Thank you & Bye for now

Dear Dr Williams and Colleagues,

This course has indeed been a real eye-opener for me in improvising my communication skills which I will carry with me throughout my life. Dr Williams, thank you so much for your encouragement and inspirations for me to do better each time, each week. And to my colleagues, you have all been very resourceful in sharing your wealth of experiences and also truly an inspiration to me to see how hard you are working in to achieve your academic goals. Thank you and hopefully our path will cross sometime, somewhere.

Thank you all and have a great future!

Adjourning

 I feel adjourning phase is a very difficult phase especially it has been a high performing team. When you have a dream team, where everyone in the team works as one forming a cohesive group, the trust level and the bond is just too strong and it is very difficult to leave such a team as it is hard to come by one.

 I have a group of good friends. We have worked together to do many charity events together. I am very comfortable the way we work with each other as we have lots of trust, respect and strong bond with each other. We are very open about our ideas and constraints. Everyone respects each others opinion and takes it into consideration when making a group decision. All this have made us realized that we do have a dream team here which we know very well is very rare. We appreciate each and everyone in the group very much. It is almost too difficult to say bye to anyone of them. 

Resolving Conflict

Recently, I had a conflict with my son who is 6 years old with regards to managing his "piggy bank" money. He wanted to exchange one of the birthday gift he had received from a friend to something that he really wants from the toy shop. I told him he can do that provided the exchanges it with a toy that is either the same price as the one he has or lower. If we had to pay more, then he was going to do it with his piggy bank money. He said ok and we went to the shop and he chose the toy and of course it cost more than the toy that we had brought with us. Since he did not bring his money to the store, I paid first. He promised to pay me back later when we get home. But while we were in the car and on our way home, he asked me why would I want to take his money away from him as he is a small boy who is learning how to save money. He told me that I was being mean to him. Just before that I was getting annoyed for having to explain why a few times to him but when he started crying and accusing me of being mean, I realized that I wasn't trying to understand the emotions and the thoughts that are going through his mind. I was only focused on the logic but not his emotions. Luckily, we arrived at home. So we go in and I kneeled down and hugged him. I started by telling him that I loved him very much and I will definitely not think of being mean to him at anytime. I spoke to him in a gentle tone of voice that I only wanted him to be more responsible of his money. We cuddled a bit longer and spoke about the whole thing and then he seemed to understand why I said what I said to him.

I guess when there is conflict with children, we need to get down to their level and try and explain it in such a way that we do not ignore their feelings towards the issue and respect it if they are or not ok with it. Not just adults, even children needs validation and be respected when they are talking to grown up. And most often than not, in the name of disciplining them, we forget to do what we should do.

And the body language and my tone of voice that I used helped me to get the message through. I was gentle and I hugged him to make sure he knows that I love him more than anything. And then slowly talk about the issue.

These are the two strategies that I learnt and used to resolve my conflict with my son.

I know most of us are parents and I would like to know how you would have handled it differently the first time. Thank you.

Me as a Communicator!

  I have always thought that I have been a very conscious communicator meaning I am very conscious about what I say, how I say it to others, and how do I say it. My body language is equally very important to me when I communicate with others. I try to always look from other's point of view. This is what my husband thinks about me as well. However, he pointed out to me that, although that is a good trait that I have, somehow sometime it becomes my weakness as well. Why? Because I tend to always want to please everybody by forgoing my own opinions and thoughts. At first this comment from him, surprised me but it got me thinking one day and I realized it is true. Why do I even do it? Because I realized I want to be liked by everyone. I also realized that I will get burned out if I continue like. I should always be confident to voice out my opinions and thoughts even if its the same as others. I am still working on myself. 

  There was an incident in my son's preschool that happened this week. My son has a best friend and his name is S and his mom happens to be my best friend and her name is V. These two boys have been in preschool for 2 years so they know each other quite well. This year there was a new boy who joined the preschool and his name is M and his mom's name is J. S and M are spanish speakers so they have almost the same cultural and language background. S and M started having problems being friends from beginning of the school year. S have been sort of not letting M play with him and his other friends and this had affected M very badly. M's mom J and the teacher's had known about whats happening from that time however nobody told my friend, V about it until when it was mid-year. V was very sorry that S had caused so much hurt for M but at the same time she was upset that nobody told her anything although everyone knew about this. This is definitely big communication mishap. This is when I learnt that people should just open their mouth and say what they think , in a nice way of course then things will be less complicated.

