Blog 3: Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

I was unable to establish any contact with an outside source.  I emailed many I found through the NAYEC website, as well as a few contacts that co-workers and colleagues had encountered in their travels.

I did a follow up email to some, and also sent another email to my Aunt Michele, who has spent time in Costa Rica, and Germany and does have some contacts she is attempting to get messages to.

So, for this weeks blog posting I watched the podcasts:

Introduce podcast participant to colleagues:

The World Forum Podcast did not specifically discuss poverty, many of the podcasts that I had downloaded onto my itunes talked about the way children think.  Susan Lyons discussed her time at the Reggio Emilia school and how it inspired her to open a school in California.  Barbara Jones was interested in the way children think and referred to the Montessori method of teaching children.  George Foreman discussed Piaget and his theories on how children develop and how children see the world.

However, since I was having difficulties establishing contacts and finding poverty specific information in the podcasts (perhaps I was doing it wrong, this is my first time every using the podcasts.)  I did a podcast search and found one posted by the BBC in regards to Poverty and Education.

The podcast. 6 minute English: Poverty and Education was a podcast that focused on the effect that poverty had on Education.  The podcast guest was Dr. Kelly, a professor at University of Essex.

They focused their study to socioemotional development in children and how it relates to poverty.  They found that family income effected the social and emotional development of children.  Research found that children from low income families were more likely to show difficulties social and emotionally.  These children would be more likely to fidget, be restless and clingy towards their parents.  

Dr. Kelly of the University of Essex found that children from poorer families were 7 to 8 times more likely to fidget, be restless and clingy.  

However, it is also to be noted that some countries have less of a divide between the grades of richer and poorer than other countries.  The educational system in these countries helped the children develop self confidence and motivation to continue their education and do their best in school.  A few of these countries were South Korea, Japan, Canada, Turkey and Finland.  The United States fell about average on the list, and United Kingdom was falling low. (BBC World Services, 2011)

 

Share what was learned in the exchanges:

I did not gain contact with any of the podcast participants.  I will continue with the email and follow ups.

Describe new insights you found on poverty:  

I used the childhood Poverty research and Policy website to gain information on poverty and a the separate podcast I found through a search.

From the website I found this statistic, right at the top of the page "Over 600 million children world-wide live in absolute poverty - an estimated 1 in 4. In many countries, rates are much higher with over 60 percent of children living in households with incomes below international poverty lines" and found that very shocking.  1 in 4 is not a great statistic.  That is many children.  My classroom holds 8 children, that would mean 2 of them could be in poverty!  The website also highlights that over 10 million children under 5 die every year due to poverty!!!

Poverty, even for a short period of time, can affect the child later in life.  Malnutrition, for example, will have implications later in life even if it was only for a short period of time. 


Resources:

BBC World Service.  (Producer) (2011 July 1) 6 Minute English: Poverty and Education.

Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre (CHIP). (n.d.). Knowledge for tackling childhood poverty. Retrieved from http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/