0.2 Part two: special topics  (Page 4/39)

Facts of Life - Chapter by Chapter online (below):

What is Facts for Life?

Timing Births

Safe Motherhood

Child Development and Early Learning

Breastfeeding

Nutrition and Growth

Immunization

Diarrhoea

Coughs, Colds and More Serious Illnesses

Hygiene

Malaria

HIV/AIDS

Injury Prevention

Disasters and Emergencies

Assignment 1: reflective reading

To do this assignment, click on the Word icon below. When it appears, press "Save" so that you can work on this assignment"off-line."

Assignment 1: Reflective Reading

• Write Focused Freewrites for any 3 resources on the previous two pages. (The length of each Focused Freewrite is 2-3 paragraphs.)
  A Focused Freewrite is when you use a phrase or sentence from something you've read as a trigger for free-formwriting; that is, you write any thoughts, questions, or stories that come to mind as it relates to the trigger phrase or sentence.Sometimes you'll stick to the trigger topic and sometimes your mind will wander into seemingly unrelated places. Give yourselfpermission to move between "wandering" and coming back to writing about the topic.
• Please be sure to write the trigger phrase or sentence at the top of each Focused Freewrite in quotation marks and give the title of thearticle.

Reggio emilia - example of excellence

Researchers at Wayne State University tell us that "The Reggio approach is not a method or a curriculum, but is a set ofprinciples for integrating children's development and social-cultural environment with the best theory and practice concerning children'seducation. This approach has created great enthusiasm among parents, teachers and educators throughout the early childhood community."

Teachers Without Borders has tested many of Reggio Emilia's ideas and find them to be workable in multiple settings, acrosscultures and economic lines.

(Adapted from www.education-world.com)

If you were to walk into a Reggio school, you would see an extraordinary engagement of children and a high degree of responsivenessand creativity. At first, one might be concerned that children are not drilled, early on, to learn their numbers. Rather, this skill is developed,gradually, through a variety of activities. The children also learn about numbers by solving number-related problems. For example, teachers mightask children to determine whether their school or another building nearby was taller. They had two to three days to contemplate the question. Teachersmight not tell them how to arrive at the answer but, rather, would allow them to find the answer on their own.

Teacher training is taken quite seriously.

The U.S. Secretary of Education, Richard Riley observed: "The teachers respect the ideas and values that the childrenbring to the school, and the teachers are smart enough to build on the creativity of the children."

"In the last ten years, an extraordinary amount of scientific research has been developed that tells us in very clear termsthat all of our children, even in the earliest months of their lives, have an amazing ability to learn." Riley continued: "We now know that it isabsolutely imperative that we put a new, powerful, and sustained focus on the early years - birth to five - before children even enter first grade.