Sharing Resources

I have been researching the NIEER website (National Institute for Early Education Research to be found at http://nieer.org/. The amount of information is overwhelming in a good way. I enjoyed getting to know many of the sections and information that seem particularly relevant to my current professional development. The teacher section was of particular interest to me as it looks at teacher quality, teacher salaries and overall compensation, teacher training and professional development. This section had articles related to and enhancing everyday experiences in your classroom. I am also going to be interested in new ideas and my own growth as an educator working with children and families in the classroom. The idea of further teacher training is important to me as upon completion of my graduate degree, I hope to be able to teach future teachers. As an early childhood advocate, I see the need for early childhood educators to be respected in the field and should get higher compensation. Teachers with a higher level of education, higher wages will result in less turn around more qualified teachers in the classroom that will contribute to higher quality preschool.

I read a preschool policy brief on the website that helped me look at early childhood education outcomes in a different way. I understood that there are short term and long term benefits to an early childhood education. I did not consider the amount of health benefits. This brief talked about the many long term health benefits to adults that have had access to high quality education. Early childhood education improves adult health by improving child health. It improves adult health by increasing cognitive abilities, knowledge and adults tend to use that knowledge to make better health choices.

The above brief tells me that economists support early childhood education. High quality education has a benefit on the economy as a healthy society has positive economic returns in that it will reduce health care costs. There is a section called Economics and Finance. In this section there are numerous sources to find out about the economic benefits of preschool. I next went to current newsletter issue. The first three articles were from each of the three fields outside of early childhood that we have been discussing. It was in the very first section called “Hot Topics”. The first was a political view “Child Care Takes Spotlight in the State of the Union Address. A link was included to bring you right to the speech. The second article was “Growing Importance of Dual Language Learning” a look from the neuroscience field.  The third article was related to economists “Common Core Standards and Early Childhood”. These were the first three articles clearly showing that these are important issues and trends in the field and that these three fields have a vested interest in early childhood education.

A new insight that I gained this week is that there is a wealth of information out there at our fingertips. As early childhood educators it is so important for us to remain in touch and involved with current issues, trends and research. I also learned that having more knowledge on issues and trends will help us to be advocates for our field.