Making Connections: Early Returns Are Promising
In this article with Rhian Evans Allvin, she is the chief executive officer of NAEYC. She is responsible for guiding the strategic direction of the organization as well as overseeing daily operations.
In the article Allvin, mentions how Data-and the stories data can and tell-are really important. Some of the data that has been collected ranges from March 2018 to December 2020. In March 2018, Congress passed and the president signed a budget that included an annual $2.4 billion increase in child care spending- the biggest increase to CCDBG in its history. The Fiscal Year 2019 saw additional $50 million added to CCDBG, and in December, Congress increased the funding for Fiscal Year 2020 by another $550 million. (Young Children/May 2020)
Allvin, also mentions how the elections creates big changes, but not only wait for elections to do something, there are decisions being made and funding being distributed right now in administrations and state houses across the country. We need to push for the system to be fully funded-for states to pay for the actual cost of high-quality child-care. (Young Children/ May 2020)
Reference
Making Connections: Early Returns Are Promising
Resources/Publications/Young Children/ May 2020 /Making Connections: Early Returns Are Promising. Allvin, Rhian. E, naeyc.org/resources
From Spotlight on Young Children: Exploring Play
In this article it talks about how important play is. The article mentions how decades of research suggest that children learn best when they are active (rather than passive), are engaged (not distracted) and, find an activity meaningful, and when an activity is socially interactive (Hirsh-Pasek et al., forthcoming: Chi 2009). Play embodies each of these characterisitics.
The climate for play and playful learning has become so eroded that one teacher in the article by Trawick-Smith and colleagues notes, "I avoid using the P-word." The value of playful learning and its rightful place among educational approaches in early education. Play and learning are not antithetical but are integrally connected. (naeyc.org)
The waves of educational history have both celebrated a whole-child, playful approach to learning and argued that playful learning robs children of their academic potential (Bishop-Josef & Zigler 2011; Gilliam & Barnett 2011). In the mid-1950s, with Piaget's and Vygotsky's theories prominent, play was considered the "work of childhood" the arena in which children learn to solves problems and understand social rules. (naeyc.org)
The article also talks about how we must invest in playful learning that includes both free play and guided play. In both free and guided play, the child directs her own actions and creates her own plot lines. In guided play, however, children do this within adult-supported contexts, such as in Montessori classrooms (Lillard 2013), or with the assistance of an adult who follows their leads and scaffolds the play to a deeper level.
Reference
From Spotlight on Young Children: Exploring play, edited by H. Bohart, K. Chrner, and D. Koralek. Copyright @ 2015 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. naeyc.org/resources/pubs/books/except-from-spotlight-young-children-exploringplay.
In both articles they both put information that proves doable within the classroom. With the first article there is many things that we as teachers can do that will help invest and communicate our needs to the appropriate people. We start within our classroom with attending and conducting PLC meetings, attending some school boards meetings and working with our local Partnership for Children. The next article is an easy fix, just start intentionally incorporating learning into play.
