Thanks for a great course!

Hello all,
I am relieved to be concluding this course as the holidays rapidly approach.  I do think there have been some great discoveries and conversations this course.

Learning about the international early childhood field has been extremely beneficial throughout this course.  It has served to:

1. Emphasize that questions of equity of care affect children all over the world.
2. Teach me that the training of early childhood educators in the field is incredibly important throughout the world.  Teachers in other countries often have less preparation than teachers here in the United States.
3. Show that there is an opportunity in less developed nations to prepare families and teachers in the early childhood field to appropriately utilize play as an early childhood strategy before more traditional pressures of assessment and standardized testing take hold.

I hope to further my international contacts and continue to develop my knowledge of international strategies and resources.  Building international connections could only help to further the early childhood education field.

Concluding Conversations with my International Contact

Having the opportunity to engage in conversation with my friend Becca regarding her experience teaching Kindergarten and preschool in Huehue, Guatemala has been extremely rewarding.  The conversations she's encountering at the school and orphanage in Huehue are so different, and yet remarkably similar, to those we have been having in this class.  Ultimately, conversations in Huehue come down how to best use resources to create consistent, quality teaching and relationships for the children attending the school and living at the orphanage.  Resources, obviously, look very different in Huehue, but the relationships hold the same importance in both settings.  As a school run by an international nonprofit organization, questions of politics and government policies bear little impact on Becca's school.  Questions of equity, however, bear a lot of weight on the minds of the teachers and administrators of the school.  Limited resources mean limited enrollment, but of course there is always a hope that they could be reaching more children and providing a wider range of care.

Becca has found a strong network of support among the current and former teachers with More than Compassion.  Learning together the best ways to teach in early childhood has been a challenge and an exciting adventure.  The team is constantly striving to provide better education for the children, but doesn't always have access to opportunities for professional development.

Becca isn't sure that her professional goals will always keep her in the realm of early childhood development, but that she will remain in the world of missions and international aid.  At least for now, she and her husband plan to stay in Huehue to teach for another year, then reevaluate their opportunities.  She hopes to see the continued growth of the school in Huehue and continued development of relationships in the community and among the parents of her students.  I look forward to seeing her continue to grow in this role and hope that she can see what a beautiful impact she is having on these young children.

Revisiting the ICRI

It has been a pretty cool assignment to spend multiple weeks combing over the website of the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI), especially alongside my expanding understanding of current issues and trends in the field of early childhood.

The ICRI website has hardly any links to outside sites. There were a couple links to outside fundraising sites on their blog, but even most of their fundraising is done internally. They also do not have any kind of resources page linking to outside sites.

The area I chose to explore thoroughly was the page explaining the ICRI's consultation services. They offer needs assessments, program and facility design services, cutting edge curriculum, branding services, and even offer to raise net income of centers by 20%. They consult for child care centers, large corporations, non profits, and international leaders. Past projects have included work for the WHO, IBM, the University of Nairobi, and the education ministry of Croatia. Consulting is an interesting business, and the breadth of the work that the ICRI does for such a wide range of organizations was really interesting.

The ICRI in the United States is based out of San Francisco and has come awesome projects in motion focusing on equity and access in disadvantaged communities. They've have opened a devoted Spanish/English preschool in addition to their two English schools in the area. They also have a physical development and mobility projected called Project Commotion that has a dedicated staff to provide special education support and advocacy. Perhaps most interesting to me, their Family Daycare Support Network program reimburses home childcare providers in the area for the expenses related to preparing and serving meals that meet the appropriate nutrition standards.

International Child Resource Institute (n.d.).  Retrieved from http://www.icrichild.org/ourvision/

Excellence and Equity in Huehue, Guatemala

My conversations with Becca about her experience teaching in Huehue, Guatemala have continued to be interesting and informative for me as an early childhood professional.  As I approached this blog post, however, it was difficult to wrap my mind around the application of a conversation about excellence and equity to a situation in Huehue that is so distinctly different and unequal from the programs we are used to encountering in the United States.  Her school is comprised of 90% orphan children, which is already a significant developmental disadvantage from most of the students we encounter day to day that go home to one or two loving and encouraging, but not always perfect, parents.  In addition to that, the school is in an agricultural area of Guatemala experiencing extreme poverty, a major toxic stress on young, developing minds.  Finally, her school is dependent on outside funding coming from the United States - teachers, classroom materials, even the buildings, are dependent on the generosity of distant and far removed neighbors for the supplies needed to be successful.  Despite these challenges, based on my conversation with Becca regarding her focus on the whole child, on connecting with and building trust among her students, these children are receiving excellent care given the circumstances.

