Some of the consequences of learning from my international contacts:
1. I am now aware that other countries share the same issues and trends that we do. For example, both of the countries that my contacts were from have poverty and equity issues that affect the education and care of young children.
2. It is extremely difficult to set national standards for early care and education, because special interest groups control politics. What should happen is not always what does happen.
3. Lack of funds for quality programs is a constant problem. Early childhood professionals across the globe have to deal with budget cuts and reduction of services. Both of my international contacts were experts at 'making do' and providing the best possible programs with the totally inadequate funding they had to work with.
One of my professional goals is to remain as aware as I possibly can of what is happening globally in the early childhood field. I have a good start on this with some of the websites I have gotten from my classmates in this course. Thanks to you all!
Ellen,
ReplyDeleteHow true it is that it is very difficult to set national standards for early care and education. The sad thing is that we are the ones that are electing our politicians.