EXPANDING MY RESOURCES
By
Lisa Martin
It is important to me that I remain informed of advances and
current research in the field of early childhood care and education. It is
equally important to me that I am aware of what is happening in the field
globally, so I like this new direction my blog will be taking. I am excited
about having the opportunity to share information and gain insights from early
education professionals from other countries, not that I do not currently have
such opportunity with my international classmates at Walden University. I
really want to be “pen pals” with a professional from the Netherlands, because
of their government’s commitment to early education. “The Netherland government
considers child care as an integral and essential part of economic growth”
(Neugebauer, 2007, p. 58); a notion the United States seems to be finally
adopting. To this end, I contacted UNICEF and asked to be put in contact with
an early childhood professional from the Netherlands, and immediately received
a response in Dutch – which thanks to Google I quickly translated, stating they
will address my request and needed my actual address. I have not heard anything
further, but am hopeful I will make contact with a dedicated professional from
the Netherlands.
I also emailed Marcelle Delahaye Camping,
the CEO and Founder of Liberty Foundation and Delfena Mitchell, the Director of
the Liberty Foundation Children’s Home in Belize. This program opened in the
summer of 2005 and takes in children who have been abandoned, abused or
orphaned and many have disabilities, special needs or are HIV positive,
predominantly between birth to 5 years of age. I discovered them at the World
Forum website. I received an auto response from Delfena, but nothing more. I
also signed up with UNESCO because they do so much for children around the
world, and I was interested in following issues and trends on a global level. I
will receive weekly updates from them, and be able to share any really
interesting or insightful stories with you.
If I do not get a response from the people I reached out to,
I will have to use the alternative method of gathering and exchanging, which I
would prefer not to.
Reference
Neugebauer,
R. (2007). Early childhood trends around the world. Exchange, (175),
58–63.
Wow Lisa! You are the first person I've known with this assignment to get response! Lucky you. Myself and many other classmates are still waiting to hear from one of our future "pen pals." If you get some insight from your Netherlands source you've got to definitely share it. I would love to hear how their educational programs are ran.
ReplyDeleteThe response was from UNICEF not an actual teacher. So I am in the same boat with everyone else.
DeleteI like how you chose the word pen pals...because that's what we are going to be! Glad you got a response back from one of your choices. I am still waiting to hear back from mine. Crossing my fingers I hear something this week!
ReplyDeleteIt was not a response from a future "pen pal" but just UNICEF saying they would pass my request along.
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