Equity, however, is a different question.  Becca said that oftentimes her kindergarten class will have students that are ten or thirteen years old.  In Guatemala, you have to attend each year of school, regardless of the age you start, so if a child is unable to start school until they are older because of family financial problems, etc., the child still starts at kindergarten.  This is evidence that early childhood education is not widely available to children, for one can assume that for every ten year old starting kindergarten, there is another ten year old that is never able to do so.

Becca and I also had a very interesting conversation about the treatment of children with disabilities at More than Compassion.  Becca's preschool class has 11 children, and one of the, Steven, has cerebral palsy and needs one on one attention.  Amazingly, Becca was given an aid in her class that was able to provide that attention for much of the year.  With the arrival of another preschool teacher to help with her class, Becca and the other teacher are able to take turns working with Steven independently.  This is an incredible opportunity for Steven because in Huehue, there is virtually no special needs education.  Had he not found his way into the program at More than Compassion, Steven would simply sit at home with no education or stimulation at all.

http://morethancompassion.org/ourschool/

I hope you are all enjoying your conversations as much as I am.  It is so hard to imagine such a different teaching environment!

Amy

The ICRI

Exploring the resources on the International Child Resource Institute has been informative and encouraging.  There are so many incredibly organizations focusing on early childhood issues in our world today.  What an honor it is to be able to study and partner with these organizations as we advance the field of early childhood education.

In exploring the International Child Resource Institute, the section of the webpage that I found most relevant to my current professional development was the blog.  Posts on the blog spread a wide range from informative, inspiring, and applicable.  There are posts about their development work in the Himalayas after the earthquake in Nepal, posts from staff explaining their motivations to be in the early childhood field, and updates on the work of their projects worldwide.

I loved the idea of their Watoto Water Bus, a mobile program that brings teacher training, and innovative materials to low income schools and child care programs in Kenya.  In Nepal, they have an interesting program supporting prisoners and their children, focusing of HIV/AIDS prevention, vocational training, and psychosocial education.  In Sweden, the ICRI is being asked to establish child care centers for immigrant students taught in home languages.  What a beautiful, proactive, liberal minded program in a world that is facing immense controversy over the European immigration situation.

Reading through the resources in the ICRI website, the work of economists, neuroscientists, or politicians  is minimally evident, but absolutely concurrent.  Third world development is a huge focus of the ICRI, so the world of economics is obviously important and an underlying theme.  Political decisions are clearly influencing the ability of the ICRI to have influence.  For example, it is because of changes in the legislation in Sweden that private and not for profit organizations like the ICRI are able to begin establishing early childhood programs for immigrant children.

I look forward to reading about what everyone else has discovered!

Amy

International Child Resource Institute (n.d.).  Retrieved from http://www.icrichild.org/ourvision/

Getting to Know My International Contact

This week, I had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with an old friend, Becca, and begin a conversation about her experience teaching in Huehue, Guatemala.  She has spent the last year teaching at an orphanage and bilingual school called Colegio Bilingue Esperanza.  The school has three parts; the orphanage, the school, and a home for teenage girls who come from violent backgrounds, a number of which have infants of their own as a result of sexual violence they have experienced.  She said that while her formal role is preschool and kindergarten teacher, she spends a lot of time at the orphanage and girls' home "building relationships, tutoring, doing activities, playing, hugging, laughing, mentoring, tying shoes, putting on bandaids, sitting through tantrums, picking out lice, trying to teach social norms because parents aren't there to do that, and worshipping Jesus" (Becca, personal communication, November, 14, 2015).  In the classroom, the children spend half the day with their Guatemalan teacher, and half the day with their American teacher.  The American teachers, like Becca, teach English, Art, Bible, and Service Learning.

