Week 8: Sarah Holtz

Blog: Time Well Spent

(PHOTO: My reasons for wanting to become involved in making a positive difference in education! Noah, Owen, and Ella…)

I began my Master’s journey with a mission to learn about helping parents learn about their child’s education and their own parent rights. As a former special education teacher, I felt that knowing the rights and process was so helpful. As a parent, I belong to an organization called About Special Kids for parents of children with special needs. (I am blessed to have a wonderful, kind-hearted six year old, Noah. Ella is a sweet “girly-girl”. Owen is a hilarious “smile-maker”. Owen and Ella just turned four years old.) At our meetings, I continue to hear personal stories about parent frustrations with special education services or the process of receiving services.

My goals are to become a developmental therapist for First Steps in Indiana as well as continue to be an active member of About Special Kids. I hope to help parents learn about the laws by asking parents during their child’s therapy sessions about what they know regarding the transition process. This can be completed by asking them after the session is complete. I also hope to encourage parents to learn about the laws and parent rights. I believe that this helps them make an informed decision in their child’s education.

I wish you all the best in your professional and personal endeavors as we complete our Master’s journey. Feel free to contact me via Facebook (Sarah Holtz). I may even frequent Facebook more consistently once I am done with school work! Thank you all for the wonderful, helpful feedback. Throughout my Master’s courses, I have learned new ideas, new terminology, and have become more open to the ideas of others. Thank you all for helping me on my educational journey!!!!!!!

BEST WISHES!

International Organizations: Week 6

In researching international organizations or communities of practice, many of the websites appealed to me.

UNICEF is an organization that I had heard of and was somewhat familiar with. This organization does a lot with education on an international level. One program focused on literacy. I love the program of Libraries without Borders that sends mobile libraries to areas that may not have the ability to attend a library. My son is just learning to read and I see daily the importance of reading to your child and letting them read to you. UNICEF has positions in the form of volunteers that take the books to international areas. However, there are also positions in finance, education, advertisement, and other areas. I loved that this organization valued literacy. I believe in the benefits of reading and literacy, so I feel that I would like to become a part of promoting this valuable organization. The skills needed for this role would be flexibility and I also think that it would be important to be able to read in different languages.

The Academy for Educational Development is an organization that works to try to improve the living conditions for people living in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America, Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. The areas that this organization concentrates on are trying to improve the acceptance of diversity and equality, communication, education, environment (trying to help with disease management and avoidance), gender equality, health, nutrition, and introducing technology to these areas. There are careers in the nursing field that work with patients with AIDS and educate farmers to try to decipher the early signs of disease. One job that I was interested in was that of an early childhood specialist. This position teaches about diversity and works with children to try to help them gain skills. I chose this organization because I did find it interesting that this organization uses only evidence-based methods and material. Since they only use evidence-based materials, I would think that there would be a need for educators who know how to utilize the materials.

The Save the Children organization helps children in the United States and in many other areas of the world. It is an organization that assists families and communities when a disaster occurs. It provides food, medical care, and education. It is staffed with individuals from a variety of professional backgrounds (such as medical, education, finance, construction, etc.). There is a current need for volunteers in all the areas. One area that I was interested in learning more about was literacy. This program is very interesting and I would love to become a volunteer in the future. When I was teaching, we mailed gently used books to the Save the Children organization stationed out of the District of Columbia. It is important to remember that people are in need all over the world and it is nice that an organization, such as Save the Children, provides assistance to those in need. In order to volunteer, one would need to have a flexible schedule. However, it is important to remember that one can help over the course of a weekend by helping clean up an area or by reading to children to try to distract them from the disaster. I think that this organization is very interesting.

I chose these organizations because I had heard of them and liked that they involved literacy. I believe in the benefits of literacy.

References

Academy for Educational Development. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.aed.org/en/index.htm

Save the Children. (2011). Retrieved fromhttp://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.6115947/k.8D6E/Official_Site.htm

Voices for American Children (n.d). Retrieved from http://www.voices.org/ UNICEF (n.d). Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/index.php