  I watched a video today and it is about a divorced mom with three kids who was going through turmoil in her life and how simple uplifting words of a therapist changed her life, gave her new hope and positive outlook about herself when she was hitting rockbottom. Please watch this at this link: Click here!

This video had definately taught me that no matter what, always have a positive word to say to people because you will never know how it will change their life. 

Ways of Communicating

 Recently, the US Election has been a hot topic in the school. I have learnt in the past few weeks that there has been groups who are having different opinions and outlook about this event. Some people have been uttering hurtful words to other who have different opinions and were once their friends. I have learnt that to have better communication and harmony, one should be more respectful of others opinion.
 I would mind healthy discussion about this topic however, it is almost impossible hence I have stopped talking about this in school with anyone. Well at least for another few weeks. 

Communication Skills and Styles

 I was recently watching "Grey's Anatomy" TV show on the internet. Without switching the sound on I realised that the whole series are about the doctors, nurses and patients in a particular hospital. There is alot happening in the series. Most part its being shot in the emergency room hence I could feel the tense moments that everyone is going through. Their face is either frowned, completely eye locked with whoever they are communicating with in the operation room. The doctors are very serious and focused on their job. Families of the patients are worried and anxious of a certain procedure thats being taken place. They are walking around and looking at each and every staff that is walking out of the operation room. It looked like a complicated pregnancy which has been taken into the operation room and the husband of the lady is waiting outside anxiously with his wife's parents.

 When I switched on the volume, I realized I was correct about everything that I had assumed except for the parents in the waiting room. They were the father-to-be's parents. I would have definitely known better about this sitcom had I been watching it regularly. 

Competent Communication

  I have always been amazed with previous job's boss style of communicating. He is very empathetic, straight to his point and very careful with his choice of words whenever he communicates to anyone. I have particularly noticed this during our intense meetings with clients whereby he needs to stand up for his team and at the same time convey the message that we need to client to understand and agree on. Most of the time he manages to do this effectively without any difficulties. I always admired this in him and always took it as an inspiration for me to portray the same communication skills. I have definately taken up after him to be more empathetic when I am communicating with others and I have seen and experienced the impact of doing so. People feel more connected and very much interested in what I have to say. For me, this is a big achievement because normally I am a very reserved and shy person who most of the time avoid communicating.

Professional Hopes and Goals

  I hope that that I will always be an anti-bias educator that I aim to be and provide an anti bias education to all children and families who are from diverse background.

  I hope that early childhood field can be the very platform for us as anti bias educators to provide an education experience for children so that they will be more aware and know how to manage diversity, social justice and equity.

  I would like to thank each and every colleague for sharing their invaluable experiences and thoughts in this course. And to the Professor Horton for guiding us in the right path and encouraging all through out. 

Welcoming Families From Around The World

  I would choose Mongolia as the country of origin for my class family as I really do not know anything about this country.

  I am a visual person hence I would first watch any documentary on Mongolia. I will also go through the family's file upfront to know a little a bit about them. I will have a sit down with the family and get to know them better. I may even give them a form to fill up where they can tell me more about themselves, their family culture or the culture of where they come from. And I would join an online group of people who are from Mongolia and start making online friends so that can get to know more people from the country and thus learn more about them and the place.

  I hope this way, I will be able to help the family to settle in in the new environment without ignoring their background of origin. I also hope that I can help them to keep up their roots by blending in their culture into the classroom so that other children will be learn about it. This is not just for one kid of course. I will do for all children in the class so that everyone gets to learn about each others culture in a fun learning way. 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudices and Oppressions

  I have witnessed many incidents that are bias throughout my life. I was in one of the middle eastern country and I decided to walk into a shop in a mall. There was no one in that shop except for one salesgirl who happens to be an Asian. She saw me coming in, I smiled at her and wished her but she didn't respond and went back to her work. I was looking through the things in the shop when suddenly I heard her saying “ Welcome”. Just before I turned around to look at her, I thought maybe she realized that she forgot to greet as she was too focused in her work ( she was writing something). I turned around to look at her but I was surprised to see that she wasn't looking at me and smiling. She was looking at the front of shop and then I realized she actually stood up, smiled and greeted a bunch of Middle easterners who just walked in the shop. The irony of the situation was that, those bunch of middle easterners didn't even smile or respond back to her greetings.

  This particular incident diminished equality by each one looking down upon the other and thinking the other person is unworthy of a simple greeting or smile. This made me feel sad, angry and I couldn't do anything but laugh at the situation. I think the change needs to be done from the grass roots. Parents and social surroundings need to teach children how to respect and not be bias of others. I feel our generations or the generations before us have failed miserably in creating a world without bias, prejudice or even oppressions. We can change this so that the future generation can live in a better world. 

