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