EDUC 6162 - week 8

I am a big fan of international experiences, be it through travel, food, festivities, movies, friends or colleagues. So to have been able to connect with professionals in the same field but in other parts of the world, and learn from their experiences, was a real pleasure for me.

When we studied poverty, I learnt very quickly how much it differs worldwide. What we define as poverty in America, may not be poverty in other parts of the world. Similarly, what is acceptable and expected in some parts of the world (such as children working before the legal age) is considered unacceptable in other parts of the world. This leaves us with a great thought provoking exercise of what is right or wrong, and which children are happier, and is poverty a relative term?

Similarly, I found that issues and trends in general, are very different worldwide. We may be addressing diversity and changing demographics in the USA, but in some parts of the world they are simply addressing child survival. Survival from war or disease, but it remains a basic issue that we no longer have to worry about in the industrialized world.

The third thing that is also very evident to me is government policies on childhood and early childhood education. Although there seems to be a global movement towards educating children early, there is a huge variety of support from a government level. Where some nations provide childcare and preschool education to all children, others do not; and just like maternity leave is so different globally, so is child education.

One goal that I would set for all my colleagues is to embrace and learn from the variety of approaches and opinions about early childhood. We have a lot to learn from each other, and so the more open minded we are, the more we can learn. As we prepare ourselves for diversity in the USA, we need to reach out to other cultures and nations to see what we can learn from them. We should always ask ourselves, why do they do things in a particular way, why do their children not attend preschools, why do the grandparents raise the children, and so on and so forth.

 To my colleagues in this course, I would like to say thank you for all your input, discussions, blog posts, comments and questions; because they make the learning process so much more interesting. A big thank you to my international contacts as well, for taking the time to reply to my emails with enthusiasm and details. Dr. Williams, thank you for your teachings on such an interesting course, and all your input on each topic; it has been a pleasure.
I would like to invite all my colleagues to stay in touch and stay connected to the international world, as we expand our knowledge in early childhood. There is so much to learn...