Research Around the World

The international web site I chose to visit was the Early Childhood Australia web site http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ it had many topics such as Environments for Belonging, Being and Becoming, Part One: Setting the scene for learning, Part Two: Talking with families about early childhood practice, Part Three: Providing space and time for extending periods of play, and Part Four: Thinking about environments for a sustainable future. The surprising facts/insights/and new ideas about early childhood I gain form exploring this international early childhood website is that the child activists in Australia are conquering the same issues we are conquering here in the United States. My focus was on the first topic Environments for Belonging, Being, and Becoming. This video was center around three advocates discussing how the environment in which children attend school is important to the children as well as the teachers. They discussed how change is not good for the children. They felt the children feel safe when they can come to a place were they know where everything is. Their classroom is where they have a steady routine and sometimes changing their routine can sometime become uncomfortable for the children. They when on the say that we gauge children interest by change so sometime change can be good. It was suggested that change should happen slowly or even involve the children when changing their classroom. I myself have experience this same topic in my own classroom and I know that involving the children when changing the classroom around is very helpful, not only do you get the help from the children but you can use their ideals. I was nice to hear that child activists that live on the other side of the world with the same issues.