I have chosen the alternative assignment for our international connection.  The podcast participant I would like to introduce is Mrs. Barbara Jones.  Mrs. Jones is the founder of Pine Grove’s School in Palmer’s Maine.  Mrs. Jones decided to open a Montessori school after studying and working at the University of Maryland. Mrs. Jones decided that the public school system was not her ideal setting for teaching.  She then travel to California in search of finding a school more like the one’s she had been studying in school.  When arriving at California, Mrs. Jones found an advertisement for a teacher needed at a Montessori school.  When she contacted the person on the advertisement, he confirmed that he had a vision that she was the person they had been searching for. 

One thing I’ve learned from the podcast is that nothing is out of reach or impossible unless you give up.  Mrs. Jones spoke about traveling from one side of the earth to the other side in search of alternative learning styles as well as standing up for quality early learning programs.  From the website, I am learning that early childhood issues and trends are a global concern for many educators.  On this website, there are monthly newsletters with information on what educators around the world are working to accomplish.  For the month of March and April, the focus of the newsletter is Africa.  The website has a link that discusses details of the educator’s trip to Africa.  What I have learned through the website and podcast is that we share many of the same issues such as poverty.  The result of poverty is children who are heavily burned by economical things that it interferes with their learning and development.  For example, on Bonnie’s blog, she discussed how many of the teachers in Africa have to teach hungry children which is hard to do.  The educators are also dealing with children who are being raised with one parent.  These are some of the issue’s that becomes an international problem for everyone if educators can’t find a way to help children through their circumstances.

Childhood Poverty in India from http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/

In India, about half of the children under age five are malnourished.  India has about 34% of their newborns enter into the world underweight.  India has the largest numbers of working children in the world, with nearly a third of children below 16 years old working.  India is working to make health and education better for their children.  Since 1990, the number of live births has risen as well as the enrollment of primary aged children.  What saddens me still is that gender inequalities are still prevalent in India.  This is limiting girl’s life expectancy in India.  From birth through motherhood, girls are not entering school as the males are.  They are also the highest in numbers for child labor.