This week I began to communicate with other early childhood professionals in my work place. I knew that there were two women that run an organization in Rwanda who recently visited our Head Start classrooms to share their culture with our children and for them to experience our preschool education here in the United States. I contacted our early education director, explaining my assisgnment for this course, and she readily shared their contact information with me. At this time, I have sent each person an email and am waiting to hear back from them. Our director also suggested that I speak to one of our assistant directors who is from Germany and who has many contacts with education staff over there. So at this time I am in the process of speaking with her and hopefully she will be a great resource for this assignment.
When I first saw this assignment I thought, wow, how am I going to do this? I have lived in PA my entire life, am afraid to step foot on an airplane or cruise ship, so I have never left the east coast of the United States, so I certainly do not have any contacts in another part of the world! But when asking colleagues, they are more than willing to reach out and guide me in the right direction. If there is anyone else out there that feels they won't be able to complete the first option, I suggest asking colleagues or friends.
I look forward to reading everyone's findings...
Hello Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI think it is great that you already have people in your workplace that you can connect to. This has opened my mind to find people that I know are connected to a project across the world. This is very interesting and I enjoyed reading your post. I am interested in connecting with people in Africa. I am interested to connect with someone there becuase I would love to go there. Thanks for sharing!
I also was not sure how I might establish contacts when I first read about the blog assignment. In an unexpected way, I may have made a contact through a Facebook post. My aunt saw my post on Facebook to my sister-in-law, who I was asking to help me out for this assignment. Instead, my aunt had a contact, unbeknownst to me, and she has reached out to this friend on my behalf. What luck! I hope a little bit of luck comes your way as well.
ReplyDeleteAmanda,
ReplyDeleteThanks for giving some great ideas on how to make contacts. My mother has friends and family in Israel, so I am hoping one of them can help me. I think it is really exciting that we have to get an international pen-pal of sorts to bring us some new viewpoints. I look forward to reading your future blogs!
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI also think it's great that you were able to find contacts through your workplace. And it's pretty neat that you had guests come and visit your program and share their culture. I haven't made contact yet, but I am hopeful that through an early childhood yahoo group I will get a response. I may also check with the assistant director where I used to work. I believe that she traveled to England a couple of years ago and may have a contact there. Good luck!
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteWhat great resources right in your work place! I felt the same way you did when I read the assignment. As I reviewed the links I must admit I found it difficult to decide which to pick especially not knowing if the individuals even speak English in many of the countries I was interested in. I haven't gotten any replies from the emails I sent. I did listen to some podcasts on the World Forum Radio just because I was curious. That was interesting and not something I was familiar with before. This course is going to be interesting.
Judi