I know I already shared this, but if any of you would like to read more about Becca's experience or help her and her husband stay in Guatemala for another year, here is the link to their fundraising site.

Poverty is truly one of the biggest factors in her teaching experience in Guatemala.  The school is about 90% students from the orphanage and girls' home, and 10% students from the community.  Even though it is an elementary school, she described, they have many teenagers that attend their school.  Because of the intense poverty in Guatemala, many children do not have the opportunity to start school at the traditional age.  In Guatemala, not matter what age you start school, you start in the first grade.  This means that it is not uncommon for the first grade class at her school to be a mixed age group with children as old as twelve, as well as the more traditional six.  Becca said that one of the major challenges in teaching at the Colegio Bilingue Esperanza as a result of the extreme poverty, violence, and abandonment that these children have experienced is behavior management.  Many of the children at the school lack parental support at home, helping with homework or teaching appropriate behavior and social norms.  Another challenge Becca highlighted was connecting with the few parents of the children that are from the community.  Because she teaches her students in English, she struggles with sending work or activities home because the children's parents won't understand the language.  She wants to think creatively about how to work with these parents next year.  If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to share them with her!

I had a wonderful experience hearing about Becca's experience teaching in Guatemala and cannot wait to share more with you.

Amy

The International Child Resource

The organization that I chose to explore is the International Child Resource Center (IRCI).  This organization currently oversees projects in Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Nepal, the USA, Chile, India, Malaysia, and Sweden.  Their goal is to foster a world where "all children and families are able to fulfill their greatest potential" (International Child Resource Center [IRCI], n.d.).

The organization has highlighted five main areas of focus to achieve this goal.  They hope to support early childhood care and education, in particular by providing high quality and developmentally appropriate early childhood care.  They advocate for children's rights to safe and stable lives that are free from violence or abuse.  They desire the empowerment of women and girls, hoping for girls to have an opportunity to succeed without discrimination, exploitation, or gender based violence.  They provide services focused on maternal and child health, particularly relating to HIV/AIDS treatment.  And finally, they believe in grassroots community development in order to create sustainability and self sufficiency.

http://www.icrichild.org/kenya/

I also found it interesting to find out that the IRCI also has three early childhood centers in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I can only imagine how awesome their programs must be!

http://www.icrichild.org/united-states/

I spent a good amount of time reading through the IRCI's blog looking at recent issues and trends.  Their most recent blog posts talk about disaster relief and the importance of donations for these causes.  The issue or trend that I would like to highlight, however, came from a post in February of 2015.  I feel this post was relevant both to their goals as an organization, as well as to the goals of our program.  The post was titled "A Free Resource on Safe and Healthy Child Care."  The IRCI formed a collaboration in order to create a resource for parents and caregivers on how to maintain child health and reduce illness and injuries from daily child care.  There are twenty resources on the site about illness, injury prevention, food preparation, emergency preparedness, and safe practices.  Amazingly, the resource is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Mandarin, and is updated regularly to reflect the most recent information.  This resource addresses the organization's focus of helping to provide high quality early childhood care, but also addresses issues of diversity and poverty in terms of access to quality information.  I imagine this resource could be helpful to all of us, as well.  Here is the link to the website: http://www.globalhealthychildcare.dreamhosters.com/.

http://www.icrichild.org/blog/2015/2/3/learn-how-to-keep-your-child-healthy

I look forward to reading about the resources everyone else found this week.

