Three Consequences of Establishing an International Contact

I am so happy I was able to establish contact with Ankie from The Netherlands.  She is a passionate educator, wife, and mother who continues to advocate for children although her personal life is very busy.  She has become an inspiration and someone I can easily identify with.

Three consequences occurring as result of this experience, personally are as follows:  the realization that similar early childhood issues are going on in other countries, the desire to learn more about different cultures and their programs in hopes to learn from it, and the positive, reassuring feeling that we are not alone and there are people everywhere dealing with, and fighting for the same issues we face daily.

My goal is to continue contact with Ankie and share thoughts and ideas regarding the education and well being of children.  I would also like to establish new contacts in other countries to build a larger network of colleagues.

International Contact

My international contact and I have been discussing assessments.  She actually provided me with a ton of information on how the assessment process works in the Netherlands.  This is what she wrote:

Sooo interesting that you are asking these questions. Here in Holland that same issue is being discussed for a couple of years now!

Last summer the government have adopted a new law; compulsory standard exit-tests for all students on both language and math skills.

This starts next schoolyear.

The idea of testing 3-year olds when the enter primary education did not make it trough the Senate, fortunately.

 

But, let's start at the beginning:

For all subjects national standards are created, from which schools have to teach, but  they are written down as final objectives per grade, per subject.

How and when in that specific grade schools teach the matter is completely up to the schools.

However, in higher grades,these objectives are used to write books and other teaching materials, used in the classroom.

Each school can decide if they wish to test their pupils, but usually schools test their pupils twice a year, using standardised tests.

About 80% of the schools use a standardised tests, even with the 4-year-olds.

These are administered indeed in a paper-and-pencil way, for the youngest  the line used is" underline the pictuere where you can see a............" , since they cannot read.

Add to that the fact that most schoolbooks have their own tests per chapter, you can imagine that childrens progress can be very closely monitored.

 

This is another thing schools are required by law to do: monitor and document the progress of each pupil, per subject.

Especially in the first few grades this information is gathered through observation by the teachers.

And, after having observed and documented that,

we have to help students who fall back by writing 6-week plans to get them back on track again.

A funny thing: there's nothing written about the gifted children... I feel they too need 6-week-plans to help them!

Fortunately, the school my two eldest children attend, is implementing a tracking-system for gifted children and offers them "grade 9-time".

Care for those who are not average, is typically something educational inspectors grade schools on.

 

And than, my opinion on the matter.

Ofcourse we need to test children. It is the only way you can be sure children have picked up and understood what you have been teaching.

Gaps in their understanding of things can be found and 'fixed'. The creativity of the teacher can be exercised in many ways to teach the matter at hand.

On the other hand, I really think we can NEVER underestimate the opinion of the teacher. They know their pupils through and through, know their strengths and weaknesses.

We can never rely on testresults exclusively, luckily colleges and highschools always talk to the primary schoolteachers before placing students.

 

Testing on entering primary schools is in my opinion rediculous.

This way, young children can be stigmatized as problem child, where this may not be the case.

I think that schools need to focus on the learning-curve of a child. It's not relevant with what level of knowledge a child enters a school,

it's the amount of added knowledge and skills that is important.

We need to expect the most of both studants and teachers in order to achieve a maximum 'output'.

 

I thanked Ankie and told her what a blessing she has been to this course.  It's nice to hear from a fellow professional educator the latest information from another part of the world.  It helps us see that we all have the same passion, and we are all working toward a common goal; the happiness and success of our children.

Sharing Web Sources

On the website for the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators, they have dedicated a page to related organizations.  I have found this to be helpful when researching several topics.  This week, since we have been studying equity in early childhood, I felt called to explore the website for The Division for Early Childhood.  Their tag line states, "Promoting Policies. Advancing Practices.".  Their homepages states:

The Division for Early Childhood (DEC) is an international membership organization for those who work with or on behalf of young children with disabilities and other special needs. 

Our mission is to promote policies and advance evidence-based practices to support the optimal development of young children with special needs.

In studying equity and inequity in early childhood education, this week's focus has been on awareness, accessibility, and responsiveness.  It can be confusing enough for families to remain informed on services available to their children.  Families with children who have special needs are even more vulnerable and it is extremely important they receive the information and resources available to provide them with as much support as possible. 

The Division for Early Childhood has their website broken up into five different sections.  You can search under families, policymakers, professionals, students or just browsing.  Using these search engines makes it quick and easy to access the information pertaining to a variety of interested people.  The following links are available for families:

Families

• The Division for Early Childhood
• Membership
• Position Statements and Concept Papers
• Conference Stipends
• Recommended Practices
• Journals
• Collaboration
• Resources for Families

And for professionals:

Professionals

• The Division for Early Childhood
• Awards
• Membership
• DEC Career Center
• Position Statements and Concept Papers
• Recommended Practices
• Journals
• Collaboration
• Professional Opportunities

As a professional, I plan to research the resources on this website and point families I serve here to access information.  It is my responsibility to point them in the right direction to access all available resources to give their children the best education possible.  I am thankful to have websites such as these to help keep me informed.