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

  I detected one microaggression incident this week. We were at the beach and my boys were playing with their beach toys in the sand. Many people were at the beach as well. One of the child ( who happens to be Norwegian based on the language they were speaking, I could be wrong) found one of my boys bucket which was left unattended and started playing with it. My boy later realized this and came to me and reported it. I told him that if he wants to play with it he could go and tell the child that the bucket is his and he wants to play with it or if he doesn't want to play with it yet he can let the child to play with it for a while. Of course he wanted to play with it immediately so he was insisting on me to go and get it. I refused as I wanted him to learn to tackle this kind of issue by himself. He was standing in front of the child but he didn't talk. He, then realized that the child speaks in Norwegian. Immediately he thought that the child only talks in Norwegian and not in English. So he shouted back loudly at me saying "she doesn't speak my language". I know he meant no harm but the child's parents were close by and they would have heard it. I have a feeling that they may have felt like a victim of microaggression. I would have if I was in their shoes.
  This week practice influenced me in such a way that I was very conscious with what I was saying and what others were saying to each other and whether there was any microaggression content in what was said. I would say I had become a little extra sensitive to my surroundings. 

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

  I am so lucky that I have friends who are all so different in so many ways but we have one thing in common which is our great friendship. I have contacted three of my friends who are from different culture, race, country and so on. Let's just say, Miss 'A' is from the US and she is of hispanic background, Miss 'B' is from Japan but has been living in the Netherlands for many years and also married to a Dutch and Miss 'C' is a Syrian who was born and brought up in Belgium. 
However, due to unforeseen circumstances, Miss 'C' could not come back to me on time. 

  Miss 'A' had explained culture and diversity closest to what I have learnt in this course. Culture and in her words "Culture is the way of life by a group of people, plain and simple. It isn't based on written rules, it is something that naturally happens and it affects how we choose to live and how we choose to perceive the world around us. Culture is influenced by everyday attitudes & thoughts, family values, ideas, traditions, beliefs, etc. We learn from our families and our communities what is culturally acceptable and not acceptable but as we grow, we find ways to adapt & learn from other cultures that we live in" where else Diversity in her words, "a mix of different groups of people with unique qualities". These unique qualities include elements such as cultures, races, ideas, attitudes, foods, music, beliefs...".

Miss 'B' however, spoke of culture and diversity based on what she knew of the Japanese way of life and the Dutch way of life and nothing beyond that.
It's very interesting to see my friends' perspectives on culture and diversity. Through this assigment, I have learnt that many people do not know the true meaning of culture and diversity including myself. Now when I see other's I know that I should acknowledge their differences and celebrate it.

My Family Culture

  I am a hindu but I am not a religious person. However, since small my parents have taught me to pray and I have come realise at some point in my life that, praying gives me strength and hope. So I will first take with me a picture of my God whom I have been worshipping since I was little. This has given me a lot of peace of mind and assurance that everything will be ok and the courage and power to face anything. Secondly, I want my children to always remember their family no matter what. I am not sure if we will all be together in the new host country, if we are not, I will bring a picture of my extended family to always remind my children of their origins and ancestors. Thirdly, I will bring my 'bindi' which is a red dot which we Hindu women put in the middle of our forehead to symbolize that we are married ( a black dot is for unmarried woman). Although many are not following this culture, I have been doing so since I was small. I can never leave the house without this. It reminds me of my culture and who I am. I will definitely bring this with me as well.

  If I was asked to keep only one personal item and give up the rest, I would feel like losing a family member. The sadness of leaving my own country and on top of that to give something dear to my heart which reminds me of my roots will be quite devastating for me. I am very much emotional about some of my personal belongings especially the ones that I have mentioned above.

  From this exercise, I have learnt that everyone are different as they come from a family which is unique by itself. Cultural diversity does not only mean the different race or religion however it goes beyond that. I never knew that I am so attached emotionally to all the things that I have mentioned above. This makes me so different even from my husband and my children. Cultural diversity exist even in our own family.  

