International Contact

 Podcast Contact

I would like to introduce everyone to, podcast participant, Meridas Eka Yora. Although I have not had direct contact with Mr. Yora his podcast was very informative. Mr. Yora is the founder of the Institution Fajar Hiayah for Islamic Education and the Director of the Yayasan Fajar Hidayah Foundation. Mr. Yora has developed three boarding schools for children orphaned as a result of the tsunami that hit Aceh, Indonesia in 2004. Aceh was the closet land to the epicenter of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in which more than 225 thousand Indonesians were killed and 500 thousand left homeless.

Mr. Yora discusses the impact that the tsunami had on the children in Aceh and the skills that the teachers who now teach the children must have and they are skills that are not taught within the college classroom but are of a personal level. Mr. Yora stated that within the three boarding schools that he directs children have found it hard to except the fact that their families have died in the tsunami but that the school gives them the comfort of a family. Mr. Yora stated that teacher preparation to teach the orphan children starts with the teacher being a father and a mother to the children before they can even begin attempting to be the children teacher. Mr. Yora stated the school older children care for the younger children and those children who are having an extremely hard time adjusting are taken home with teachers and directors so that the child will have a normal life.

Website Information

In looking at the childhood poverty website some of the interesting facts that I learned in a CHIP Briefing article by Jenni Marshall called, Children in poverty: some questions answered (2003) are that poverty in  childhood can be defined in three different ways; child poverty, childhood poverty, and children in poverty. The definitions are as follows

1.) Child poverty: children's experiences of poverty is unique and different from adult's experiences.

2.) Childhood poverty: stresses the importance of childhood in life and the cycle of poverty being transferred from generation to generation (poor child growing into poor adult…poor adult as parent and/or carer passing poverty, that poor child growing into poor adult…..).

3.)  Children in poverty: poverty experienced in childhood and youth. 

Marshall also shared some of the fundamental causes of childhood poverty which she stated are due to economic trends, policies, conflict, epidemics, endemic diseases, poor governance, and environmental stresses. The childhood poverty website gives some interesting facts about poverty like if 0.5% of world military spending were diverted to immunization, all the children could be vaccinated against preventable diseases for the next ten years, I find this worth mentioning since 1 in 10 million children under the age of  still die every year from preventable diseases- the majority in developing countries.

Marshall, J. (2003)  Children and poverty: some questions answered. CHIP Briefing I. Retrieved form http://childhoodpoverty.org/index.php/action=documentfeed/doctype=pdf/id=46/

Children in poverty website: www.childhoodpoverty.org

World Forum podcast with Mr. Yora. Retrieved from http://www.worldforumfoundation.org

Sharing Web Resources

The organization that I selected to study is the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). The focus of this organization is to conduct and communicate research to support high quality, effective early childhood education.

The mission statement of this organization states that the organization aims to: 

1.) Provide a vision of early childhood education excellence in terms that are usable by policy makers and are understandable to the general public

2.) Monitor and evaluate national and state progress toward early educational excellence

3.) Develop and analyze model legislation, standards, and other regulation policies required to improve quality and increase access to good preschool programs

4.) Explain the cost, outcomes and economic benefits of alternative policies

Web site link http://nieer.org 

In reading the January 2013 Preschool... Matters Today! newsletter from the NIEER one issue that caught my attention was the issue on poverty and how access to public preschool programs could be a solution to reaching children who are in poverty so they will be better prepared to succeed in school.One interesting piece of information that the NIEER shared was how the research has now shown that  Head Start programs are "not meeting their goals" (NIEER, Jan 2013) The NIEER states

"It is now clear: Head Start produces no perceptible lasting gains in any domain of child development. This does not rule out very small persistent gains, but Head Start is not meeting its goals. Yet, much of the field seems to be in denial, responding that bad public schools erode the effects of Head Start. Somehow they fail to see that even initial gains are quite small and that children in the study made much larger gains in kindergarten and the early grades than they did in Head Start. Other studies confirm that learning gains in kindergarten are much larger than in Head Start. The root of the problem is that Head Start is locked into a program model that fails to focus on intensive education and pays teaching staff abysmally" (NIEER, Jan 2013).

To read full newsletter visit http://preschoolmatters.org  (Article title:  Not Just Wishful Thinking, 1/10/2013)

Expanding Professional Resources

In accessing my available weekly time it is best that I choose the alternative to the Part I assignment. In searching through the early childhood organization there were several websites that were very interesting such as the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators, the Center for Child Care Workforce, and the Children's Defense Fund. Although all of these sites had important topics to discuss I choose the National Institute for Early Education Research. This site in my opinion covered topics that were relevant to all those working in the early childhood field and includes all children. The featured newsletters and accessibility to information from this site will make it valuable organization for my professional resource expansion.