Issues Related to Excellence and Equity in Early Childhood Education

After listening to several podcasts and reviewing the website http://developingchild.harvard.edu/about/what-we-do/global-work I have learned that it is never too late to start making changes. Whether a child had traumatic experiences in their childhood and did not receive supports, they can still receive supports later in their life and become successful. I learned that early experience can have lifelong consequences. The Center on the Developing Child explains that early experiences change the formation of genes in a child’s brain. When a child is impacted by toxic stress and does not receive the appropriate supports the brain’s development is impacted (Center on the Developing Child).  The body’s genes are susceptible to changes which is why providing supportive and nurturing environments is crucial to a young child and having just one supportive parent or caregiver could make all the difference (Center on the Developing Child).

In addition to this, I have learned there are inequities across every nation. After listening to the podcast with Barnabus Otaala, I learned that the parents of children in Uganda who have HIV, will not take their child to receive support because this is frowned upon (World Forum Radio). The families in this community showed more respect to a doctor coming into the village and listened to the doctor vs a village member simply because he/she is a doctor.  Barnabus Otaala spoke about the importance of doctors, educators and families working together to help children the best they can. In addition to this, Maysoun Chehab works in a war area in the middle east. She works with families as well as educators by helping them cope with their experience of war. She shares that families and educators need to be taught coping skills and strategies in order to help young children deal with their emotional and social interactions to these situations. Without these supports, children may not develop the necessary skills to overcome such a terrifying experience; impacting the development of their brain (World Forum Radio). It is important to understand the issues with equity in other nations because those children could be in your classroom one day. I am aware that other nations have inequities that relate to education, but in different ways compared to the United States.

            All children have different experiences and backgrounds, therefore supports need to be altered for all children. These experiences create many issues of equity because children come from either responsive relationships or unreliable relationships. Depending on these relationships and interactions shapes “the brain architecture” of a child (Center on the Developing Child). These relationships determine how prepared a child is for school, the strategies these children are equipped with to handle different scenarios; these relationships separate children from one another.  Educators need to be able to adapt to all children regardless of their challenges.

References

Center on the Developing Child. Harvard University (2017). Retrieved from: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/about/what-we-do/global-work/saving-brains/

World Forum Radio (2018). Retrieved from: http://www.viaway.com/view/1331844/world-forum-radio-maysoun-chehab