Sharing Web Resources

What specific section(s) or information seemed particularly relevant to your current professional development?

On the National Black Child Development Institute http://nbcdi.org website what I found to be relevant to my current professional development was a quarterly publication offered to parents to discuss Child development and education, healthy home environment, Nutrition, and Health and Fitness.   The link to the publication is: http://nbcdi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/CHT-Winter-2011.pdf .  Another section that is beneficial is Promoting Positive Nutrition Practices among Black Families.  This section provided information on helping families with healthy nutrition practices and a toolkit for childcare providers.

Which ideas/statements/resources, either on the website or in an e-newsletter, did you find controversial or made you think about an issue in new ways?

Noting on the website brought anything controversial to mind.  Everything on there just supported the various topics that we discussed this week.  It just reflected how various issues affected the African American community in different ways. 

What information does the website or the e-newsletter contain that adds to your understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field?

It should how many times in low income African American community’s financial help is not readily given.  So they are neglected many times in the health area not receiving proper dental and healthy eating habits. So this website gets funding from big corporations such as Wal-Mart and State Farm to help out the children and families. 

What other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field did you gain from exploring the website or e-newsletter?

I learned about a trend that more children are being diagnosed with, Autism.  1 in 110 children in America will be diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) this year – which includes 1 in 70 boys.  African American children are diagnosed, on average, 2-5 years later than children of other races.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 1

I choose to connect with the advocate in our area to help prevent poverty.  Ms. Holmes deals with a many low income families or homeless families on a day to day basis.  She is responsible for placement, health care, and therapy.  I live in a middle class suburb; the twenty- two years that I have lived there I never knew that was an issue.  After talking to her there was a place that I passed day to day since I moved here and now found out that was a shelter for homeless woman and their children while the county tries to find them placement and proper healthcare for their children.

I also talked to a woman who works in the Philadelphia Public School system.  She told me that she experience's poverty daily, many of the children come to school with the same clothes which usually are dirty, no book bags or the school supplies to even complete the work, and no lunch money.  So at her particular school they have programs were people can come and donate slightly used uniforms, and supplies to help the families.  When it comes to lunch the school does provide something for the children to eat since this could be there last meal of the day.  She said it hurts her heart that some of the children do not have the basic needs to receive the best possible education. 

Sharing Web Resources

The website I choose to use as Web Resource is http://nbcdi.org/  National Black Child Development Institute I choose that because I work in a predominantly African American district and would like to learn how I could be a better educator.   The organization focuses on the betterment of African American Children.  Also, to provide various scholarships to help children get through school and conferences for educators to learn various techniques to teach.

They have program called Parent Empowerment Project (PEP) this series seeks to educate, motivate and inspire parents to excellence as their Child’s first teacher The National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI) introduces an exciting curriculum for parent education.  Parent Empowerment Project (PEP) is a unique program that seeks to educate, motivate and inspire parents to excellence as their child’s first teacher.  Under the auspices of NBCDI, PEP was designed by and for lower income African Americans, but has demonstrated effectiveness with a broad spectrum of parents.

Working in a diverse community it is helpful to be educated and have knowledge of various cultures that you have to serve.

References:

National Black Child Development Institute
http://nbcdi.org/
(Newsletter: http://nbcdi.org/support/sign-up-for-nbcdi-newsletters/ )

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

When I first read this assignment I was really weighed down, I was wondering how I was going to complete this. I read it over and over to get a complete understanding of what we had to do.  After sending various e-mails, I have not gotten any responses as of yet.  Hopefully, within the next few days I will.  If not I will send more until I can find someone to correspond with.  I was interested in corresponding with someone from Haiti and as well as from China.  I figured Haiti may be a little tough to receive some correspondence back from, but I thought it was worth a try.