Friday, June 15, 2012

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

     The area that I choose to investigate was the Dominican Republic.  As a child I visited this nation, which was the first to city to be founded in the Americas.  I was intrigued by its beauty and culture, which was good mixture of ancient and modern times.  As stated this was many years ago, close to thirty, and I am interested to see if any changes have occurred since.
    
     Some of the challenges that children from the Dominican Republic are confronted with include economics, with 55 percent living in poverty, and health issues (ECLAC, 2005).  Despite these inequities, 91 percent of the children are registered for primary school with a decline to 64 percent starting and ending.  In this country, there are several governmental institutions (Directorate for the Care of Early Childhood, the National Council for Children, the National Council for Day Care Centers, and the Ministry of Health and Education) responsible for the fundamental development of children under five years of age.  It is law that all boys, girls, and even adolescents have the right to basic education allowing them to expand their abilities and potentials.  As for the health care problems, children under 12 receive limited services due to inadequate prevention and education.  In 2005 (Office of National Statistics) the Dominican Republic was 95th in Human Development due to its social deficiencies.
    
     Based on governmental involvement in the early childhood education system, I would say that children’s learning is an important aspect.  Yet there seems to be a disparity between the urban and rural areas.  Even though it is understood that the first years of life are crucial for the development of boys and girls within this country, it is during this period that the ability to think, speak, learn and reason are attained and basic social skills are formed. However, this becomes an issue when children from rural areas must travel to school, which are usually located miles away.  And being that transportation is sometimes nonexistence; children are not likely to attend.  This could cause a discord and have a negative impact on their emotional and social development.
    
     From my exploration on the Dominican Republic I learned that governmental involvement can make a difference in the lives of our children.  There are countless organizations involved in providing the children within this country the opportunity to build upon their foundation of learning.  However, they may now need to focus on providing that same support to the health care conditions for those same children.  It appears that the government is trying to overcome its social and economic underdevelopment by providing assistance to improve and strengthen not only their schooling facilities but their society as a whole, and in turn this will provide children an enormous opportunity educational equality.  I also read many articles where due to the drought of 2007 and 2010; water has been scarce, resulting in many malnutrition children.  We have to continue to ask ourselves, in this era, how we can deprive children of quality education stemming from political, social, and economic failure.  It is essential that every child be provided quality education.


References:

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). 2005. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/republicadominicana

Office of National Statistics. 2005. National Population and Housing Census.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing this information. Some of the material I read also described the difference between the rural and urban areas. Children have such a difficult road to travel, both figuratively and realistically when it come to education. Also, I would imagine some children as they get older are kept home to work so as to earn money for the family.

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    1. Thanks for sharing your information that you found, I think in every country there are hard situations that children face especially when coming form different rural or urban areas. Children in different areas of the world are lacking the proper education and support that each and every child deserves. I think its important that we are aware of the lack of education and support that children get. It is our jobs as educators to make sure that we provide children in our classroom with every opportunity that we can give them.

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