Unfortunately,
I am one of the unlikely ones who have not yet received a response so I chose
to explore Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website. This serves
as a centerpiece of global child health and development agenda to build an
integrated international approach to child survival, health, and development in
the earliest years of life. There were three articles that I found to be
interesting and informational.
First,
the article “Zambian Early Childhood Development Project” confers
how there are a large number of studies that have evidence on the impact of early
childhood experiences on children’s developmental health and educational
outcomes but little is known or available on early childhood development in Saharan
Africa. This knowledge gap was addresses by different centers and projects
collaborating together to measure the full impact of anti-malaria by using the
first assessment tool in Zambia call the
Zambian Child Assessment Test assessing children’s physical, socio-emotional,
and cognitive development before and throughout their schooling careers. The early stages of the project demonstrate that
comprehensive child assessments are feasible within standard population-based
household surveys.
Secondly, the article “Un Buen Comienzo” explains the “A Good Start” collaborative project in Santiago, Chile that began in 2007 to improve childhood education through teacher professional development. The project is designed to intervene in critical health areas that improves school attendance, social emotional development, and encourages family involvement in the child’s education. This project’s idea is to improve the quality of educational offerings for four-to-six-year olds in particularly the area of language and it will eventually encompass 60 schools.
Lastly, the article “Studying the Effects of Global Adversity, Two Generations
at a Time” elaborates on focusing on urgent survival needs by Combining short-term survival efforts with attention
to children’s developmental needs only magnifies the long-range benefits for
individuals and societies. The focus is not on just keeping children
alive but the focus is giving the leveragable opportunities that exist to
invest in their social capital and to maximize that next generation of young
people.
Erika, this was a popular website with knowledgeable information that can be obtained. I think a lot of the aspects in your post from the article can be applied within many preschools. I love the part where "A Good Start" organization realizes that before anything can be done the teacher must first be properly trained first. So many people in our country don't realize that. Just because a person submits an application to a school does not mean they have the qualifications needed to teach. Our children are precious jewels and just anyone are not allowed to spend time with them.
ReplyDeleteIt blows my mind that there are so many children in the world who have to consider survival before they can even think about education. I hope that i don't sound naive but it truly saddens me and makes me wish that something more immediate could be done for them. This website is very informational and I really appreciated your summaries of these three articles. They are very informative and quite eye-opening.
ReplyDelete~M.Bussey
Hmm. I am glad that the article highlights focusing not just on the health needs of the children, but their developmental needs as well. We must meet the needs of the whole child, cognitive, social-emotional, and their health needs. I agree that it sad that children can not focus on education because their bellies are hungry or they are sick. When American children miss breakfast on any given school morning it can be a big hindrance to their learning day and we know how we feel when we are not well. I could not imagine not receiving my education because my physical needs are greater than my cognitive needs. It hurts my heart that our children suffer such things. Thank you for sharing this article.
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