailing me has re-ignited my heartfelt desire to promote the Early Childhood cause internationally.

In terms of professional development she says they have some part time courses in early childhood at  South African universities that people travel from Sudan to take. For the most part, professional development is poor.

Sharing Web Resources Week 6

On the Children's Defense Fund website this week I followed a link to an article on the Washington Post website about child poverty. The article talked about how little attention child poverty received on the presidential campaign trail. President Obama says there needs to be a "national conversation" about poverty. The author of the article, Jonathan Capehart, said it is time to move from talk to action.

One of the areas of the website is "Be careful what you cut". I decided to explore this campaign further and found sample letters for advocates to send to their representatives as well as pictures showing the results of cutting early childhood programs and what the later consequences will be. The website encourages you to download these pictures to your social media sites or in this case I downloaded to my blog.
                                                                          


One of the most disturbing links for me personally was a link that showed the amount of gun deaths of children by state. I found that Louisiana has the second highest rate of gun deaths with Alaska being the highest. I had no idea until I read this that gun deaths were that bad in my state. Children's Defense Fund is very passionate about gun control and is calling for help for all who advocate for children.

Marian Wright Elder, president of the Children's Defense Fund wrote about a civil rights leader, Medgar Evers in her column. She wrote about the impact that his kindness had on her when she was a young law student. She said he would be thrilled to see an African American president and that Mississippi leads the nation in black elected officials. She also adds that he would be very disappointed to see that black children are still getting separate, unequal, and a failing education in Mississippi and that this state has the highest child poverty.

International inequities

Much of the research done on early childhood education discusses the many developmental and economic benefits. However after reading the online journal Current Issues in Comparative Education, I now understand that the research done in the United States is not relevant to the situations in other countries. For example, the article written on Zambia explains that although the benefits of early childhood education are understood, the country must consider their priorities. Zambia has a failing primary school system that is lacking in money. Teachers interviewed spoke about not having paper, pencils, textbooks, while there was also a lack of classrooms. Developing an early childhood education program would only take more money away from the already failing primary school system. We must not compare the environment in the United States to other countries. Each country must first establish that an early childhood program is feasible. Then each country must create programs that fit into the culture of that country. For example, parents in some countries believe children should be in home care centers not center based until the children enter the school system. High quality programs can be established while at the same time respecting the culture of the parents.

International contact
Margaret, my contact in South Africa referred me this week to the website www.ci.org.za to read the Child Guage 2012 written by the Child Institute of the University of South Africa. This article discusses inequity in income with the poorest people receiving only 0.6% of the national income while the richest people receive 57% of the national income.  The worry is that inequity within a generation will carry over to the next generation. The article stated that poverty does not define inequity itself. There is much inequity in the services that people receive. Largely this is based on demographics. There are 50% of the children in South Africa living in rural areas. These areas are the most deprived of health services, educational services, and early childhood interventions. The location of a child's household determines the gap of inequity. The government does offer a Child Support Grant to help with poverty but the people living in rural areas use the money just to get to the places with services. From my contacts information and this website, I realized that location is a huge contributor toward inequity in South Africa.