WK 8 :Time Well Spent

 

My three deeply felt learnings from this program are that the early childhood field is much bigger and various than a simple bundle of preschools and daycares, that there are a lot of professionals with passions for advocating for children in the early childhood field, and that every early childhood professional can make a change for children. I now understand the complexity of the early childhood field as the Wordle in the “Merging Vision, Passion, and Practice” shows. This gives me motivation to involve with it as more than just a teacher. I learned the importance of having passions. I got to know the early childhood professionals through the course materials. I learned that people who accomplish a big achievement started from a passion inside them. Through the capstone project, I thought about what I can do for the early childhood field. I learned that I have background and experiences I can use to make a change for children and that the actions of each of us make the early childhood field better for children.

 

My long term goal is to support immigrant children by providing environments where they can learn their language and culture on top of proper early childhood education under an English environment.

 

Dear Dr. Teri & my colleagues,

Thank you very much for supporting me through the program. I feel that I am very lucky to have Dr. Teri for this course and my peers through the program. I gained a lot of insights from you and the passions you have for children and self-growth helped me to push through hard times and assignments and finish the program, and this will help me go on in my career when I face difficulties.   Good luck on your future careers.

My contact info is ariatoairi@hotmail.com. Please let me know when I have something I can help you with or when you have any updates in your career J

Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: Internationally

SOS CHILDREN’S VILLEGES (http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/About-us/Working-with-us/Job-offers/Pages/Continental-Programme-Development-Advisor.aspx)

I chose this organization because they help families all around the world to take care of their children instead of taking the children away from them to take care of them. The position I found is Continental Programme Development Advisor. The skills you need for this position are an advanced degree in social work, social pedagogy, psychology or international development, at least three years of work experience in child protection and care, fluency in written and spoken English and Russian and knowledge and experience of deinstitutionalization and child welfare systems.

 

ChildFund International (http://www.childfund.org/child-sponsorship/sponsor-a-child.aspx)

I chose this organization because I am interested in organizations that provide child sponsorship programs. This position is not currently available but there was a position called Early Childhood Development Sr Specialist. Skills you need for this position are a Master’s or Doctoral degree in early childhood development, over 8 years of experience in early childhood development, experience working with children experiencing deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability, and their families, experience with proposal development, including technical strategy design and narrative writing, experience with USG donor agencies and grant making processes and so on.

 

International Rescue Committee (http://www.rescue.org/careers)

I chose this organization because they help children and families when emergencies occur and stay there as long as needed. The big earthquakes, tsunami and floods that have occurred in recent years made me think that these kinds of organizations are very important and needed. The job I found is Emergency Child Protection and Education Coordinator. The skills you need for this positions are a postgraduate degree in International Development or Education, excellent professional track record with at least three years of international management level experience within NGO leadership working in emergency / humanitarian program implementation within conflict or immediate post conflict environments, successful experience working within a volatile security environment, previous experience managing programs financed through US, EU, UN and private foundations, solid managerial skills and experience in an international multi-cultural setting; strong project planning, organizational, interpersonal, and communication skills and technical writing skills.

Roles in the ECE Community: National/Federal Level

1.      Zero to Three (http://www.zerotothree.org/)

I chose this because it is a nonprofit organization and it helped me a lot earlier in the course with resources to know about children and issues they are facing. Also since this group “informs, trains, and supports professionals, policymakers, and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of infants and toddlers” (Zero to Three, 2013), I feel that it has the power to really make changes in society. The job I found there is one for a Policy Analyst. It requires a Master degree in early childhood, public policy or social work. The skills they ask for the position are knowledge and experience in early care and education, family support, infant mental health and communication skills including oral, written and organizational communications.

 

2.      National Institute For Early Education Research (http://nieer.org/)

I chose this because I am interested in learning more about children after I finish my degree and they do research that are intended for use by policy makers. The job I am interested in there is as a Research Assistant at Rutgers University. The skills it requires are that candidates should be enrolled in education, child development, psychology, public policy or a related field, and have experience with early childhood practice, research or policy.