School in the Netherlands

The Netherlands

My family and I have been fortunate enough to travel to the Netherlands.  We spent a weekend in Amsterdam last year.  The people are wonderful and we were amazed by all the bicycles there.  They actually have separate lanes and traffic lights integrated into the roads for all the cyclists.  This picture made me smile as I researched schools in the Netherlands!

I am really enjoying communication with my contact, Ankie, from the Netherlands.  I asked her to share with me a few things regarding their education system.  First, I wanted to know if the government paid for any of their early childhood programs, similar to our state funded programs.  Next, I wanted to know at what grade they began teaching English, or other languages, in their country.  This is what she had to share:

When a child is born, working parents in the Netherlands can choose a number of ways to take care of "babysitting".

- daycare, from 0-4 years

- professional childminders/nannies usually max. 6 children in their home, 0-4 years

- same, but in your home, nice when you have a bigger family

- preschool 2-4 years, usually only 2 mornings/afternoons a week, really aiming on teaching children stuff.

Gouvernment offers 1/6 of the total costs of daycare per parent, so with two working parent, you can get 1/3 of the total sum subsidised. Unfortunately, this doesn't go for preschool.

The gouvernment only offers some money to minimum-income families, nothing to parents who have a little more to spend.

Migrant children are stimulated more (financially) to attend preschool so they have better chances in primary school, since they usually have a problem with Dutch language.

Overhere, kindergarten is included in the primary school. Almost 100 % of all primary schools are public, so funded by the gouvernment. All 'extra's ' have to be paid by parents e.g. easter/christmas celebrations, schooltrips/ artclasses by outsiders  and playground junglegyms.

Children CAN start school at age 4, (about 98% does) , MUST start at 5 and leave after 8 or 9 years, so around 12 years of age.

Since 1985 English is taught in all schools to children in the last two grades of Primary school.

In 2000 a small group of schools in the Rotterdam area started to teach English in Kindergarten, all the way through to the last grades.

In 2010 this number grew to around 500 schools, but that's still only 15% of all primary schools in the Netherlands.

Recently, a pilot has started for 'English lessons' in daycare, but there is nothing definite there. Studies will most likely show that these children only benefit from extra attention to language, and hopefully there is more to come.

Although English is the most chosen language, there are schools along the German or Belgian-Luxembourg border who quite understandebly chose to teach German or French as a second language. These schools are sibsudised in a similar way as ESL-schools.

The current administration is reluctant to stimulate more schools to do so, since some of the more right-wing/nationalistic parties fear for the loss of Dutch language skills and culture with this development. (we have 10 parties in our gouvernment)

This is also the reason why content-language-integrated-learning (CLIL) is not allowed yet.

All other teaching in school HAS to be in Dutch. This is too bad, because what better way to teach children subjects as bodyparts and movements than through gymclass?

The gouvernment pays a very small subsidy to these ESL-schools, so usually schools turn to the European Community for a three-year-grant to get things going. After that, it's all on the schools  own expences. Hired (near-)native speakers are considered 'extra', and with the crisis it is understandable that these teachers are among the first to feel the effects of cut-backs.

This is why I couldn't keep my job at that time. The school was sad to see me go, but felt I became too expensive.

The trick to ESL-teaching in a non-English speaking country is to ONLY speak English, so the children have no other option than to try to speak to you in English. In my school, we all pretended I couldn't speak any Dutch, so the only way even my collegues adressed me was in English. Some parents even really thought I didn't understand any Dutch, haha!  Only during closed-door-teachers meetings I could drop the act and speak Dutch.

I am learning so much from my international contact.  I really admire her for her passion and am looking forward to our next discussion.

Web Resources

 

This week, I chose to research one of the related links offered by the NAECTE I have been researching.  I have always been interested in learning more about High Scope, especially now as I am researching several new curriculum choices to weave into my school's curriculum map.

There is a page on the NAECTE titled, "Links to Related Organizations".  To my surprise, the High Scope Educational Research Foundation was listed: http://www.highscope.org/.    Their website offers a variety of information related to my current professional development.  The first link I chose was High Scope Curriculum, and immediately selected "Evidence Based".  This led to several links to organizations who recognize the curriculum as effective.  As you click on each one, there is an actual report on why that organization feels the curriculum is evidence based, complete with statistics and an outline of their overall study.  I found this to be both impressive and helpful.  Sometimes researching information can be overwhelming; I think starting from nationally recognized organizations is the best way to do this.

As far as controversial information, there is a link called, "News and Info", leading to a link titled "Hot Topics".  Listed there are several reports on the latest research and buzz topics in the industry.  You can find them at: http://www.highscope.org/Content.asp?ContentId=136.

