mulat-mata (eye-open[er])

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

I will not lie, I am quite discouraged with how this assignment has turned out.  I did not have an easy time establishing contact with an Early Childhood professional in another country.  I tried to email a bunch of the names listed in the website of Global Alliance of NAEYC but almost all but one, came back undelivered.  I tried to look at other email addresses in different websites but still, most emails just bounced back.  I am still hopeful though that the only one that did not bounce back will eventually reply or I will get to initiate contact with another professional.  I am crossing my fingers.

Nonetheless, I am fortunate to have a former professor and mentor who became my colleague too (when I worked at the University of the Philippines, Department of Family Life and Child Development) who agreed to be one of my professional resource persons.  Her name is Dr. Carolyn U. Ronquillo, she has worked at the University of the Philippines for 30 years and then moved and worked at the United States for over 3 years.  She is now on her way to become part of the faculty of a university in South Korea.  Dr. Ronquillo also had a chance to study for some time in Japan.  I am hoping to learn a lot from her in terms of the differences of views on children, childhood and early childhood field in the different countries she has studied and taught in.

In terms of expanding my resources, I choose two websites: Zero to Three and Early Childhood Australia.  My first choice was NAEYC but since I was formerly a member of this organization, I thought it would be better if I got to know another organization instead.  I focused on Zero to Three because I am very much interested in this age group.  I also like how they give emphasis to the families of these children through trainings and resources too.  I all the age groups I taught in preschool, I enjoyed the younger classes, toddlers and 2's the most (however, I also loved the vertical class).  I also decided to look through Early Childhood Australia because my husband and I have been discussing the possibility of migrating there and hopefully get to teach there to.  Thus, I thought it a good idea to get to know more about the EC in Australia before we finally decide to migrate.

I was able to easily subscribe to an e-newsletter of the Zero to Three Organization called "From Baby to Big Kid" which is basically a newsletter for parents.  I had more difficulty in subscribing from the Early Childhood Australia as I had to have an address in Australia.  But, I hopefully will be able to get a subscription through my brother who is based in Australia.

I hope to learn a lot from all the resources and my professional contact/s.  Looking forward to a great term!

Sources:
Zero To Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Familieshttp://www.zerotothree.org/  
(Newsletters:
http://zttcfn.pub30.convio.net/child-development/from-baby-to-big-kid/ and
http://capwiz.com/zerotothree/mlm/signup/ )  

Early Childhood Australia: The Australian Early Childhood Advocacy Organizationhttp://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ (Newsletter: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/contact_us/mailing_list.html )





    

posted by Elizabeth King Santos @ 5:14 AM