Aloha To My Ohana EC Bloggers

ALOHA TO MY OHANA

To my Fellow Early Childhood Bloggers,

Welcome to my blog site. Let me say: Aloha to my Ohana, which means "Welcome to my Family".

I am an Asian American who migrated in the US in 1997. I came from the Philippines and Filipino/ Tagalog is my first language. I migrated here in the US to start a family. I am now living here in Hawaii with my husband and three children. I am currently working as an Assistant Director at Ford Island Child Development Center in Pearl Harbor.

This is going to be an interesting journey for all of us and I am looking forward to blog with all of you.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Updates on newsletter about the Early Childhood Council New Zealand

Aloha everyone!

I would like to share with you some news affecting early childhood in New Zealand. There are some articles that were interesting on their site but only members have access on it. I wrote them an e-mail requesting if I can be an auxiliary member but they have not responded yet. Anyway, as soon as I get their reply, I will keep you posted.

I was able to read four articles about the trends and issues in early childhood education. First is about the issue of unemployment which dropped last month. The Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says that unemployment dropped last month especially on the youth sector.

The total number of people on the Unemployment Benefit is now 55,974, the lowest it’s been since July 2009. “The Unemployment Benefit has now dropped 18% since the peak in January last year when 68,369 New Zealanders were on this benefit. “We’ve also seen the number of young people (18-24 year olds) on the Unemployment Benefit drop by 32% from 23,545 in January 2010 to 15,980” http://www.ecc.org.nz/MainMenu).

Seek New Zealand figures show new job ads are 16.3% higher than last year and Department of Labour figures show all vacancies have risen 49.7% since the lowest point in June 2009. There are now 328,355 people on benefits in New Zealand. Though some of the jobs were short term and seasonal, job advertisement on vacancies has continued to grow.

Just like other countries, it has been tough on the economy of New Zealand too. They also have issues of poverty and unemployment which are affecting the lives of families and children. However, they remain positive in their outlook. Any job opportunities, whether it be temporary or seasonal, it will have an impact on families.

The second issue that I read is about the survey on the qualifications for effective teachers. A recent international survey asked participants what qualifications were seen as being most important in creating effective early childhood teachers. The results from 1,400 voters suggested these as the top-rated qualifications (with other qualifications getting lesser votes):

59% Nurturing personality
50% Love of children
42% Bachelor's degree in early childhood education
42% Opportunity to work with excellent teacher
38% Creative abilities
32% Close supervision and mentoring
31% Associate's degree in early childhood education
22% Regular participation in local workshops
21% Multiple years of experience teaching preschool
12% Participation in rigorous in-house training program

They find these ratings intriguing. They wanted to know other people’s reaction on this survey and requested them to share their views on their discussion board or Facebook. This will help them add perspective to this international trend report.

Base on the outcome of this survey, the character or personality of the teachers ranked higher than education attainment. In my opinion, it is really important that teachers should have positive and nurturing relationship with the children. We cannot also dismiss the importance of their educational attainment. What is your reaction?

Reference:

Early Childhood Council New Zealand (EEC)
http://www.ecc.org.nz/MainMenu
(Review also media resources at: http://www.ecc.org.nz/Category?Action=View&Category_id=159)

3 comments:

CareyannOctober 2, 2011 at 11:22 AM
I am glad to see the statistical affirmation that a nurturing personality is an important quality in an early childhood teacher. During my career, I have met many people who hold advanced degrees in education. Some of them, in spite of all their education, were ineffective in their dealings with children. Even the most perfect, developmentally appropriate lesson plan is useless if one cannot facilitate the activities within it. Children are great judges of character. They detect disingenuous expressions and behavior. If one is not nurturing or does not enjoy working with children, the children sense it and behave accordingly.
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AnonymousOctober 2, 2011 at 1:07 PM
Wow! The results of the survey are very interesting. It surprises me that a love for children is not first. Even if someone had all of the other qualities but lacked a love for children they would be far from being successful! Which of the ones listed above do you feel is the most important? Were you surprised by any?
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Allison JonesOctober 2, 2011 at 1:08 PM
I think that before having a Bachelor's degee it is important for that person to have love for the children. Being a teacher requires lots of patient and understanding. You must possess those qualities first-off if you want to become a great teacher because it can be a difficult task trying to relate to so many different personalities.
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My Nanay (means ‘Mother’ in Tagalog) Clarita is the heart and soul of our home. She is a positive thinker and a good motivator. She always look at the good things in life and understands also the challenges that comes with it. The only face you see is her smile which brighten the day of so many people. She lives everyday making sure that she has done everything she could and treated each day as if it was her last day. You will never see her complain about things and finds solutions rather than blame people.

