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
Hi, Amy! First, I LOVE you pictures. Very nice! I have not had so much luck making contact. I do not know anyone outside of the United States. I wish I had your connections! Maybe you could ask your friends to have someone from their schools be my contact? I used contacts from the global NAEYC listing on their website. I sent out four different e-mails to four different professionals outside of the United States and have yet to hear back. I am going to start tomorrow with making actual phone calls. I know that email can be funny about going to the junk folder and I also know that these professionals might not open my emails because they may be seen as spam or junk. I know that I tend to automatically delete emails that come from unknown or unfamiliar addresses and these people may be doing the same.
ReplyDeleteI have decided to explore the NAEYC website. Choosing a site was hard because there were many that I was interested in delving deeper into. However, the program that I am currently working for is accredited by NAEYC and so I felt that it would be a good idea for me to know more about what NAEYC is. Good luck to you. I can't wait to hear about what you learn from your contacts!