Sharing Web Resources

On the website National Black Child Development Institute http://nbcdi.org/, the section that seemed the most relevant to my current professional development was underneath Initiatives labeled early childhood education. An issue that I was not aware of is President Obama’s pledge to make sure that even though we are in an economic crisis, schools funds around the country will not be cut. He wants to make sure that all children have an opportunity for success. President Obama bringing attention to the importance of education is extremely great for the field. This is where the support of politicians come into play. This is an important year in politics, so I have a feeling there will be a lot of attention and focus on education. This is a great thing. Hopefully people will do more than just make promises, hopefully they will come through.

From exploring the website this week, I learned more about the Parent Empowerment Project. It is a project just to help educate parents and helping them to realize that they are essentially children’s first teachers. So they designed this project for lower income African American’s, but are learning quickly that it is beneficial for all parents, so they are opening it up. It’s a great project to show parent’s that they can provide support for their children even on a fixed income.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

I thought I had two conversation partners, but there was a misunderstanding with one of them, so as I continue my search I will introduce you to my other new friend. My conversation partner is Elizabeth Santos. She is from the Philippines. She is a current student and classmate of ours here at Walden University. Elizabeth has really enlightened me about a few issues including poverty about her country.  

First she informed me about the population of her country. In her country there are 94.6 million people. That is as of 2010. When it comes to the issue of poverty there is about 5 million families that is what you would considered poor. The minimum wage of her country is 222 Philippine pesos which is equivalent to 5 dollars American money. The government has been asked for help, but their help seems like a long shot.

As far as education, Elizabeth said there an ECCD or Early Childhood Care and Development Act (Republic Act 8980) has help with the growing value of early childhood education. This act will provide a holistic development to children and families. The act requires that every “baranggay” (meaning village) must have at least 1 daycare center care center for children till 6 years of age. Another program that began in her country is Universal Kinder which provides free kinder program in all public school systems. Although this has been a huge help there are still some problems that have came up. These problems are the lack of classrooms, teachers are not being trained to teach very young children and lack of materials.

I am extremely excited to learn more about Elizabeth’s country and their progress. It sounds like they are already on their way to creating a better education system.

E. Santos (personal communication, January 18, 2012)

Sharing Web Resources

I requested a newsletter be sent to be from the National Black Child Development Institute. The link is http://nbcdi.org/.   I have not received my newsletter yet, but I can give you a brief description of the website. The National Black Child Development Institute is on a mission to improve the lives of Black children and their families (NBCHI, 2012). Their main focus is to give every child a chance. They have worked to improve child welfare services, make universal early care and education a reality, build family support services, press for educational reform and provide vital information regarding children’s health (NBCHI, 2012). The plan is to get the community involved, starting with places like the church and stretching to the barber shops. The goal is to put more responsibilities on the community itself, so we can have not just stronger children, but a stronger community.

 I selected Health and Nutrition from the Initiatives section of the website. I chose this section because I feel like Health and Nutrition is a major part of Early Childhood Development. It can be the basis of how child will learn and grow. The Health and Nutrition section is about different articles and news awareness’s that encourage health and nutrition. These articles for example are Child Health Talk, Promoting Positive Nutrition Practices Among Black Families and Reducing Childhood Obesity. Each article has their own agenda and ways to help create a better future for our children. The articles provide topics that can help families better understand the link between health and nutrition.

What I learned from reading through the website, is that a lot of the issues and trends are the same in the wholeness of the Early Childhood Education Field. What is truly different is that this website and its issues and trends are geared to help better educate Black children, which I think is fantastic. Even though all children need help with their development, not all children are the same and it is great to see that there is a group of people eager to help the different families. This can go to include, Hispanic children, Asian children, Disabled children and many more.

National Black Child Development Institute. (2012). Retrieved from http://nbcdi.org/ on January 14, 2012.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

I was having a difficult time trying to find a professional to actually contact me back. As the week drew to an end, I starting thinking, I have quite a few classmates who are from different countries who I am sure would be more than happy to help. So I contacted Professor Klein and she told me that I was more than welcomed to ask my classmates if they would help. So I went through and tried to remember who I have seen talk about being from different countries, and I have asked them for their help. I still have not received replies from them, but I am extremely excited about their replies and an even better opportunity to get to know my classmates that much better. Maybe it will expand out into long professional relationships.

For my Expanding Resource, I have chosen to learn more information from National Black Child Development Institute. It makes me feel like the choices that I am making to pursue my education in the Early Childhood Field the correct one. I feel like our black children are being looked over. Some schools only see them “problem” children or “section 8” (low income based housing) candidates. I am happy to see and read about a website dedicated to promoting a positive outcome for black children.

The website has great information on Initiatives such as Education, Literacy, Child Welfare and Early Childhood Education and much more. It is a great resource to go and find out about laws that are being passed, Committee meetings, and even give you the opportunity to become more involved in areas near you. They have a program called T.E.A.C.H that they provide scholarships to attend, which looks like a training experience. So not only does the website provide information about education, but also about create opportunities for professionals to meet other professionals and collaborate on how to encourage the black culture to make education an important factor in their development.

National Black Child Development Institutehttp://nbcdi.org/