Amy

International Child Resource Institute (n.d.). Our Vision.  Retrieved from http://www.icrichild.org/ourvision/

International Child Resource Institute Blog (2015, February 10). A Free Resource on Safe and Healthy Child Care.  Retrieved from http://www.icrichild.org/blog/2015/2/3/learn-how-to-keep-your-child-healthy

Our International Colleagues

Hello Classmates!
I am excited about this blog assignment.  It gave me the opportunity to reach out to two friends from college that are now teaching preschool at orphanages in Guatemala and Thailand.  I am excited to share with you their experiences in early childhood in those countries and inspired by their commitment to their kids.  I reached out to both of them on Facebook this week and they are also excited to share with us, but incredibly busy.  Hopefully I'll get some awesome nuggets from them through the weeks.  My friend, Becca, is teaching at the bilingual school sponsored by More than Compassion (http://morethancompassion.org/), an organization started by a classmate of mine in college.  She is loving her position and currently fundraising to stay another year to teach with her husband in Huehue, Guatemala (https://www.youcaring.com/brooklin-becca-nash-424253).  I know much less about the background for Cristina, my friend teaching in Thailand.  I am excited to learn what her experience has been.

The website I have chosen to study is the International Child Resource Institute (http://www.icrichild.org/).  This organization is committed to helping families and children reach their potential by focusing efforts on early childhood care and education, maternal and child health, children's rights, grassroots community development, and empowerment of women and girls.  I am excited to learn more about the organization, their projects, and the motivation behind their concentrated efforts.

Finally, I wanted to share an awesome, if only slightly related article with you.  This came up on my facebook, and I can't help but share.  Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of facebook, is opening a K-12 private school in the San Francisco area that is going to function in constant partnership with a health care clinic.  The school is designed for children coming from low income families and will be free of charge for the students.  They will get healthcare alongside their education.  For some families, the healthcare benefits might start as early as prenatal care.  What a cool and well rounded program!  I only wish that someone from our program had helped educate Zuckerberg on the benefits of quality preschool education and encouraged him to offer his services to children even younger!

I am so looking forward to hearing the connections you each make!

Amy

My Supports

     There are so many supports for which I am grateful and on which I rely on every day.  They run the gamut from physical to practical to emotional.  Here are a couple of both whimsical and serious supports that are particularly important to me at the moment.

My morning coffee is incredibly important to me.  While the caffeine gives me an important jolt, what is more important to me is the ritual.  Every morning, the first thing I do is turn on the coffee pot.  Then as I settle in at my vanity to get ready for the morning, I sip my coffee and enjoy the process of waking up.

Bob.  Oh how Bob supports me!  For my birthday, my husband bought me a robotic vacuum (a bobSweep).  Bob helps me keep my house in order.  You know that feeling when your floor is covered in grit and therefore, your whole life must be out of control?  Bob helps me avoid that feeling.  In the evenings, I just turn him on, let him clean my floors, and often times, boss him around a little as he works.

My husband is of course my greatest support.  Even just a text or an imagined conversation with him can be comforting to me as I face challenges or disappointments.  He is my biggest cheerleader and my most important sounding board.  He understands what is important to me, believes in what I believe in, and knows exactly how to speak into my heart.  He supports me physically when I am ill, mentally when I am unsure,  and emotionally when I am discouraged.  Last night, for example, I was feeling under the weather and he could tell, so he kicked into Mr. Mom mode and took care of dinner, the dishes, helping me get ready for bed, and then, instead of studying late into the night like he needed to, he went to sleep beside me because he could tell I needed him there.  It meant a busy, early morning for him, but he knew I needed the support and offered it without hesitation.

     Supports like these could see me through any number of challenges. In fact, they already have. My routine comforts like coffee or a clean home and the love and encouragement of my husband have seen me through huge transitions like graduating college, moving across the country, multiple job changes, starting a masters, and losing two grandparents. My support system is what has kept me sane and maintained normalcy through periods of transition I cannot even imagine life without my supports!

My Connection to Play

"A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men."

-Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

"This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play."

-Alan W. Watts

"It is a happy talent to know how to play."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I chose these quotes to represent my experience with play because they capture the conflict I often felt as a child between the hard work that I enjoyed and the "nonsense" that I struggled to enjoy. As play looks different for everyone, it is important that each of us has the opportunity to deeply invest in activities we enjoy.

We had a playhouse much like this one when I was growing up. My uncle built it and painted it to imitate our house.

My dad and I read The Little House on the Prairie series before bed over the course of a few years, so the series became a strong theme in my childhood play. I was Ma for Halloween one year, we visited homesteads around our state, and I even learned to cook asking my mom to help me imitate recipes from the stories.

