Establishing professional contacts and expanding my resources

In order to establish professional contacts, I emailed some people who are representatives of their program, which is part of International Step by Step Association and The Global Alliance of NAEYC. First I decided to establish contact with Sarah Klaus in The Netherlands and Mr Hicham Moukram, in Morocco. My interest for the program in The Netherlands arose after reading the article “Early childhood trends around the world” (Neugebauer, 2007), and I chose the other contact in Morocco because it is an interesting country and culture to me.

As I said before, I sent those representatives an email, but all I got was another email saying that those ‘addresses had permanent fatal errors’, I admit that I felt disappointed, because I thought that information was updated and reliable. I looked at programs in other countries, emailed them, and, since I didn’t get the terrible message saying that those addresses have errors, I am hoping to get an answer from  Ruzanna Tsarukyan in Armenia, Hilda Pérez Forest in Cuba, Blesilda Rios in Philippines, Margarita A. in Colombia, Suzana Kirandziska in Macedonia, and/or Juan Sanchez in Spain. I also asked some of my co-workers, who are from other countries, to help me getting in touch with a professional they know is teaching in their native country, but I haven’t heard anything yet.

For the purpose of knowing how early childhood is supported by some organizations, I read their mission and vision, and I decided to study the Association for Childhood Education International (www.acei.org).  

I am very excited about this assignment, because I would like to know what is the perspective other countries have regarding early childhood and its education. Even though it is a challenge to get in touch with professionals in other countries, especially when we realize that their emails are not updated or correct, or because of their position they are always busy and haven’t check their emails, I hope to get in touch with at least two people; otherwise, I will have to take the alternative assignment.

I wonder what criteria my colleagues used to choose their contacts and the association they will like to study about, if they faced any challenges like me when I realized some emails were not correct and what they did about it.

Reference

Neugebauer, R. (2007). Early childhood trends around the world. Exchange, (175), 58–63. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database.

My Supports

Since I decided to enroll into this master, I have valued even more the supports I have in mi life; considering that support, to me, is what holds and gives me foundations to achieve my goals. I can get the support I need from people who are important to me or from objects.

Even though my parents, siblings, and best friends are in Mexico, with their blessings and words, they give me emotional support when we get in touch with them, but my husband has been the greatest emotional, practical, and physical support I have. He has been taking care of household chores that I was in charge of, so I can use that time doing my school assignments; he also is the shoulder I can cry on when I feel tired or frustrated, and at the same time, he encourages me to keep going, reminding me that I am a capable person. It is because all the support I get from him that, every time I get another grade, I tell him that those grades are OUR grades.

My friends, co-workers and supervisor are the supports I have at school when working with children; as well as when they listen to me talking about my assignments and help me to broaden and clarify my ideas.

Another support I have is my computer, because it gives me the information I need in order to achieve my professional goals, as well as information that helps me to improve my work with children and families in my job. Through my computer I stay in touch with my loved ones too, and at the same time we support each other.

If I had to face the challenge of having a deaf student in my classroom, I would need the practical support of his family while learning the best way to communicate with him, in order to establish a relationship between the practices at school and at home. I would get the physical support of survival phrases (Macrina, Hoover, & Becker, 2009), images, and hand language, which I can learn through the internet or by taking a course. The emotional support would come from getting in touch with professionals who have worked (or are working) with deaf children, and by making a research about it. Another support I would look for would be my supervisor’s, when asking her to let me have an extra person the first days this child is in my classroom, in order to know him better by establishing a close relationship.

For sure, this would be an amazing challenge, but looking for emotional, practical, and physical support, I am sure I would learn how to work with this child, and this challenge would give me more confidence because I would realize that I was capable of working with him.

Resource

Macrina, M., Hoover, D., & Becker, C. (2009). The challenges of working with dual-language learners: Three perspectives: Supervisor, mentor, and teacher. Young Children, 64(2), 27-38.