I made local and international connections which had an impact on me both personally and professionally. The consequences of these connections were context, commonality, and collaboration. Context - Connecting with colleagues and international professionals provides me with new perspective. For example the UNICF site helped me understand that in many countries childhood is tragically disrupted by war, drought, and diseases. In many U.S. cities, childhood is tragically disrupted by the consequences of short-sighted policies. Now, I am more focused on consequences of policies that perpetuate inequities. Commonality - Connecting with colleagues and international professionals helped me see the field has common themes across countries. For example, culturally responsive pedagogy is an area of focus in TJ Skalski’s charter school for indigenous people, it is a concern for me and the African American students of Arlington school, and it is a concern for Bobbie as she works with Chinese children and families who have unfamiliar traditions. Now, I think more globally. Collaboration - Our field has many challenges, and we must form partnerships to solve them. For example, I learned from the UNESCO website, 75 million children are excluded from education worldwide. It is impossible to reduce this number without partnerships. Now, I intend to focus on collaborative partnerships to resolve local challenges.
As a result of this class, I have a new professional goal to stay connected internationally. I can do this through UNESCO. I find UNESCO is a good resource for context, commonality, collaboration and potentially new colleagues.
Joy,
ReplyDeleteYou learned a great deal from your international contact as well as from the website resources. We do have commonalities within our field and we need to collaborate so that we can continue to learn from each other. As an early childhood professional I feel it is important to remain a life-long learner and in this field we can learn so much from each other.
Amy