When I Think of Research

 From this course, I have gained knowledge on many aspects of how to conduct an ethical and methodological research. After completing this course, I safely say that I am little overwhelmed with all the information that I had absorb in order to understand the true nature of doing research. My perspective about doing research has completely changed. My mind was a little all over whenever I think of research but now I think I can put things into perspective and come up with proper planning and design to conduct a quality research. I still do think I need a lot of practice before I can even do a quality research. The challenges that I faced during this course was my struggle to understand many of the terms in the textbook as English is a second language for me. I tried my best to overcome my challenges by discussing it with my colleagues and mentors in the field. As an early childhood professional, whenever I think about research, there are tonnes of issues within the field that needs to be addressed. 

  Having said all that, I have truly enjoyed this course and working along with my colleagues. Unfortunately I have been ill a long time during the course period which focussing in the course work was a big struggle for me. However, I enjoyed reading all of my colleagues posts and their feedbacks on my work. Thank you for your and Dr Todd's support. Hope to see you in the next course. 

When I Think of Research

 From this course, I have gained knowledge on many aspects of how to conduct an ethical and methodological research. After completing this course, I safely say that I am little overwhelmed with all the information that I had absorb in order to understand the true nature of doing research. My perspective about doing research has completely changed. My mind was a little all over whenever I think of research but now I think I can put things into perspective and come up with proper planning and design to conduct a quality research. I still do think I need a lot of practice before I can even do a quality research. The challenges that I faced during this course was my struggle to understand many of the terms in the textbook as English is a second language for me. I tried my best to overcome my challenges by discussing it with my colleagues and mentors in the field. As an early childhood professional, whenever I think about research, there are tonnes of issues within the field that needs to be addressed. 

  Having said all that, I have truly enjoyed this course and working along with my colleagues. Unfortunately I have been ill a long time during the course period which focussing in the course work was a big struggle for me. However, I enjoyed reading all of my colleagues posts and their feedbacks on my work. Thank you for your and Dr Todd's support. Hope to see you in the next course. 

Research Around The World

I have chosen the http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ website to explore. 

What are some of the current international research topics?

Some of the current international research topic on this website is about the flexible practices and patterns across the early childhood sector and also on early brain developments of babies.

What surprising facts/insights/new ideas about early childhood did you gain from exploring this international early childhood website?

I was surprised to learn about a whole section on this website dedicated to cultural awareness, cultural awareness in pedagogy and practice, cultural events and celebrations, children’s books and resources, relationships with families, creating culturally welcoming spaces, publications on Reconciliation and cultural awareness, recruiting and supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators, Policy and research on improving children’s outcomes, broader policy frameworks and useful links on these topics. So much importance is given to the cultural differences and how to manage them in a healthy way. A wonderful resource for those in the early childhood education sector. 

What other noteworthy information did you find on this website?

The website also gives noteworthy information on cultural awareness training which can be taken by any anyone. This is definately a wonderful effort taken to spread cultural awareness to everyone and making sure everyone is on the same page when doing so. 

There is also a group called Yarra Healing who have been the voice for all the indigenous poeple of throughout the nation. 

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

My simulation title for this course has been on poverty in children. I cannot help but to notice that children who (I knew during my childhood days) grew in neighborhood which has low socioeconomic status got involved in a lot of social issues while growing up. Most of them end up with a family of their own and it is no different from the one they grew up with hence it is a vicious cycle that every child born in these type of neighborhood faces the same fate and issues. I can't talk for all of them but majority of them for sure. I was looking in the internet for a research that empathized this issue. I came across an article titled "The Neighbourhood They Live In: The Effects of Neighbourhood Residence on Child and Adolescent Outcomes". Please view this article at this link: http://sfxhosted.exlibrisgroup.com/waldenu?sid=google&auinit=T&aulast=Leventhal&atitle=The+neighborhoods+they+live+in:+the+effects+of+neighborhood+residence+on+child+and+adolescent+outcomes.&id=doi:10.1037/0033-2909.126.2.309&title=Psychological+bulletin&volume=126&issue=2&date=2000&spage=309&issn=0033-2909

This particular article guides on how a research on neighbourhood can be done in the best way possible to get the ultimate results. I found this very interesting and hope you will too. 

My Personal Research Journey

  My simulation topic will be about poverty in children and how it affects their early childhood education. The reason why I chose such a topic is because I have seen many poor kids in my country who are mostly in the rural areas, do not have the access to quality or any early childhood education at all. Parents who refuse to send their kids to school just because they do not have enough money to pay the fees, buy books or clothes or even food for the kids. Although I know this is an universal issue, I want to start by helping those kids back in my country. I cannot do this alone hence I believe that by reading more and writing a research paper on this topic will help to spread around my concern with facts and data to all of my other early childhood educators. I have no idea on how to write a good research paper hence the information that I am eagerly waiting to learn from this course will definately be very useful for me. I hope my fellow colleagues in this course who have any experience in dealing with this issue could shed some light on where I could find some good resources and perhaps can even share with me your experiences and insights. I will truly appreciate it.

