I feel like there are many
sections that are relevant to my current professional development. I think the
sections on play, family engagement, DAP, and Common Core are especially
important right now for me.
One of the topics on the
website was about Anti-Bias Education: Holidays. This section discussed the importance
of teaching all holidays that children may experience, especially since the
main three are Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. There is such a
diversity of students at my school, and in my class I have a few students who
celebrate holidays other than those main three. One statement I read explained that
we should teach about the various holidays, not just the main three and to
invite the families in to share or help teach about the specific holiday that
they celebrate. Every year I do teach about various holidays, however after
reading that statement I decided to contact the parents of my student who
celebrates many of the Indian holidays. I asked if they would be able to share
some information on the holidays they celebrate and asked if they would be
willing to come in to share and help me teach about it. They ended up sending
me a lot of information and a power point to help and I am waiting to hear back
about them coming in to help support the lesson. I think this was a great
suggestion that NAEYC gave and I am interested to see how things go.
Under the public policy tab,
they give more information about the Federal developments and updates/alerts. I
love checking the update/alerts because they post information pretty
frequently. An article was just posted about new resources telling about the need
to invest in high-quality early childhood education. http://www.naeyc.org/policy/federal/11_08_13
One insight I gained was the
number of consequences that early childhood experiences when the Federal
Government shuts down. Head Start feels major impacts, including having to
close down because of the lack of federal funds or being shut down because of Sequestration.
Other programs were/are unable to take new applications during the shutdown.
Caitlin, truly Naeyc website has been a good recourse for me also, though I visit Zero to three more often. I have gotten so many ideas that have helped me in my professional journey. I got some new ideas from Zero to three newsletters this week. I encourage you to check it out on my blog.
ReplyDeletehttps://plus.google.com/100298830847463593195
Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteAs usual you bring up a very good subject. I too, am a stanch believer in anti bias education. We have a long way to go as a society in repairing some broken relationships due to plain ignorance. The understanding of a persons belief system or culture should never be anything to fear. Aloha