Sharing Web Resources

            There are so many wonderful websites out there that help support early childhood educators and professionals to meet new goals, learn new methods, and expand our knowledge in the classroom. HiMama is a wonderful Blog and Podcast that I have been reviewing for a few weeks now and I can honestly say I can sit for hours just clicking through post after post and podcast after podcast. They have so many different topics that can ensure that your question will be answered here. One topic I am extremely interested in is how to grow a brand, how to create a successful childcare center, and to also learn about the rules and regulations in my state. Katelyn Vickers recently published an article on How to Create a Child Care Center Business Plan, while you may have a great idea in your head it is important to write everything down, review your community, understand your demographic, and most importantly understanding the licensing and regulations for your state.

            I know starting a business can be very challenging, but after reading this article it allowed me to create stepping-stones to completing smaller tasks before looking at the big picture. This article also made me think of “why my early childhood facility?” There are so many on Long Island but what will make mine stand out, what services can I offer that others may not, what exactly is my target market? These simple questions created an issue, I never thought that way, I just assumed it would be a simple task and I would eventually grow a wonderful business. I must create a fool-proof marketing plan that will attract a large majority of my community and also come up with community events and activites to support funding for such an expensive investment.

            While this particular newsletter doesn’t contain much information on economists, neuroscientist, and politicians, I understand how they can support the early childhood field with growing a business. I must understand the law, I must understand the politics and I must understand that investors will play a strong part in growing a wonderful business. The text, Learning Together states, “recent insights in the fields of law, policy, economics, pedagogy, and neuroscience demonstrate that these particular programs produce robust educational, social, and economic benefits for children and for the country” (Kaufman, Kaufman, & Nelson, 2015). As we spoke a lot about this week, investing in early childhood education is imperative to improve our next generation learners.

            Being able to subscribe to such noteworthy newsletters and blogs really allows for early childhood educators all over the world to connect, understand, and learn about new methods from one another. While we may find new issues or trends in the United States maybe they don’t exist in other parts of our world. Being able to see how others provide a high-quality, loving, nurturing and educational environment to their students is what makes the internet so unbelievably valuable for such a growing field.

Reference:

Kaufman, M. J., Kaufman, S. R., & Nelson, E. C. (2015). Learning together: the law,

politics, economics, pedagogy, and neuroscience of early childhood education. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Vickers, K. (2017, February 13). How to Create a Child Care Center Business Plan.

Retrieved from https://www.himama.com/how-to-create-a-child-care-center-business-plan

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

             Unfortunately, I did not have much luck with getting in contact with other early childhood professionals from around the world. So, after last week and finding a podcast, I chose to go with our alternative option. Dr. Lynette M. Fraga “is a leading voice for policy change in her role as executive director for Child Care Aware of America” (Spreeuwenberg, 2017) and has recently done an interview with Ron Spreeuwenberg in regards to advancing in a leadership role and how we as professionals can harness their passions into being a voice for others.

             “The Preschool Podcast, brought to you by HiMama, is a platform for learning from leading professionals in early childhood education. If you work in a childcare, preschool or early years setting, The Preschool Podcast will provide you with inspiring and motivational stories, as well as practical advice for managing your organization, center or classroom. The goal of the The Preschool Podcast is to provide inspiration and knowledge to the future leaders of early childhood education by speaking with experienced and insightful leaders in the world of preschool and early learning today” (Hi Mama Inc.).

            Dr. Fraga talks about her first classroom experience and how unprepared she was as an educator. With a special education degree and nothing in Early Childhood Development, she came up with an idea of how to support those who are supporting young children. She began taking workshops and professional development courses and even getting another education is Early Childhood where she learned how important the early years are for these young children. After moving to Europe and working in childcare on a military base, she realized that she wanted to do more in the policy area.

            She stated, “I wanted to do more about how to affect program change… a lot of exposure to supporting teachers in the classroom, getting to know families and family needs, understanding systems and how systems and policies can really support or detract from quality care… I stepped out of the classroom into an administrative role, as I shared. And, again, the more I learned, the more I sort of stretched myself. The more I knew, I felt like I could make an impact on a systems level. So then I went back to school, and again felt like there were some gaps in the connections between what was happening in the early-childhood classroom and how we were engaged with families, as teachers and administrators and centers” (Spreeuwenberg 2017).

