EXPANDING OUR RESOURCES

“To create a program that revels in family

involvement, teachers must offer many high-quality,

meaningful, family learning experiences that not only

attract family members but also hold their hearts.”

                                                                                               ~ NAEYC

Welcome everyone to our new class, Issues and Trends in the Early Childhood Field).  I look forward to learning with all of you during this next eight weeks (and hopefully in future classes as well). 

When I first read the assignment for the class to locate and contact two early childhood professionals outside of the United States, I thought it would not be all that difficult.  Surprisingly it has been so far (though I am holding out hope that I will be able to do this). 

I started off with the resource list that was given to us and emailed every contact contained in them.  As of this posting, I have yet to hear anything back from any of the inquiries I had sent.  While waiting to hear back from those individuals, I contacted my exchange students I hosted since 2005.  Unfortunately, none of them know of anyone in their perspective countries who works with children.  I then posted a request on my Facebook for assistance.  I received two replies from friends who said they would ask people they know in other countries for some contact information.  I have yet to hear back but am hopeful that someone will come through with either a resource or receive a reply back from my emails.  I also contacted many, many individuals which I have met during my time as a licensed home child care educator.  Many of these individuals are sending out requests for me and I am, once again, hopeful I will hear from one of the sources.

The second part of the assignment for the class involved expanding our resources in the early childhood field of education.  I have been a member of NAEYC for many, many years so I decided I wanted to expand to a few organizations based outside of the US.  I chose Early Childhood Australia:  The Australian Early Childhood Advocacy Organization.  I also signed up for their newsletter.  I also chose Save the Children.  I also signed up for their email updates and eNewsletter.  I chose these websites/organizations since they were two that I am unfamiliar with at this time.  I also like to choose resources which fit into what I need when I need to be well informed or do research.

I wish everyone a great eight weeks!  I am sure we will each come away from this class with a much larger knowledge base.