UNESCO or the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization has a wealth of
information. In my current professional
development in relation to the children I am currently working with I have
become quite active and aware of the importance of English language development
and the preservation of first languages…UNESCO has information on mother
tongue, a consultation providing key stakeholders working in the field of
languages and education with policy and practice of mother tongue instruction
in a bilingual education approach in ECCE.
In my work, I have now learned to speak some Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindu,
and have always used a great deal of sign language. Its actually kind of exciting…though I imagine
I will never be fluent in any particular language, it seems that many of the
children appreciate my efforts and work harder at learning English to
communicate at school…which most only speak at school.
In a previous post I talked about a five year
old boy that won an art contest for the Asia-Pacific region of the world from
posted news on the UNESCO website. This
area includes a wide region of peoples.
This contest really made me consider how the rest of the world views
early childhood. I was quite surprised
how much the images reminded me of early childhood here in the United
States. I think it was at this point
that I really realized that no matter where you look at children, they are just
that…children. Conditions and
environment can alter what kind of childhood children experience, but wherever
quality programs are being implemented quality is quality and all quality
program environments look similar all over the world.
Adding to my understanding of
how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood
field was a quote by Jim Dator (1996), from the University of Hawaii, which argues
that (UNESCO, n.d.):
The future cannot be predicted, but alternative
futures can, and should be forecast.
Thus, one of the main tasks of futures studies is to identify and
examine the major alternative futures, which exist at any given time and
place. The future cannot be predicted,
but preferred futures can and should be envisioned, invented, implemented,
continuously evaluated, revised, and re-envisioned.
For me, this quote brings to
mind that whatever information and research we may currently have for early
childhood and its challenges to provide quality experiences and environments
for children, we must consider that the world is constantly changing…we should
never settle on one ultimate solution when considering the future of children, but
be flexible by molding solutions around the changing world in the pursuit of
positive future outcomes for all children and that our ideas and solutions must
recognize the individuality and differences of groups, and the uniqueness of
each individual child as positive. In
short, we must always have a back up plan or multiple solutions. I think pondering the views from the multiple
sciences that influence the path of early childhood provides reason to believe
this view to be true.
One new insight I gained from
this website is that UNESCO believes that in a world of seven billion people,
education is our best fight against poverty.
Though there are many other issues to consider I believe in my heart
this to be true. Many will say that
knowledge is power, but I believe that how we exercise the knowledge that we
possess is what is truly powerful.
References
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/
The only thing constant in life is CHANGE...that goes for education as well. With so much technology the way of learning is always evolving and educators need to have workshops to keep up with the change. Often soon as we get adapted to one change there is already new way been made to that change. It is my personal opinion that teacher should never get set in their teaching methods.
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