Taking Steps to Make International Professional Contacts and Expand Resources

As a part of my latest course, EDUC 6162- Issue and Trends in Early Childhood at Walden University, I have the task of making international contacts in the field of early childhood.  In deciding where to begin and who to attempt to make contact with in the early childhood field, I first reflected on which parts of the world might be experiencing or have perspectives on early childhood issues that would assist me in connecting the issues discussed in class with Canadian issues and more specifically, issues within my personal classroom and school environment.  As logic would have it, I reached out to three Canadian professionals in this field; one email has bounced back undelivered, I am waiting the response of one more, and have made contact with another who has agreed to assist me over the length of this course.  This contact’s name is Don Giesbrecht and he is the CEO of the Canadian Child Care Federation.  I have asked Mr. Giesbrecht to explain his role to me as CEO of this organization and I am looking forward to his response.

Not wanting to limit myself to Canadian organizations, I made some attempts to find organizations around the world that I thought might help me in understanding some of the cultural backgrounds and perspectives of the families that I currently work with.  The most difficult thing in this search was matching known cultures in my classroom with an organization that corresponded in English.   In particular, I am waiting patiently to hear back from the World Organization for Early Childhood Education Philippines National Committee as my local community is growing rapidly in families from this part of the world.  Perhaps gaining some insights into perspectives from their country’s experiences and current situations may be helpful for me in supporting my students and their families.

The other thing that I considered while searching out possible contacts was to limit myself and be patient while waiting for responses so that I wouldn’t put myself in a situation where I had too many contacts to correspond with.  However, at this point, I have only established one contact and need one more.  I would quite like to correspond with Mr. Griesbrecht and continue my search for another contact at this point.  Any additional suggestions for making contacts would certainly be appreciated.

Choosing an organization to learn more about was the second task required this week and was quite an easy one for me to decide upon.  Currently, I follow the Canadian Association for Young Children (CAYC) on Facebook and I have often been inspired to share their inspirational and information postings. However, to this point, I have not taken a lot of time to explore their website or the programs, services, and educational opportunities they offer.  On my first visit to their website this past week, I discovered a Canadian week long study of Reggio Emilio next May in Ontario.  Very exciting for me as the early childhood program at my current school is just at the beginning stages of exploring this philosophy and incorporating it into our program!  Not sure that participating in this study would be a reality for me since I live on the other side of the country, but it is exciting to know that opportunities do exist. This assignment is the perfect opportunity for me to set aside time to find out how this organization serves the early childhood community in my country.