Sharing Wed Resources

What specific sections or information seemed particularly relevant to your current professional development?

I was recently hired as a Community and Parent Engagement Coordinator for DC Public Schools Office of Early Childhood Development.  One of my roles will be to organize parent workshops on child development and best practices for school readiness for their preschool aged children.  As I read through the material found on the Harlem Children’s Zone website I came across one of their newsletters, Harlem Children’s Zone a Look Inside, and a featured article that will be especially useful for me in my new role and thus my professional development.   The article entitled Baby Collage gives the following description:

The Baby College is a program of the Harlem Children’s Zone. Its goal is to provide everyone in the Harlem Children’s Zone who is expecting a child or raising children between the ages of 0 and 3 with the information and support necessary to bring up happy and healthy children who enter school ready to learn. Classes are held on Saturday mornings at a local public school, and all services are free. Participants receive breakfast, lunch, incentives, and child care during the nine week course, which covers a broad range of subjects including brain development, discipline, immunization, safety, asthma, lead poisoning, parental stress, and parent-child bonding. The program, which began in 2000, now has three full cycles per year, each with more than 50 graduates.

This program sounds very impressive and something I would like to use as a model for the parent workshops I organize.  I especially like the topics covered in the nine-week course and can see how I would easily be able to include my background of early trauma and toxic stress and its impact on brain development as part of the course offerings for my parents.

Which idea/statements/resources either on the website or in an e-newsletter, did you fine controversial or made you think about an issue in new ways?

I ran across a position paper entitled: Focusing on Results in Promise Neighborhood. Essentially the article makes the case for the expansion of the Harlem Children‘s Zone model through a federal initiative called promise neighborhoods. While reading the position paper I did run across several statements that raised red flags or may be controversial.   The two statements are in regard to why the HCZ model has been so successful and read:

-Measurements Matters: Measurable goals are identified that are clearly sated, meaningful and ambitious

-Data Matters: Data systems are in place, with the capacity to capture, store and access data for community-planning, decision making and accountability.

On the surface these statements seem harmless, and in fact noteworthy; however with the current Standards Movement and high stakes testing taking place within the field in education, such statements should make EC professional pause.  We learned in this week’s discussion topic on new voices in the field of early childhood, that along with the additional resources these voices bring to the field, there are also unintended consequences these voices bring as well.  An over emphasis on results and lead to  those developmentally appropriate practices such as play and child centered curriculum becoming the victims to data an measurable goals.

What information does this website or e-newsletter contain that adds to your understanding of how economist, neuroscientist or politicians support the early childhood field?

It was very apparent by reading through their 2008-2000 biannual report entitled, Harlem Children’s Zone:  Investing in Success, that their model has been heavily supported by economist, scientist and politicians.  For example, I read the following:

The respected Dr. Roland Fryers studied the achievement of the Promise students comparing their statewide test scores to those students who did not win the school’s admission lottery.  He went further and compared their statewide test scores to those students who did not win the school’s admission lottery.  He declared that some grades had closed the black-white achievement gap and his finding had in his words, changed my life as a scientist.

The HCZ model has been supported and influence by neuroscientist in that the center’s Baby College, which offers early childhood development classes to expecting mothers, was largely created in response to the research coined by neuroscientist on how critical the first five years are for the healthy development of the brain and its functions.

I also observed the support and influence of policymakers/politicians. I read how HCZ had become so successful that now the Obama Administration plans to replicate the model through 20 Promise Neighborhoods over the next 10 years.

What other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field di you gain from exploring the website or e-news letter?

During my reading of the HCZ website I also gleaned that there was a big emphasis placed on meeting the needs of the community in order to meet the needs of the students enrolled in their schools.  The HCZ model takes on a whole approach model to child development, by offering a range of social services programs, such as medical and dental, mental health, along with advice to parents on how to find housing to filing taxes. The founders believe in large part that their success is directly linked to these additional services. I wonder if this will become a trend in our nation’s public schools, particularly those schools that have large populations living below the poverty line. Only time will tell!

 

Mt International EC Connections

SAY 你好 -NI HAO TO XIAOWAN CHEN!

Xiaowan is from China where she works as an assistant kindergarten teacher for Shekou International School. Her classroom consist of several nationalities including: American, German, Japanese, Koran, Austrian, Russian, British, and  Indonesian students!

As an early-childhood professional she works to be culturally and linguistically inclusive by greeting parents and students in a different language everyday. She also invites parents to read a book in their native language to introduce her students to the various languages represented in her classroom.

I am looking forward to learning all that I can from Xiaowan about the issues and trends happening in the EC field there in her native country of China!

Say HOLA TO PAOLA JIMENEZ!

Paola, is a bilingual kindergarten teacher from Santander Columbia where she teaches English to 20 4-5 year old at the New Cambridge School.  Paola is staying with me as she participates in a month long English emersion program.

She has been teaching for five years and decided to become a bilingual teacher because she realized the various opportunities being bilingual afforded her and wants to give that to her students.

I had to opportunity to talk with Paola about this week’s discussion topic on poverty and the impact on child development. I asked her what were some of the issues of poverty she observed as a working professional in the field of early childhood. She admitted that she had very little experience and or interaction with poor children.  Her current schools is attended by children who would be considered poor but wealthy.  She herself comes from a upper middle-class background.  She did; however,  mention that when she did her practicum that’s the only time she remembers being expose to poverty.

She talked about how she noticed the children’s clothes were often warn and old looking.  “Many of them had dental  and other various health issues, as well.”  She also commented that many of the children had behavioral issues and were difficult to redirect and keep on task.  Concerning the children’s parents, she remembers them being very respectful and appreciative of her as their child’s teacher. She went on to share how this level of respect and appreciation isn’t found among the parents of her current children.

When I asked her what where her thought’s on poverty in general she seem to hold some of the myths brought up in this weeks reading materials. She believed poor people were poor essentially because they chose to be.  I worked to enlighten her by explaining that there were various reason why people ended up in poverty, among them being the death of the breadwinner and social and institutional structures, such as poor schools, being a contributing factor.

At the conclusion of our conversation I came away having gain insights on  what poverty looks like outside of my context here in America. What I discovered is that that there are a lot of similarities between what poverty looks like and people perceptions about people who are in poverty.  Some of the same observations Paola made about her poor students can be easily observed in poor children here in the US.   And many people here in the Us hold the same views on poverty as that of Paola.

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Thanks for allowing me to introduce you to my two international EC professionals, Paola and Xiaowan!  In two weeks we will travel to China to talk to Xiaowan about current issues and trends in her native country as it relates to the early childhood field, so STAY TUNE!

 

 

The Harlem Children’s Zone

 

 

I found it difficult to put into words what the Harlem Children’s Zone is, so I posted  a video that I feel describes the organization and the groundbreaking work it is doing the close the academic achievement gap and to end poverty!

After surfing the contents of the HCZ website the thing that caught my attention the most was an article and video clip of the President of the United States expressing his delight in the work that HCZ had done over the last 15  years to improve life count comes for some of the nation’s poorest children,  through it various academic and social support initiatives. Apparently, the HCZ urban school model has been so successful that the President announce 5 new Promise Neighbors that the administration will be helping to fund with the hope of producing the same results as that of HCZ.

 

here’s their link to learn more about this great organization: http://www.hcz.org