My parents were very supportive of my play growing up. They gave me so many tools for child directed play, as did many of the moms in the neighborhood.  I don't remember any elements of play once I entered elementary school, though.

I think that play in my neighborhood looks very similar to what it was like growing up, but it really hasn't been that long and the neighborhood has maintained a lot of the same character. There is absolutely a stronger influence is technology in play these days, but I almost feel like the continuum is swinging back the other way. Parents in my neighborhood are limited early childhood screen time such that many two years olds don't recognize Elmo anymore. It will be interesting to see how technology continues to play out in early childhood.

My play in early childhood played a critical role in forming who I am today. I still enjoy "playing house" with my husband, making our house a home and taking pride in meals we share, etc.  Play also helped establish my work ethic and my independence when my sisters were born (twins born when I was three and a half).

Relationship Reflection

"Human relationships, and the effects of relationships on relationships,
are the building blocks of healthy development"
(Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000, p. 4)

Relationships are truly the center of who we are.  It is through relationships that we learn about the world, develop our aspirations, and discover ourselves.  They allow us both an infinite window into worlds unknown, as well as the deep comforts of familiarity.  To me, it is in relationship that I am reminded of the things I care the most about, the person I want to embody, and the world I hope to contribute to.  Without the people that surround me, I lack any significance.

My sisters and I - Ages 8 and 4

One of the most important relationships in my life, and certainly my most transformative relationship, is the one I have with each of my sisters.  They are twins, three and a half years younger than me, and while my relationship with each of them looks completely different, I've chosen to talk about them as a unit.  The relationship between the three of us is best understood as a triad - we have spent twenty one years learning from each other, holding each other up when things were difficult, and encouraging one another to constantly reach new frontiers in our personal, academic, and professional lives.  We work hard to maintain our relationships - living thousands of miles apart, we communicate often, spend time together when we can, but most importantly, we try to practice grace in all of our interactions with each other.

My husband and I, 2013

Easily the most prominent relationship in my life is my relationship with my husband.  We have been married for two and a half years, and before that, dated long distance for two years while attending college in North Carolina and California.  Our relationship, above all else, has taught me the value of prioritizing.  We have learned that we have to constantly structure our lives in a way that values our relationship above others, sets aside time, energy, and resources to share with one another, and that we constantly affirm and uplift each other.  The relationship is absolutely a partnership.  We live our lives such that our work, our hobbies, and our schoolwork maintain balance with one another.  When I have a crazy week, my husband picks up the pieces.  When he has a crazy week, I take as much as I can off of his plate and onto mine.  We communicate constantly in order for the partnership to flourish.

My sweet Kaiden and I, Christmas 2013

The third relationship I thought I would mention is completely different from the first two, and yet a lot of the principles remain the same.  This is my nephew, Kaiden.  He is now three and a half.  When he was born, I lived only fifteen minutes away and had the amazing opportunity to care for him 20 hours a week while his mom worked.  Our bond in that first year of his life was incredible.  When he turned one, my husband and I moved to Nashville, and Kaiden and my relationship has changed dramatically, but again, a lot of the principles remain the same.  He has the sweetest, most giving heart and absolutely loves having us in town for visits.  He holds no grudge for the infrequency of time we spend with him.  On my end, I just have to chose to be very intentional about the way we continue to care for him.  For example, he burned his arm over Labor Day weekend, and while I would have loved to come over and brought a special treat for him, instead I sent a superhero cape to match his superhero bandage.  We talk frequently and send pictures back and forth.  The most important thing is that he knows his aunt loves him very much and will always look out for him.  The ways I show that have just changed over the years.

Each of our experiences in relationships contributes to our work in early childhood education.  First of all, our personal relationships contribute to the biases we bring with us to work every day.  Second, they contribute to our attitude, energy level, and vulnerability, whether we would like them to or not.  And finally, they give us a working baseline - either positive or negative - from which we will naturally model our relationships after.  Having positive, encouraging, energizing relationships will allow us the ability to create and maintain further positive relationships with our children and our families.

