Review of Early Childhood Blog

I reviewed a blog titled "Topics in Early Childhood Education" written by John Funk who is the Director of Educational Programs at the Excelligence Learning Corporation. He has over thirty years of experience as an early childhood educator, including experience in Head Start. The blog is located at http://eceducation.blogspot.com/. I chose this blog because of my interest in early childhood education.

One very intriguing thing I learned upon reviewing John Funk's published articles was that his Head Start program had formerly been chosen to participate in a study with the Center for Social Emotional Foundations in Early Learning (CSEFEL) an initiative to assist early childhood centers, including Head Start program, in giving teaching staff and family the skills to cope with and address children's challenging behaviors. Funk's program was able to implement the Teaching Pyramid Model for addressing challenging behavior. Currently, I am interested in children's challenging behaviors at my own Head Start program and we are in the process of implementing the Pyramid Model. So, this blog was very relevant to me.

I enjoyed reading through his many posts on various early childhood topics. It was most interesting that in each post, Funk related an event from his current life experience to an early childhood education topic. Most of his blog posts focused on giving teachers in early childhood a better understanding of young children's development and the various teaching strategies they might employ in their classrooms. For instance, in a post from earlier this month, Funk talks about how his granddaughters showed him an impromptu "band" over the holidays. This discussion then lead into a discussion on how teachers should always be mindful of the process of learning and that it is the process that is important for young children's development, even if they may not be playing the "right" notes or doing "right" thing.

The one critique I would have is that apparently Funk is a consultant for Discount School Supply and they are a supplier of his products, which are evident throughout his blog page. It was a little annoying to deal with a salesperson of sorts, but overall, the blog was enjoyable.