Final Blog - Reflection

The three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field for my professional and personal development would be:-

• Learnt a little bit more about the issues in other countries
  
• Learnt about their cultures and outlook in early childhood field
  
• Learnt about how others tackle their issues in their own context of surroundings.

 I feel its good thing that each and every professionals in early childhood field should open their mind, eyes and ears to issues and trends all around the world. Its beneficial to know what others are doing to curb and manage issues and trends in their country. That way, others can learn and apply what may be appropriate to solve issues in their own country. 

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

 I was not able to get any response from my international contact for some time. Hence, I decided to review the UNESCO website to get some new ideas or insights on issues related to international early childhood education.

 First, I found out that Vietnam has a successful pro-poor early childhood education policy in place. This policy helps to establish and run quality early childhood services for the poor community. This initiative has become a big success as the policies such as these are regulated by the Ministry of Education and Training. Thus, it is easier to implement and monitor such policies. The states have a big interest and committed in pursuing by investing accordingly to enhance the quality of early childhood education.

 I also found out that "In 1993, the heads of state and government of nine high-population countries – Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan – launched the E-9 Initiative1 aimed at achieving concrete progress in basic education. The Initiative calls for the education ministers of these nine countries to meet every two years to review their progress. The topic chosen for the 5th E-9 Ministerial Review Meeting, held in Cairo, Egypt, in December 2003, was early childhood care and education (ECCE). This note presents some highlights of progress achieved in ECCE access in the nine countries. In Brazil, the problem of inequity may have to do with an ineffective distribution of public resources, while in Indonesia, the absolutely small amount of public investment may have been a cause for inequity" (UNESCO, 2004).

 And finally, "in the National Education Policy for 2004-15,1 the Government of Gambia announced a plan to create ECD Centres for 3-6-yearolds on the premises of primary schools in the most disadvantaged areas. The plan aims to optimise the existing school infrastructure and workforce for early childhood" (UNESCO, 2006).

It seemed to me that the issues of excellance and equity in early childhood care and education exist in all parts of the world particularly in countries where the majority of the populations are from poor background. Some of these countries are putting in a lot of effort in making a difference in this sector. There is a lot others can learn from these countries especially like in my country, Malaysia. I hope to be part of this inititave and make a difference in my country.

Sharing Web Resources

 An outside link on the website brings me to information on Zero to Three's Annual Conference which will be held at New Orleans, LA on December 7^th till 9^th 2016. This conference was formerly known as National Training Institute which was “carefully developed to meet the education and networking needs of professionals working with infants and toddlers in Early Childhood Education, Early Intervention, Mental Health, Early Head Start, Child Welfare, Parent Education and Pediatrics” (Zero to Three, 2016).

 Under the section of Maltreatment, I have come across a tonne of information on “The impact of Trauma”. This section explains a lot about how much young children are affected by the things that takes place around them and how to help them to deal with it. There are articles on this page which explains how and when can we help to change the outcome of traumatized children, how to help them to cope with the trauma, on the methods of treating very young children who have witnessed traumatic events and gives a wealth of information on trauma resources which can create awareness to all levels.

 The latest newsletter talks a lot about what we have been discussing this week in this course which is excellence and equity in early childhood field. This newsletter focuses on “ efforts to: improve the capacity of home visitors to address maternal depression, increase cultural competency and equity in the early intervention system, evaluate the effectiveness of family child care networks that have the potential for improving family child care quality, and create competency standards in early care and education programs” (Zero to Three, 2016).

 This website contains a valuable tool which gives valuable information on how “infants and toddlers are doing in your state and to analyze existing state policies and funding choices” (Zero to Three, 2016). The survey questions in this toolkit will gather data to give you the correct information on how the young children are doing in your state and what are the existing state policies available as well as the funding choices in the state for early childhood care and education. I think this is a very important and relevant tool for this week's topic of discussion. Through this toolkit one can see how the equality or inequality and excellence of early childhood care and education in each state are.

 There was an issue on the website talking about the high statistics of children with challenging behaviors being expelled from preschool. In this article, the authors put together a table on “specific examples of strategies used by mental health consultants working with children at risk for expulsion” (Zero to Three, 2016). I found this table of examples to be very useful for early childhood professionals like me as sometimes as a teacher it can be quite overwhelming to have so many different types of behaviors to deal with in a classroom and having some sort of guideline to help with this is beneficial for the teacher and the students in discussion.  