Thanks for reading!

Amy

When I Think of Child Development

This course has taught me that the health of a child is dependent on so much more than healthy eating. Healthy childhood development is dependent on the adequate provision of physical needs like nutritious food and reliable shelter, but also positive, prosocial relationships, cognitive stimulation, an abundance of language, and above all else, an abundance of love.

This is a photo of my healthy, beautiful, younger sister indulging in a special rice crispy treat.
(Photo circa 1998)

"What the child can do in cooperation today,
he can do alone tomorrow."
-Lee Vygotsky, 1934

This is a photo of my husband helping our almost two year old nephew over a bridge in Nashville.  This picture represents to me an example of the Zone of Proximal Development that Vygotsky wrote about and that defines much of childhood development for me.  Here, my nephew may have been unable to champion the bridge safely on his own, but with the help of a loving uncle and a little bit of concentration, he was able to cross over to the other side.

 

"One of the most important things we adults can do for a child is to model the kind of person we would like them to be."
Carol B. Hillman

The identical expressions on the faces of my husband and our sweet nephew here represent so much to me with regards to this young man's healthy development.  Here he is shown surrounded by a supportive, loving, stimulating family in a setting where laughter and exploration are encouraged.  What more could a young boy be offered?

Child Assessments

      Assessing a child's development is a difficult task.  With so many factors in play in any given child's life in each and every developmental domain, the task of classifying a child on some sort of intellectual or educational scale seems contrite and incomplete.  At the same time, however, in an effort to improve educational systems and enable educators to meet the best needs of their students, there have to be some means of evaluating a child where they are at in order to better propel them into their futures.  What does this look like and are we doing this well at the moment?  Ask my sister, just beginning her career as a high school English teacher in rural Colorado, and prepare for an earful on standardized testing and the Common Core.  Man, is this a topic that gets people fired up.
     Personally, I do believe that there has to be some form of common assessment in place to gauge how particular demographics, teachers, and schools are performing and make changes for the improvements of the educational system.  I do not, however, believe that standardized tests should be used to evaluate how individual children are developing.  A child should not be measured or assessed by a list of questions or a few hours of testing.  Instead, dialog between parents, teachers, and community members should remain open in order to continue to evaluate, but not grade, a child's continual development.  Not for the purposes of deciding whether a child is performing well or not, but for the purposes of assessing how best to continue their education.  It is the evaluation of those who are close to a child that can best gauge a child's development and best encourage improvements.
     For this assignment, I took a look at the education system in Switzerland, where I studied abroad for a year in college.  Their system is in many ways, very similar to the United States, but in one dramatic way, very different from the United States.  After the completion of a students sixth year of education (in most Swiss states, called cantons, this will be around age twelve), a child is assessed in order to determine the future track of a child's education.  From these assessments, a child is sorted into either continuing education in a way American's would consider the traditional manner, or beginning vocational training.  This is a huge measure of a child's cognitive development at the end of middle childhood that will drastically impact their future career decisions.
     I also found that a child will begin traditional primary school, usually between five and six, based upon the assessment from their pre-school education.  Appropriately, this assessment is made by teachers, parents, school psychological services, and school medical services, hoping to take a holistic look at the child before determining school readiness (Educa, 2015).  I also found that some cantons, or states, do have either compulsory or optional year-end tests to be used to determine a child's current knowledge and skills or assess their educational performance (Educa, 2015).  These sound perhaps similar to many of the standardized tests in the United States required by individual states, but used perhaps on a more child-to-child basis, rather than at evaluate schools or districts.
      Here is an interesting graphic showing the bottom to top progression through the Swiss educational system.  Of importance to us studying early childhood are the bottom three tiers and how they influence the top of the chart.

     Swiss children begin with 1-3 years of preschool (pictured in pink), then at age 5 or 6, step into primary school.  Primary school (pictured in yellow) consists of education years 1-6.  In the years of lower secondary school, students are separated through assessments into performance based groups that will determine whether students continue with a more philosophical education or a vocation education program.  The first nine years of education after preschool are considered compulsory by Swiss law, and 95% of Swiss children complete these nine years (EDK, n.d.).

