THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!!!

 “Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.”
John F. Kennedy

I want to thank all of you for your willingness to share your thoughts here in the blog and in our discussions. It has been an amazing journey so far.   I am thankful for the questions you asked which gave me the opportunity to reflect deeper into who I am and what I am doing to make Early Childhood a better place for our children.  It has been my pleasure to read all of your blogs and gain insight into areas of this field I was not aware of.  Good luck in your future, hopefully we will see each other ( our namesJ) in other courses.

NAEYC Code of Ethics

Section IV

Ethical Responsibilities to Community and Society

I-4.4—To work through education, research, and advocacy toward a society in which all young children have access to high-quality early care and education programs.

I-4.5—To work to ensure that appropriate assessment systems, which include multiple sources of information, are used for purposes that benefit children.

I-4.8—To further the professional development of the field of early childhood care and education and to strengthen its commitment to realizing its core values as reflected in this Code

It is my passion to make sure each child has a high quality experience, within that experience we need to make sure programs have a balance that includes the use of assessment tools.  These tools need to be used as intended by the research that makes them reliable. The use of assessment systems need to be used by administration for the benefit of children, these tools can enhance the learning experience for children when a teacher uses the tool appropriately. As a teacher it is my responsibility to continue to learn and apply new research and information that will offer better educational opportunities to children, parents and community partners as we continue to strengthen our community starting with our youngest learners.

Course Resources: Foundations in ECE

• NAEYC. (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/dap
• NAEYC. (2009). Where we stand on child abuse prevention. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/ChildAbuseStand.pdf
• NAEYC. (2009). Where we stand on school readiness. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/Readiness.pdf
• NAEYC. (2009). Where we stand on responding to linguistic and cultural diversity. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/diversity.pdf
• NAEYC. (2003). Early childhood curriculum, assessment, and program evaluation: Building an effective, accountable system in programs for children birth through age 8. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/pscape.pdf
• NAEYC. (2009, April). Early childhood inclusion: A summary. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/DEC_NAEYC_ECSummary_A.pdf
• Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families. (2010). Infant-toddler policy agenda. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.zerotothree.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ter_pub_infanttodller
• FPG Child Development Institute. (2006, September). Evidence-based practice empowers early childhood professionals and families. (FPG Snapshot, No. 33). Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~snapshots/snap33.pdf
  
  Note: The following article can be found in the Walden University Library databases.
• Turnbull, A., Zuna, N., Hong, J. Y., Hu, X., Kyzar, K., Obremski, S., et al.  (2010). Knowledge-to-action guides. Teaching Exceptional Children, 42(3), 42–53.
  Use the Academic Search Complete database, and search using the article's title. 

Part 2: Global Support for Children’s Rights and Well-Being

• Article: UNICEF (n.d.). Fact sheet: A summary of the rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf
   
• Websites:
• World Forum Foundation http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/about.php
  This link connects you to the mission statement of this organization. Make sure to watch the video on this webpage 
• World Organization for Early Childhood Education http://www.omep-usnc.org/
  Read about OMEP’s mission.  
• Association for Childhood Education Internationalhttp://acei.org/about/
  Click on “Mission/Vision” and “Guiding Principles and Beliefs” and read these statements.

Note: Explore the resources in Parts 3 and 4 in preparation for this week’s Application assignment.

Part 3: Selected Early Childhood Organizations

• National Association for the Education of Young Childrenhttp://www.naeyc.org/
• The Division for Early Childhoodhttp://www.dec-sped.org/
• Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Familieshttp://www.zerotothree.org/
• WESTEDhttp://www.wested.org/cs/we/print/docs/we/home.htm
• Harvard Education Letterhttp://www.hepg.org/hel/topic/85
• FPG Child Development Institutehttp://www.fpg.unc.edu/main/about.cfm
• Administration for Children and Families Headstart’s National Research Conferencehttp://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hsrc/
• HighScope http://www.highscope.org/ 
• Children’s Defense Fund http://www.childrensdefense.org/
• Center for Child Care Workforce http://www.ccw.org/
• Council for Exceptional Children http://www.cec.sped.org//AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home
• Institute for Women’s Policy Research http://www.iwpr.org/index.cfm
• National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education http://www.ncrece.org/wordpress/
• National Child Care Association http://www.nccanet.org/
• National Institute for Early Education Research http://nieer.org/
• Pre[K]Now http://www.preknow.org/
• Voices for America’s Children http://www.voices.org/
• The Erikson Institute http://www.erikson.edu/
     

  

Additional Resources:

·         Child Trends: School readiness.

http://www.childtrends.org/_catdisp_page.cfm?LID=A9ED4ABF-6477-45ED-8BCEE3A479A8D0D4

·         Center for the Developing Child – Harvard University

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/

o   Early Childhood Innovation Partnership: Reducing Developmental Barriers to Learning. Retrieved March 30, 2011.

·         Birth to Five Policy Alliance

http://www.birthtofivepolicy.org/

http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/policy/toolkit.pdf
Advocacy tools Chapter1 (pages 3,4) Chapter 3 (pgs. 15,16)

http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/courses/56611/CRS-CW-4894979/educ6005_readings/naeyc_codeofethicspdf.pdf

NAEYC code of ethics.

Words of Inspiration and Motivation

" I had I think a built in passion that it was important to make a real contribution to the world and to fix all the injustices that exist in the world."
Louise Derman- Sparks
Professor Emeritus
Pacific Oak College, CA

"Its also, dare I say feminist work, because I want women to have choices.  While I believe fiercely in early childhood education and strong child care policies, and I think they should be available for everyone. I also believe woman should have a choice, and one of those choices should be not to use child care, stay home with their child if they want.  So I think a lack of family policy in this country is an issue."
Renatta M. Cooper
Program Specialist
Office of Child Care
LA County Chief Admistratives Office

Quotes taken from
Video Program: “The Passion for Early Childhood”
Five early childhood professionals share passion, motivation, and commitment to the early childhood field.

Books by Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan

 

 written in conjunction with other Authors



Dr. Aisha Ray

 Dr. Aisha Ray has helped the Early Childhood Field through her extensive research. The paper is called:

  Preparing Early Childhood Teachers to Successfully Educate all Children: The contribution of State Boards of Higher Education and National Professional Accreditation Organizations.

Here are two excerpts from a paper,

 "A growing consensus acknowledges that teacher preparation and professional  development must help all teachers gain knowledge and practice skills that contribute to

the educational achievement of all children (Ladson-Billings, 1999; NAEYC, 2002; Ray,2000)."

 further into the research paper

"Throughout this paper we have asserted that the developmental and educational needs of children with seven characteristics—race, ethnicity, culture, language, immigrant status, special needs and social class—need to be placed at the center of early childhood teacher standards; that their developmental and educational needs must be defined and understood from cultural and ecological perspectives; and that research suggests that teachers need specialized knowledge to contribute to positive educational outcomes. A new conceptualization of teacher standards should identify these areas of specialized knowledge competent teachers need to have for children with these characteristics (e.g., culture) and multiple characteristics (e.g., culture, social class, language)."

http://www.plan4preschool.org/documents/contributions-state-boards.pdf:

To find out more about Dr. Aisha Ray and other research she has done. www.erikson.edu/default/faculty/faclistings/aisha_ray.aspx

              

So many teachers have benefited from her work.  We all go to college and know we are following the standards set before us, but how many of us consider the work of the people who have put these standards into place or are challenging the current ones to change to meet the needs of our changing world?