The World Forum Foundation

The World Forum Foundation is a \n organizations where Early Childhood Professionals and Researchers from around the world can share ideas and discuss trend and topics within the field. There are members in over 80 countries around the world who meet both regionally and at a world conference.
The foundation is a host to many projects.  One project that is interesting to me is the Working Group on Play.  The group was started in 2009 and is comprised of 16 people from 10 different countries.  The group meets to discuss four basic areas:explaining play, the influence of schools and home life on play, the influence of media and corporate cultures on play, and the role of gender and diversity on play. Play is vital to learning and the group supports each other is this thought.
I've always been intrigued by how much a child can learn through play and was very happy to know that this is a topic being discusses by professionals around the world. I intend to contact the forum and find out how I can become involved with this working group.

For more information about the World Forum Foundation, I invite you to visit their website
http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/

International Contacts and Resources

The World Forum Foundation's mission is to link international professionals and advocates in the early childhood field to share ideas and support each others goals of providing quality care to children around the world.  The forum meets every 2 years, early childhood professionals from over 80 countries attend the world conference. Regionally professionals meet to discuss specific issues within the field.
Via the pod casts I was introduced to two very interesting women.  While we are all professionals in the early childhood field, what we do is very different. Deevia Bhana is professional/researcher in South Africa.  She has based her research on the sexuality of young children.  South Africa is plagued with HIV and AIDS and children are very much at risk.  Deevia is proposing that the education system should reach out to the children and teach them to be comfortable with their sexuality.  She believes that this is the first step in understanding sex and it's risks and consequences. Being a mother of a young girl I feel conflicted about this thought.  While I want to make sure that my daughter feels comfortable coming to me with questions about sex I'm not sure preschool is the time to start talking about sexuality. I am very interested in continuing to attempt a correspondence with Deevia and learning more about her research.
Mayson Chehab is a professional in Lebanon.  Mayson working with children and families at an NGO Arab research collector.  Her work in Lebanon is helping children and families after the stress of war.  The most recent war in Lebanon lasted 33 days and destructed near all of the schools.  This, of course led to much stress for the young children who had once felt so safe inside their schools.  I am so glad i chose to listen to the Maysoun's interview because it really put into perspective for me the troubles and stresses that children in other parts of the world have to deal with. It made me stop and think about how lucky I am to be the Director of a school where I am never in fear for my safety or the safety of my staff or children. I am looking forward to continuing to follow and learn more about the work that Maysoun does in Lebenon.

My Supports

I am blessed to have many supports both in my personal and professional life.  My family has always been a great source of support in my life. Through their encouragement, praise and support I have been able to make through my undergraduate years at UT, away from home.  I was the first in my family to leave home for college and though I was excited I couldn't have made it through without the frequent visits and phone calls from my family.  I truly believe it was their support during these early college years that contributed to the success I have found after graduation.  I was able to find a major and career path that was meaningful to me, unlike so many of others I know who were forced into majors by their families; who were not supportive of their liberty to choose for themselves.

My husband is a great support as well. His support is evident in our home life and my work life.  I am able to work late sometimes and attend school functions because I know that our daughter is happy and taken care of at home with her daddy.  Without his support I would not have been able to return to graduate school.  Imagining myself as a single mother is terrifying. On the few days when I have to get myself and my daughter ready for school on our own, I experience what it might be like to not have my husband around. My work life would suffer because I wouldn't be able to dedicate as much time to it, and I would have to take off every time she got sick.  Having a second pair of eyes and hand around helps with the simple tasks like making dinner, getting laundry done and grocery shopping. I have to utmost respect for single parents because I don't know if I would have the strength to do it on my own.

My Connections to Play

Thinking back to my childhood, come of my most vivid memories are of me playing alone in my backyard playhouse. Being an only child, I played very well on my own. I loved have a place outside of the house that was all my own. I spent hours playing house, cooking up dinners and tending to my baby dolls.

I was lucky to have had parents that supported my play and provided me the opportunity to spend so much time playing in my backyard playhouse. I can remember my father and grandfather building the playhouse together and how I felt so special that they were working so hard to make something just for me. Play has changed so much since I was little. Now children consider play to be something you do on a computer or through a video game. While there are some good things technological games can teach, there are no opportunities for language development or social engagement. When I played in my playhouse I carried on full conversations with my baby dolls and imaginary friends and tea guests.  The thing I found best about my playhouse was that I made the rules and decisions. Nobody told me how or what to play, I always just decided to play with my baby dolls.  My choice to pursue a career in child development could very well have stemmed from the hours I spent tending to babies in my backyard playhouse. Some children play doctor or teacher, I took care of babies, there is something to be said of that.

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato

“Play has been man's most useful preoccupation.” Frank Caplan

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Becoming a mother for the first time is a frightening thing. Although our pregnancy was planned, we didn't expect to be successful so soon.  I felt unprepared when we became pregnant and, like many new mothers, ran to the book store and picked up a pile of books to help me through my pregnancy. 
I learned what to eat, how to exercise and could give you weekly updates on how my fetus was developing. All of this knowledge was completely useless once my daughter was born. I couldn't believe that, despite all my readings and degree in early childhood, I was at a loss when it came to caring for a newborn.
SIDS was a HUGE source of stress for me.  I think the ambiguity of the syndrome is what scarred me the most. It was something you couldn't do much to prevent, you just had to cross your fingers and hope it didn't happen to your baby.
The more I researched the more I found that there were actually several things we could do to prevent the chances of SIDS. Keeping the temperature at 70, not letting a baby sleep on your chest and of course putting a baby to sleep on their back were all preventative measures. Still, I checked on my infant constantly to make sure I saw her little check moving up and down. She began sleeping through the night, I however was waking every 2 hours to check on her.
I hope that we will soon know more and understand more about SIDS.  sidscenter.org listed the US as having the second highest infant mortality rate due to SIDS.  The Neatherlands and Japan were raked as the lowest.

Resources

Geaprgetown University (Retrieved 2011) National Sudden and Unexpected Infant\Child Death and Pregnancy Loss. Resource Center. Retrieved from http://www.sidscenter.org/Statistics.html

Thanks to all my Wonderful Colleages

Self-esteem is the real magic wand that can form a child’s future. A child’s self-esteem affects every area of her existence, from friends she chooses, to how well she does academically in school, to what kind of job she gets, to even the person she chooses to marry.

STEPHANIE MARTSON, The Magic of Encouragement

I'd like to thank all of my wonderful collegues for sharing stories and resources this semester. I have learned so much from reading your blogs and discussions posts. Please continue making a positive impact in all the lives of the children you work with!

Happy Holidays!

Educating the Whole Student

More and more we are hearing about the "Whole Child" and what it means to address and understand all the needs a child has: intellectual, spiritual, social, physical and emotional.  In researching this topic I came across an article in which the New York State education department is outlining exactly how a school can educate the whole child.
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/sss/sedl/DRAFTguidelinesforNYSlatestversion.pdf
These guidelines walk you through the domains that should be addresses and how a school should go about doing this.  The basics are support, involvementt, outreach and intervention. It is the belief of this education department that when the "Whole Child" is considered teacher can teach more effectively, learning will happen more consistently and parents and the community will become more involved.

Other countries are already prioritizing social and emotional learning. Singapore for example, had integrated SEL (Social Emotional Learning) into their schools and consistently scores at the top of Iinternational Math and Science competitions (Barth,M. 2010).

American children deserve every opportunity for success and if social emotional learning is missing for the schools, it's worth a try.


Barth, M. (2010) Educating the Whole Child Engaging the Whole School. NYS Eduaction Department, Albany, NY.