This week’s podcast came from The Whole Child Podcast
website. The title was Early Childhood
Education: Balancing Expectations and
What Young Learners Really Need. This
podcast included the following professionals:
Thomas Armstrong (an award-winning author and speaker with more than 40
years of teaching experience from the primary through the doctoral level),
Laura Bornfreund (a senior policy analyst for New America Foundation’s Early
Education Initiative), and Walter Mckenzie (a lifelong learner, teacher,
leader, and connector. A director of Constituent Services for ASCD, McKenzie
served 25 years in public education as a classroom teacher, instructional
technology coordinator, director of technology, and assistant superintendent
for information services), Jennifer Orr (a 1st-grade teacher at Annandale
Terrace Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va.) and Wendy Ostroff (a
cognitive psychology, child development, and metacognition expert).
The beginning of a child’s education is as important as
any other time while in school. Children
being exposed to high-quality education programs are important for lifelong development
of children who are of low socio-economic status and can provide returns to its
community that are many times more beneficial.
Standards and academic achievement is the current focus
today and many believe that learning and testing is coming to early. Curriculum and assessment should be based on
the best knowledge of theory and research about how children develop and learn,
with attention given to individual children’s needs and interest within a group
and in relation to programs goals (Whole Child Podcast, 2013).
The Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative”
was founded in 2006. The initiative believes
that the strength and sustainability of any culture depend on the magnitude to
which it increases chances early in life for all children to attain their full
potential and interact in accountable and productive social responsibility.
Their mission is to advance their vision by using science
to enhance child well-being through innovations in policy and practice. The initiative has three strategic objectives:
·
To
reframe public discourse about the early childhood period
·
To
support innovative, multidisciplinary research and demonstration projects and
·
To
build leaderships capacity in child development research and policy.
Based
on these three objectives they have begun to build a portfolio of activities in
three domains:
·
Early
childhood development
·
Mental
health and
·
Children
in crisis and conflict situations
After
listening to this week’s podcast I have come to the conclusion that issues in
early childhood education is universal.
Many have the same concerns and many are attempting to come up with a
resolve for these current and ongoing issues such as the Global Children’s
Initiative through Harvard University and it all comes back to one thing
advocating for children and families so that their lives can be strengthen and
for the long term benefits of receiving early learning.
References
Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative”
website (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/
The Whole Child Podcast—Whole Child Education
http://www.wholechildeducation.org/podcast
(October, 2013)
I agree with you that all over the world people have the same concerns about young children and their development. There may be more health concerns in other countries because of the lack of resources, but everyone wants their child to development cognitively when it matters.
ReplyDeleteThank you Latarsha for sharing the podcast for it was quite interesting. I agree with you and Cheryl that concerns for children's education and development are shared worldwide. However, I am thankful for this class and to Walden for giving us the opportunity to learn about them and how others address children's needs. Thank you again for sharing!
ReplyDeleteEmily~
Hi Latarsha,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about issues in early childhood education is universal. However standards and curriculum have chosen to use the title caregiver/ teacher, because we feel that it comes closest to representing the full spectrum of what we do. I believe the curriculum is addressed to us and the center based staff and family child care providers who are committed to offering a high-quality-program to build leaderships capacity in child development research and policy.