            Listening to her podcast I was inspired, she was in a new classroom and never doubted herself, she continued her education all the way to a Ph.D. in family studies. She has put so much of her life’s work into understanding childhood development and how she can help the children and educators who work with these young students. Dr. Fraga essentially created a framework so we as professionals can be effective with our children and families during this critical time. I am so thrilled I was able to find this website and look forward to hearing their Tuesday podcasts (will place the link below of Archived Podcasts), with so many different topics I am sure that this will give me the edge I need in supporting all students and families in and outside of the classroom.

https://www.himama.com/the-preschool-podcast

Reference:

Hi Mama Inc. (n.d.). The Preschool Podcast: For Leaders in Early Childhood Education. Retrieved March, from https://www.himama.com/the-preschool-podcast

Spreeuwenberg, R. (2017, February 21). Affecting change through leadership. Retrieved from https://www.himama.com/affecting-change-through-leadership

Sharing Web Resources

http://usa.childcareaware.org

              ChildCare Aware of America was one of the newsletters I subscribed to, but they also have many other platforms besides the newsletter they put out. They have an active twitter account where they discuss budgets, Congress, family involvement, affordability and many other aspects in regards to early childhood. I was also able to just click around on their website and came across a fascinating podcast by their Executive Director, Dr. Lynette M. Fraga, who spoke with The Preschool Podcast which is a platform of leaders in early childhood education who share their experiences, thoughts, and insights in the world of early learning. I plan to focus on this website and podcast to continue finding legitimate resources that will help support my professional growth and knowledge in the early childhood field.

http://www.srcd.org

              Society for Research in Child Development has published many different articles, but I mainly focused on the policy updates, which are issued monthly. I also subscribed to this mailing list so I can monitor the policy developments that go on in our country. All programs are relevant to child development and contain information on conferences, training opportunities, new reports, and even a feed of comments from other professionals. As ChildCare Aware, it also highlights the work and experiences of others from around the globe.

             These websites have so many subtopics that you could end up lost, I enjoy reading about the advancements in the field, how our government is trying to improve the early education field, and hearing and reading about others teaching experiences.

Reference:

Society for Research in Child Development. (2017, February). February 2017 Policy

Update. Retrieved from http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=addb5e7d7d66625647754af3f&id=800ccf27c7

Young, A. (2017, February 21). Our Executive Director Speaks to The Preschool Podcast

About Affecting Change for Child Care. Retrieved from http://usa.childcareaware.org/2017/02/executive-director-speaks-preschool-podcast-affecting-change-child-care/

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

            I loved the fact that I was able to contact several professionals to expand my resources on how I can support all learners in the classroom. For this particular assignment, I contacted three early childhood educators with the help of my friends and my recent travels. In August I went on my honeymoon to the lovely island of St. Lucia, while there I was able to take a tour of the city and learn so much about the culture but what shocked me is that all citizens must pay for their children to attend school. Since many individuals live in poverty they are unable to afford an education for their child and the child is then put to work. In the United States, all children have the ability to attend school because of the taxpayers. While early education is a privilege and many families do pay for their child to attend, kindergarten to high school is typically free if they use the public school system. I also have reached out to an educator in Ghana and in Peru, this is because I have two friends who are currently in the Peace Corps who are living in these countries. While I sent emails to all three I have only heard back from the educator in St. Lucia, I am hoping by the weekend I will have a better connection with all of whom I reached out to.

            After reviewing the many links for the second part of this assignment I decided to subscribe to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies due to the fact they have many articles that support military families. I come from a military family, my father served, my grandfather, 4 of my uncles and my brother is currently serving. I never had the opportunity to see how our government supports active duty family members and veterans and thought this is a great opportunity to broaden my education through Child Care Aware of America.

The second website that I chose is Society for Research in Child Development, as stated in a newsletter, “This information will be communicated in an accessible manner to a wider audience so that policy, practice and education decisions will benefit from state-of-the-art scientific information and the public will be better informed on findings from developmental research. Complementary efforts will be made to increase exchanges between researchers and practitioners that can generate improved research by incorporating applied knowledge and questions” (SRCD Governing Council, 2005). By having leading members in the early education field, I can obtain a lot of information throughout these newsletters that will support my professionalism in the early education field.  

I look forward to viewing newsletters on a weekly basis and also expanding a professional circle with other early childcare providers from around the world.

Reference

Navy. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://usa.childcareaware.org/fee-assistancerespite/military-families/navy/

SRCD Governing Council. (2005, April 6). The Society for Research on Child

Development Strategic Plan. Retrieved from http://www.srcd.org/sites/default/files/strategicplan.pdf