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

 My international contact have shared a lot about his work on early intervention for children with mental health issues. From what I have learnt, Dr Amar have mentioned that currently there is poor system to recognize and offer routine early intervention programs on a regular basis. Schools and teachers are not equipped well enough to identify and refer student and the parents to specialists in the hospital to do the early interventions. The schools are also not equipped and offer special programs which targets these students. The school program is standard across all levels. He finds this a bit concerning as this clearly an issue of excellence and equity in early childhood education.

 I had also browsed through the Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/about/what-we-do/global-work/) just to broaden my knowledge. I have learnt 3 insights from it and they are:-

1. “ Lowered stress tolerance and heightened stress reactivity in adulthood can negatively impact key parental capacities such as emotional attentiveness, distress tolerance, decision-making, and sensitivity to children’s cues. Because children's emotional health is closely related to the environments in which they live, in some cases, the best intervention strategy for young children with serious behavioral or emotional problems is to focus directly on the needs of those who care for them”
2. “No specific population group can be exclusively targeted for intervention in the early childhood years, either by income, ethnicity, family risk factors or other traditional risk factors. Vulnerability cut across all groups”.
3. Studies done on cell biology, neuroscience and birth have revealed that our knowledge on early years has expanded tremendously.

Sharing Web Resources

 I am currently exploring Zero to Three, a non profitable organization website. There are important information on child poverty titled " Poverty's effect on Infants and Toddlers". I find this information very resourceful and interesting as it helps with my current research on poverty and how to go about helping the children and families in my community who may be struggling in poverty.

 I was shocked to learn from the website that there is an increasing percentage of children being expelled from child care programs and preschools due to challenging behaviors. I am going study more on this issue and learn more on how this is being managed. Expelling children at that early age does nothing but more damage to them and their brain development. We in the early childhood education field should know this better than anyone else. I am sad to know that this is happening at an astonishing rate according to the website. 

 The January 2016 newsletter issue has an article titled " Connecting Science, Policy, and Practice: ZERO TO THREE’s National Training Institute, 2015". This article contains information on the latest researched on brain functioning during the first 3 years of life and how toxic stress impact early child brain development. It also talks about how tribal communities are taking advantage of the federal funding to implement quality early childhood care and education.

 This website handles one current issues currently in early childhood field which is education for the parents. The website has a "Parent Portal" whereby parents can go in there to look for any information that they may find beneficial for them and guides them in thinking of the best way to meet their child's individual's needs.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

 I have finally established contact with Dr Amar Singh HSS, who is the president of National Early Childhood Intervention Council (NECIC) in Malaysia. According to its website, this organization's role is "to act as a forum to discuss, advocate, monitor and review all policies and actions related to early childhood intervention. We promote and emphasize the crucial components of effective early childhood intervention". However, I did not get a reply yet from him on the topic of poverty despite my attempts to sending him reminder emails. He is a busy professional hence I am sure he will get to it soon. Once I get a reply from him I will update it here on this blog. 
 My view on poverty however have changed tremendously after this week. I have realized how big of an issue this is not only back in my country but also through out the world. Obviously I have been leaving in a nutshell all the while. I believe, as an early childhood professional, having ourselves equipped with the proper knowledge, can enable us to solve the issues in ways that we can. 

Sharing Web Resources

Finally I think I will be working on researching on an international website called Zero to Three and their website link is http://www.zerotothree.org

This is a "national organization that provides, parents, professionals and policymakers the knowledge and the know-how to nurture early development" (Zero to Three, 2015)

The one current issue from their newsletter focuses on what effects does poverty have on the developing brains of babies and toddlers. This is pretty interesting topic to me as I always have a soft spot for those unfortunate children. Understanding them, their situation and the impact it has on them will help me to support them better. 

Getting Ready—E stablishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Part 1, Establishing Professional Contacts

I have tried searching on the links provided for this assignment however I was not able to establish contact with any professionals. So I googled mostly focusing on professionals in Malaysia where I come from. I have sent out to two professionals so far and still awaiting for their respond. If I don't get anything from them by next week I may have to resort to the alternative option. 

Part 2, Expanding Resources

I will be studying the resources on the www,childresearch.net website. This is a non-profit organization who study and produce write-ups on their research on early childhood education. I am still browsing through the website. Will keep everyone posted on what I have learnt. 

Thank you.