Resources
EDK. (n.d.).  The Swiss education system.  Retrieved from http://www.edk.ch/dyn/16833.php

Educa. (2015).  Primary school level.  Retrieved from http://swisseducation.educa.ch/en/primary-school-level

Consequences of Stress on Child Development

Stress can come from a lot of different places and affect children in so many different ways.  In my community growing up, one of the biggest stresses on  myself and my peers was parental divorce.  My own parents separated when I was thirteen and divorced when I was fifteen.  My twin sisters were nine when my parents separated.  They both responded to my parents' divorce than I did, differences that I can still identify now, twelve years later.

While most of my childhood memories include both parents and the trauma of their divorce tainted only the end of my middle school years, my sisters underwent the transition in the midst of finishing elementary school and entering the stressful times of middle school.  While I was a typical overachieving first born through middle school, my sisters struggled to perform as well, struggled to find acceptance of themselves and from my parents, and struggled to balance different extracurricular activities.  Juggling the back and forth between two households and navigating the relationship between my parents, who have never since gotten along, was very challenging for my sisters as they worked their way through middle school.  They had more identity confusion, more bullying problems, poorer performance in school, and deeper self confidence issues than I ever had.  While some of those problems are probably natural discrepancies between siblings, the timing of my parents' separation had to have also been a factor.  For me, at the end of middle school, my parents never had to attend parent-teacher conferences or dance recitals together, they never navigated who would take me to a sleepover or who would help with a science project.  I was fairly self-sufficient already.  My sisters, on the other hand, had to work out all of those moving parts, while dealing with the natural stresses of middle school, and mediating between two parents acting like small children.

My sisters and I coped with the stress of the divorce by growing incredibly close, especially the two of them.  We also grew much closer to my dad as he became an advocate for us.  Additionally, all three of us were incredibly well supported by my mother's friends, relationships we still hold close today.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon during a winter storm.

© UNICEF Lebanon/Ramzi-Haidar,Bekaa-Al-

Ramzi-Haldar, Bekka-Al. (2015). UNICEF. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/appeals/syrianrefugees.html

 Last post, I wrote about the impact of insufficient clean water access for Syrian children in the midst of the civil war and refugee crisis.  As a follow up to that post, I would like to continue to share what stressors could be affecting Syrian child refugees in Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey, and what is being done to limit the impact of these stressors on displaced children in the region.  The number of applicable stressors in the lives of these children is seemingly endless: war, poverty, hunger, chaos, disease, violence, and family separation, and even recently, a significant winter storm.

As of this previous December, UNICEF reported 5.6 million children in need within Syria and and additional 1.7 million refugee children in the surrounding nations (UNICEF, 2014).  A strategic response plan has officially been implemented to coordinate relief efforts seeking to aid in the reduction of trauma associated with the war and subsequent displacement.  Trucks are actively working to deliver supplies like family and baby hygiene kits, winter clothes, high energy biscuits, and nutritional supplements.  The coordinated strategic response plan hopes to "focus on building the resilience of families and systems in the longer term to withstand and overcome shocks" (UNICEF, 2014).  In addition, the plan hopes to target 4.5 million children from 3-17 years needing important education interventions, as well as reactivating routine vaccination programs disrupted by the conflict.  Water and nutrition interventions are also in place and looking to expand, especially in treatment of 22,000 severely malnourished children under five (UNICEF, 2014).  Finally, the plan seeks to expand psychosocial support services by building up permanent and mobile spaces friendly to the at-risk adolescent population affected by the crisis (UNICEF, 2014).

In light of the most recent winter storm this past December, UNICEF was able to distribute winter clothing and blankets, heating supplies, and other important resources to 916,200 refugee children, focusing specifically on those in elevated areas or young children.  UNICEF is working hard to provide unmet needs of baby blankets, electric heaters, tents, and heaters in schools (UNICEF, 2015). 

While the developmental needs of these at-risk children are tremendous, and the resources to minimize the impact of these stressors are minimal compared to the task at hand, I do believe tremendous efforts will dampen the long term impacts of the crisis.  Obviously long term education, nutrition, family planning and stability, and other outcomes will suffer, but perhaps not as greatly as they would have without the important efforts of NGOs in the region.