3.      AdoptUSKids (http://www.adoptuskids.org/about-us)

I chose this because I am interested in a job that makes a family for children and couples who need a new family. This organization is a service of U.S. Children’s Bureau and the missions are to “raise public awareness about the need for foster and adoptive families for children in the public child welfare system; and to assist U.S. States, Territories, and Tribes to recruit and retain foster and adoptive families and connect them with children” (AdoptUSKids, 2013).  The position available there is as an Administrative Assistant for the Executive Director. The skills it requires are a Bachelors degree, experience in child welfare and knowledge of adoption and oral proficiency in Spanish.

 

WK1: Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

 

The three organizations that appealed to me were Richmond Elementary School in Portland School District, The Doctors Luce Daycare, LLC, and Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO). I chose the first two because I can use my Japanese and knowledge of Japanese culture to help Japanese immigrant children build and keep the Japanese portions of their identities. These schools’ mission statements did not appeal to me because they only mention they are providing opportunities to learn in both English and Japanese. But I believe that learning in Japanese is more than a language issue for Japanese immigrant children.

IRCO’s work is not limited to Japanese immigrants or families, so it appealed to me. However, I think what I can do best in this organization is becoming an interpreter. They also have clear missions such as empowering immigrant families so that they can become self-sufficient and developing partnerships with other communities, government agencies and non-profit organizations.

 

The job opportunity I would like to seek at Richmond Elementary School is a Japanese immersion teacher. They do not have a position right now but there is an opening for a Spanish immersion teacher. The skills and experience the teacher needs is the Oregon TSPC license with Early Childhood Education, elementary or other endorsement and native or near native fluency.

 

 

The job opportunity I would like to seek at The Doctors Luce Daycare is also a teacher. For that, I need experience of working at a daycare for more than a year or a degree in early childhood education. The job I would like to seek at IRCO is for professional Interpreters in IRCO’s International Language Bank section. But they are currently only looking for interpreters for Karen, Somali, Nepali, Tagalog, and Cantonese. The skills I need for this position is at least 6 months of interpreting experience for any of the listed languages, a high school diploma (though higher education is plus) and any relevant training or education (health care or language)

 

EDUC 6990 Capstone: Practical Application in the Early Childhood Field

WK 8: Reflecting on Learning

My most passionate hope for my future as an early childhood professional and for the child and families with whom I work or I will work is that I will be able to use my knowledge and the skills I learned from this course to move children and families to think about who they are, be proud of who they are, respect others with differences and appreciate the diversity in our society. I learned that the biases and misconceptions that exist in people can be broken if people get a chance to know about the targeted groups of people, learn the facts that prove we are all the same in a way and that what negative consequences that biases and misconceptions cause for the targeted groups of people.

 

To my colleagues,

Thank you very much for giving great insights throughout the course. I hope we can make changes for children and family and their futures by our working as anti-bias educators. I am hoping your journey at Walden and your future careers will be successful.

WK7: Impacts on Early Emotional Development

I chose the region of East Asia and the Pacific. I chose it because my home country, Japan, is in the area and this made me interested in what is happening in neighboring countries.

 

Children in this region have a challenge in getting clean water. The situation has been improving by installing systems that lead clean water down from mountains but 670 million people in the region do not have access to sanitation facilities and an additional 236 million people don’t have access to clean water in any form.

 

Even though UNICEF works to provide resources and support for maternal, neonatal and children’s health like immunizations, water, as well as other nutrition , sanitation and hygiene products (WASH) “(UNICEF, 2013) to improve the health of children and mothers, there are still many children who die from diarrhea and pneumonia. So many mothers also do not survive child birth because they are ill.

 

What I thought through reading the website is that we can teach what is happening to children in the different areas from where we live and involve our children in actions that help them. I think even having time to let them think how we can improve bad situations for other children will help them to think and feel empathy for others, develop problem solving skills and it might influence how they want to live in long term.

Children in this region must have worries and concerns about how they get things that are required to survive. Many of them must also experience the deaths of family members and people that are close to them. I think these experiences might have given them tremendous stress and made them desperate which would impede their abilities to be resilient against other difficulties.  

 

Reference

UNICEF. (2013). East Asia and Pacific. Retrieved on February 23, 2013, from http://www.unicef.org/eapro/activities_3584.html