My mother raised seven children and she treated each one of us uniquely because she believes that each one of us have our own strength and weaknesses. She treated us differently in a good way because she believes that we are unique in our own special way. She also respects us and allow us to grow independently knowing our unique qualities. She also make sure that we discover our own identity and passion and supports us in any endeavor that we want to pursue.

I remember when I was little that my father an mother were so proud of my siblings because they excelled academically in school. I remember my brothers and sister compete in spelling bee or represent our school in science, math or debate contests. Every recognition day, my parents stayed on the stage to accept awards or medals for my siblings achievements. My mom never said anything to me but I know she tried her best to motivate, inspire and give incentives or recognition to inspire me to do well in school. She continued to support me in any activities that I am interested and always believe in me. She reminded me all the time not to feel or think that I am different but believed in me all time. I may be different from my siblings but I am no less than them. She said that each one of us has our own unique way of doing things and should not be compared with each other. She never compared us with each other. She accepted us as unique individuals with unique qualities and abilities.

Now that I am a parent of three wonderful children I would like to do the same with my children. Respect their differences, support them with their choices and guide them to become a better person.

Tatay Benito

My father is the foundation of our home. He is a good provider and has dedicated his life working to send us all to a good school. “Good provider to us” is giving all he got and most of the time “more than what he got”. My father works as a supervisor in Central Bank of the Philippines. Though he does not have enough to take home for pay, he still managed to send us all to college and to a good school too.

I remembered my father telling us the importance of education. He said his wish for us is to study hard and finish college. I remembered him saying that he regrets not going to school, he often said: “If only I studied harder and finish college, our situation will be better than this.”

During enrollment time my father will bring the title of our land and our house to the bank and serve as “collateral” for our educational loan. One time, my little brother wanted to buy something and he asks my father if he could have five pesos (our currency), my father gave his pay envelop to him. The coins fell off the envelope, my father only have about five pesos and about sixty cents. My little brother gave it back to him and never asks money from him anymore.

Another experience my eldest brother shared with me was when my father brought him to the cemetery, the jail and the museum, where they display the pictures of the President of the Philippines and their accomplishments. My father told him: “Son I brought you here to show you that these are your choices in life - either you die, go to jail or make the most out of your life and become a successful person; it is up to you to make that decision”.

With these inspiring stories and experiences that I learned and wanted to pass it on to my children. I would like them to make their own choices and whatever decisions they made, whether it is right or wrong, they need to take responsibility, find resolution and face the consequences of their actions.

These are my brothers and sister. Believe it or not, we never ever fight. We have so much respect for each other. When our parents ask us who is going to wash the dishes or clean something, all of us are in a hurry to do it first. When somebody gets to do it first, we still help each other out to finish the tasks. I am the fifth out of seven and I treat my elder brother and eldest sister with much respect as we have for our father or mother. In our culture, when your big brother asks you to do something, we just do it without asking questions. We just obey. If we have one candy, we will cut it into small pieces and get our shares, the weirdest thing is: the biggest portion of the candy will be left and nobody will take it or we give it to our youngest brother. We complement each other and respect each other’s privacy.

Our house has five rooms on the second floor. Our rooms do not have doors on it because my parents believed that an open room means open communication. Anyone can go in and out of any rooms. When I was little, we all sleep together on the floor with mat on it; except for my eldest sister and eldest brother they have their own bed as well as my parents. Nobody says: ‘it’s not fair!”

Aloha To My Ohana EC Bloggers

ALOHA TO MY OHANA

ALOHA TO MY OHANA

Saturday, October 1, 2011

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