As
I stated in my last blog post, I have chosen the International Step by Step
Association for my web resources exploration – http://www.issa.nl .
“The
International Step by
Step Association (ISSA) is a membership organization that
connects professionals and organizations working in the field of early
childhood development and education. ISSA promotes equal access to quality
education and care for all children, especially in the early years of their
lives.”
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| Google Map of the ISSA Network Retrieved from the http://www.issa.nl |
As
I explored this site, my first instinct was to find some sort of
newsletter. I did find a newsletter that
the organization puts out, but upon closer examination, I began to notice that
all the articles were at least 2 years old…everything was dated 2010 or
before. This puzzled me, so I did some
further investigation. I found a place
to become a member, and I believe you can only receive CURRENT newsletters if
you are a member, which makes sense.
Being that I am a full time student with a low paying job who was also not
in the countries to which the newsletters pertained, I decided to save my money
and use the old newsletters that I COULD access instead. I know that 2 years is rather out of date,
but I figured it wasn’t SO out of date that I could not get a broad view of the
kinds of things that are going on inside this organization.
It
appears that after some period of time (about 2 years), the newsletters for the
ISSA are “released.” I found a Winter
2010-2011 newsletter and in this newsletter was an article about Eurochild’s 7th
Annual Conference. I read a little
further to see what kinds of things might have been the topic of discussion at
this conference. After reading for a
while, it seemed very similar to a NAEYC conference. I have not been to a NAEYC conference, but I
have been to and presented at a VAECE conference, which is the Virginia
Association of Early Childhood Educators conference, and the topics seemed
quite similar.
One
objective that caught my eye because of its correlation to this class of issues
and trends in the field of EC, was ”In the framework of the European Year of
Combatting Poverty and Social Exclusion, the conference highlighted the
importance of EU efforts in helping member states fight child poverty and
social exclusion, and brought suggestions of how this effort can be reinforced
in the future.” This was proof to me
that America is not the only country that deals with these issues. As I read on, I also learned that they seem
to have some of the same difficulties with funding that we do.
I
am excited to dive deeper into this organization that appears to be so similar
to those I am already familiar with.
Hello Rene,
ReplyDeleteUntil reading your post I had never heard of the ISSA, which I believe is a valuable part of this course to learn about different things. I agree that if so many organizations/countries belonged to the ISSA they must be very valuable. I, also, think that the comment regarding poverty is definitely a universal issue in the early childhood field. Unfortunately, most countries will have children and families living at or below the poverty line unless our goverments help more.
I will be very curious to hear more about the similarities you discover with the European professional organization. I had a colleague take a trip to Scottland to visit a nature preschool experience and while in Europe visited a nature preschool in England. She was surprized at the similarities to her own program and the English preschool's outdoor time was not as natural as she had expected, based on their marketing.
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