International Contact

 

I have been blessed with an international contact in the Netherlands.  The father of one of my Sunlight families moved to America from the Netherlands.  Through "facebook" I still keep in touch with many of my families because I love to hear how our students are doing once they leave the school.  When I asked my friend Carrie if anyone her husband knows was an educator, she happily connected me with his cousin, Ankie Moelker.

Ankie and I seem to have a lot in common.  She is 37 years old and I am 34 years old.  We both have three children.  Her children are Femke who is 7, Bart who is 4 and little Sanne, who was born a little over a month ago.  My children are Brennen who is 11, Madison who is 7, and Riley who is 6.  Ankie says that Gouda is a small, very nice city in Holland with about 70,000 inhabitants.  Since Holland is small they are able to maintain close relationships with their families which is a huge part of their lives.


Ankie has been a teacher for ten years.  She started teaching in primary grades 10 years ago, was an ESL teacher for 2 of those years, and substituted last year.  Unfortunately, the economic crisis has also hit over in the Netherlands, so she was laid off as a substitute this year.  She has also spent the last three years deepening her knowledge of the English language and focusing on multiple intelligence and teaching strategies for gifted children.  She is blessed with her daughter, Femke, who has already skipped a grade because she catches on to things so quickly.  Ankie wants to be equipped with the knowledge and tools to be able to help her.


Ankie stated that children begin school at age 4 and attend primary school until the age of 12, so they have eight years there before moving on to secondary school.  This sounds similar to a K-8 school in our system, accept that they start a year younger than we do and have one less grade.  She stated that before the age of four many children attend preschools or day care centers, and that preschools usually focus on "education through play" whereas day cares are more of a babysitting service.  She also mentioned that due to budget cuts, schools over there are relying more and more on volunteers to work with the children.  She spends a lot of time helping out in her daughter's school.


I look forward to learning more about Ankie, her passion for education, and they way the early childhood system works over there.  I feel I can learn a great deal from her and am so very excited about this opportunity!  


As far as my view of poverty, I know people all over the world are suffering.  I want to ask Ankie what they do in her country to help with this issue.  Poverty is a serious issue and can affect children in a variety of ways.  It is important as educators, we do become advocates for all children, and finding ways to help with the problem of poverty is a great way to contribute.  I look forward to hearing some of her ideas and suggestions based on examples from her country.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER EDUCATORS

I chose the website for the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators, http://www.naecte.org, because I do believe in national standards for early childhood educators.  I think all our children deserve a well-rounded education providing culturally diverse activities and promoting brotherly love.  This goals of this organization seem to align with my own viewpoints.  

I focused primarily on the position statement for early childhood education this week.  I really respect their beliefs as to what the requirements for early childhood educators for children ages 3-8 should be.  They state, "The goal of teacher certification/endorsement requirements must be to assure that children receive instruction from teachers with the best possible teacher preparation rather than using certification to accomplish the most flexible placement of teachers. This means assigning teachers with preparation focused on the developmental and educational needs of the age group taught. A teacher of children eight years old or younger cannot be considered highly qualified without specialized early childhood preparation." (NAECTE, 2012).

I really think this is important.  Within our preschool we have currently changed our qualifications to require teachers to hold a minimum of a BA or BS degree with a certification encompassing prekindergarten.  This has been something we have wanted to do for a long time, however, not many people focus on early childhood  because that is not where the money is.  It is extremely important teachers are trained to work with young children because the techniques and style of learning greatly differs from that of older children.  I think more and more, teachers will be pursuing early childhood degrees due to the rise in standards.  I hope providers are able to compensate teachers based on their qualifications.

I have not subscribed to their newsletter because you must be a paying member to do so.  There are, however, two E-Letters posted on the site per year.  These are filled with updates on current information and at the bottom of each letter their purpose is listed.  See below:

OUR PURPOSE
 To promote the professional growth of our membership.
 To discuss educational issues specific to our membership.
 To advocate for improvements in early childhood teacher education.
 Provide a forum for consideration of issues and concerns of interest to educators of early childhood teacher
educators.
 Provide a communication network for early childhood teacher educators.
 Facilitate the interchange of information and ideas about research and practice.
 Use, as vehicles, the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, conferences, resolutions, position
papers, and other publications.
 Cooperate with other national and international organizations concerned with the study and education of
young children.

So far, the only thing I have found in relation to "culture" was in their definition of early childhood.  See below:


Early childhood - Early childhood is the period between birth and eight years of age, a definition based on
documented intellectual and emotional development milestones. This definition is grounded in an extensive body of research that documents that young children’s ways of knowing differ considerably from those of older children and adults regardless of culture.

Although it's simply stated and at the end of the definition, this proves to me they do believe all children learn the same no matter what culture they come from.