Getting to Know Your International Contacts

The past few weeks have been very educational for me, even if I have not received any feedback from any of my international education professionals. I often find myself browsing the Internet looking for various education programs from around the world and explore their websites for any similarities or differences to education programs in the United States. One of the things that I have learned during this process is that all educators around the world are passionate for helping children not only succeed in the classroom, but in life overall. As educators, we understand that it is our responsibility to build a strong, stable foundation for children to learn critical developmental skills that they will use for a lifetime.

Since I did not receive any feedback from any of my professionals from around the world, I have switched to an alternative assignment, which involves reviewing and reflecting on the podcasts issued by the World Forum Foundation. This week, I chose to listen to the podcasts featuring Susan Lyon and Barbara Jones. Susan Lyon is the founder of the Innovative Teacher Project (http://www.innovativeteacherproject.org/index.php), which bases its educational principles off of the Reggio Emilia approach to learning. I loved hearing Susan Lyon describe her experience working with a little boy on how to spell the word "city". During that special moment, she learned the importance of viewing the world through a child's eyes, which I agree is a key principle that educators need to focus on when working directly with children. Children may not necessarily view the world in the way that we want them to see things, so it is our job as educators to take a step back and learn each child's perspective on things. Barbara Jones is the founder of the Pine Grove Montessori School in Falmouth, Maine. She began her career in Early Childhood Education looking to take part in a non-traditional early childhood program. That is when she came across for a listing for a teacher position available for a Montessori school in California. She later moved to Maine and came across a small schoolhouse. She took the opportunity to purchase the school, renovate it, and turn it into her own Montessori program, which has been running successfully for over 25 years. The Pine Grove Montessori School (http://www.pinegrovecenter.com/index.html) follows the ideas of Maria Montessori, who acknowledged the fact that children are naturally-driven learners. The school uses observations for each child to learn about the children's interests and then provide materials and carefully guided learning activities for the students to explore at their own pace.

I also took the opportunity to explore the website for the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre (http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/) and look at the childhood poverty information provided for Kyrgyzstan. I knew that compared to the United States, the economic status for Kyrgyzstan was relatively low, but I was shocked when I learned about the number of children living in poverty conditions in the country. Forty-nine percent of urban children under the age of 20 and 55 percent of rural children under the age of 20 were living in poverty conditions. Of those children, 18 percent were not able to afford basic food expenses, leading to a high rate of malnutrition in the country. Due to the poor economic conditions, children are having to drop out of school and work to help support their families, which leads to a decline in the number of "properly" educated people in the country. Another factor of poverty hitting the country is the lack of access to health services. Some illnesses associated with poverty, such as tuberculosis, are beginning to redevelop in the country. As these illnesses affect the children, less children are able to work due to illness, again having an impact on the economic welfare of the people. I found this website very informative because it allowed me to look into how poverty is affecting other parts of the world. I can also compare my local poverty outcomes to those around the world and look at the similarities and differences in how poverty affects the people involved. In Kyrgyzstan, children are having to drop out of school to help earn income for their families. In the United States, child labor laws prevent children from being able to work to support their family, so families are forced to look for additional ways add income to their family.