Resources
UNICEF. (2014). Syria Crisis Monthly Humanitarian Situation Report. 13 November-12 December 2014.  Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/appeals/syrianrefugees_sitreps.html

UNICEF. (2015). Syria Crisis Winter Humanitarian Situation Report.  Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/appeals/syrianrefugees_sitreps.html

Access to (clean) Water

I chose to read more this week about access to healthy water around the world.  Growing up in Colorado, drought and water rights were hot topics in the news, so I have always known that water is an important and sought after resource.  I cannot say, however, that I don't take for granted my ability to take a hot shower whenever I want.  In fact, I hardly think about it when I turn on the tap to fill my water bottle or wash my hands.  This, however, is a luxury that 783 million people around the world cannot claim 9 (United Nations [UN] Water, 2013).

Here are some of the difficult facts I found about access to water worldwide:

• Children lose 443 million school days a year to water related illnesses like diarrhea (Water.org, 1990-2015).
•  Nearly one in five, or 1.5 million, child deaths each year are caused by diarrhea from unsafe water.  In fact, diarrhea kills more children than malaria, AIDS, and the measles combined (Water.org, 1990-2015).
• Ninety percent of these child deaths from diarrhea are among children five years or younger (Water.org, 1990-2015).
• Perhaps most alarming," estimates indicate that...3.5 planets Earth would be needed to sustain a global population achieving the current lifestyle of average European or North Americans" (UN Water, 2013).

Access to clean water is important globally, but certainly gets a lot of attention in times of emergency.  The UNICEF website highlights that in times of emergency the "restoration of primary health care services, mother-and-child and nutrition services, as well as access to clean water and a hygienic environment are key parts of an integrated early childhood development response" (UNICEF, "Early Childhood Development in Emergencies," 2013).  These important first steps by trained UNICEF care workers can begin to dampen the devastating effects of emergencies in potentially damaging early childhood development.

The area I chose to further investigate access to clean water was Syria, in light of three years of civil war and turmoil and the millions of displaced people.  Already a desert nation with limited access to water resources, the conflict in Syria has significantly deteriorated the Syrian infrastructure's ability to adequately treat and distribute water.  There has been significant damage to pumping station and other infrastructure in areas of high violence, as well as power outages, fuel shortages, and inadequate maintenance on pipes and water works.  Utilities also lack necessary chlorine for water treatment.  In addition, shelters for displaced persons are extremely overburdened, so access to clean water and proper sanitation is lacking.  In Syria, children make up half of the four million people in need of urgent water relief, posing a significant risk of diarrhea among the young population (UNICEF, "Running dry", 2013).

This map shows the severity of the water crisis in war torn Syria.
(UNICEF, "Running Dry", 2013)

I believe this information may impact my future work in two very different ways.  First, I do hope to find myself in a position of international influence in the future where I may advocate for important resources for quickly developing young children.  Working for an organization like UNICEF to empower and enable people globally was once a very prominent dream of mine.  Second, and maybe more likely, I hope to use my influence as a teacher to encourage young minds to think globally and recognize the plentiful resources we have available.  I worked in a preschool room a few months ago where the teacher was constantly reminding her children to "remember the polar bears" as they washed their hands.  The reminder was from a story they had read in class teaching children to be mindful of their water consumption.  While the amount of water physically flowing from the facet while each preschooler washes their hands can't actually benefit either the polar bears or the displaced Syrians, raising up a generation of conscious, generous preschoolers could.  What a dream, right?



Resources
UNICEF. (2013). Early childhood development in emergencies. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/earlychildhood/index_40745.html

UNICEF. (2013). Running dry: water and sanitation crisis threatens Syrian children.  Retrieved from www.unicef.org

United Nations Water. (2013). Water cooperation: facts and figures.  Retrieved from http://www.unwater.org/water-cooperation-2013/water-cooperation/facts-and-figures/en/

Water.org. (1990-2015). Water facts: children. Retrieved from http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/children/