Time Well Spent

Time Well Spent

My journey with Walden University to complete my master in Early Childhood Studies:  Administration Management and Leadership has been the high light of my professional career. I have been working in the early childhood field for many years and have experienced the duties of many positions. The present being an administrator in a non-profit organization. I was not familiar with the complete task of responsibilities of operating a program from the financial lens nor securing staffing for the important positions in the field. But doing my journey with Walden I have gained knowledge about how to start a program from the beginning and ways to enhance the program I work in at this time.
I have gained important knowledge of ways to effectively advocate for issues that are occurring in the field of early childhood education beginning with establishing a community of practice. This community of practice is a group of people and organizations that understand the importance of an early educational foundation for young children. This community is not just on a local, state, federal level but it can have international supporters.

When I think of a community of practice I think of a group of different agencies and community people working together to achieve a goal. The objective is to make a positive change or create strategies that will make a system strong for the community and the families that live in them. It is a group of people whose main focus is to work together through regular collaboration to share ideas and suggestions on how achieve valuable outcomes.

I learned some of the characteristic of the leadership style I lead with. I feel I am a transformational leader because I have high emotional intelligence and lead with integrity. Some of their characteristics are they are empathetic, humble, have good communication skills and are motivators. I believe in setting clear goals for the team and by doing so the result is high productivity and teamwork.  

My plan for the future is to get involved in an organization that has the same passion for early childhood on a national level. With the knowledge I have gained I believe I can be a powerful voices and advocate for children and families. I plan to obtain membership in different early childhood education organizations that share the same vision and mission I have for the field to stay abreast of any new trends and issues that may affect the outcome of early childhood.
 

I want to say to all my new friends through this experience I wish you much success in your future endeavors. I hope your visions of making a profound difference in early childhood will be come true for all of you. I have enjoyed reading your post, blogs and your responds to mine.

One of my favorite quotes is: It is easier to build strong children than repair broken men.” Frederick Douglas. That is way what we do in Early childhood is so important for all children to have an opportunity to a positive and successful future.  

Thank you for making this course interesting, knowledgeable and giving me the feeling of being in a community of practice.

Farewell,

Shelia   

International Organizations

I was very impressed when I was searching for international organizations that support early childhood education for all children. I have known there were local, state, national and federal organizations that share the vision of helping all children receive a quality education, but to know the struggle goes beyond these level to the international level has humbled me.

Below are three international organizations that support early childhood education.

1. International Association for Steiner/Waldorf Early Childhood Education (IASWECE): Waldorf early childhood education, also known as Steiner early years education, is devoted to the education and care of the young child from birth to school entrance.

Waldorf early childhood educators seek to nurture the development of each child’s unique capacities by offering warm, homelike environments with opportunities for imaginative play, meaningful purposeful work, and experiences in the arts, in nature and in community. There are nearly 2000 Waldorf kindergartens, home programs, child care centers, and pre-schools in more than 70 countries throughout the world.

Some of the goals of the organization are to:

·         Foster co-operation among colleagues throughout the world, through meetings, conferences, working groups, etc.

·         Deepen and renew the work with the young child out of the sources of Waldorf education, and support for its quality

·         Foster training and continuing development opportunities for caregivers, kindergarten teachers and educators

·         Undertake and support collaborative research on contemporary questions regarding the care and education of the young child

·         Collaborate with parents, other educators, and the wider society about the needs of the young child

·         Provide resources, information and publications on Waldorf early childhood education

·         Offer support – human, educational and financial – for projects seeking to foster Waldorf early childhood education throughout the world.

http://www.iaswece.org/waldorf-education/what-is-waldorf-education/

2. Association of Childhood Education International (ACEI): ACEI is a global community of educators and advocates who unite knowledge, experience, and perspectives in order to exchange information, explore innovation and advocate for children. Their mission is to promote innovative solutions to education challenges and inspire action that creates positive, sustainable futures for children and youth worldwide and their mission is for child in every nation will have access to a quality education. This education will prepare children to become responsible and engaged citizens, ready for life in a changing world.

Some of their goals are:

·         Is sharing new approaches to the education of children and ensuring that these approaches are delivered in ways that enhance children's individual skills and abilities and provide opportunities for success in life.

·         They participates in global education coalitions and childhood well-being campaigns that advance policies and drive funding levels for education and other social services, thereby impacting vast numbers of children internationally.

·         They provide reports on global education trends and events that directly affect the efforts of classroom teachers, teacher educators, education advocates, and education consultants and provides access to cutting-edge research and information that enlightens perspectives and viewpoints on education practices.

·         They also create unique programs, events, and publications that help to expand horizons in areas of childhood education and well-being, worldwide.

I did not see any employee opportunities during my research but ACEI sometimes has internships available during the summer months. Interns are given the opportunity to gain work experience consisting primarily of online research and data gathering that will contribute to the development of briefing papers and other types of resources. The requirements are interns should be enrolled in a graduate degree program that focuses on global education issues with a particular interest in children's education. A focus on one specific aspect of childhood education, such as basic education or early childhood development, is also acceptable. I know I am in a master’s degree program but I will still contact them to see if there are other opportunities available for me to be a part of the organization.

http://www.acei.org/

3. Education International (EI): Education International main policy on ECE is shaped by the resolution passed at the 2nd World Congress of EI in 1998. They believes that early childhood education is of great value to all children and should be available to all.  Early childhood education is an education in its own right and an essential part of life-long learning. It provides a sound basis for learning and helps to develop skills, knowledge, personal competencies and confidence and a sense of social responsibility. By providing a protected environment for young children it also helps to prevent child labor.

The work of this organization in the field of early childhood education includes promoting early childhood education that will be public funded and universally accessible to children. They advocate for integration of early childhood into education systems and seeking continuous professional development for teachers and other professionals in the field. This organization is an advocate for early childhood education around the world.

  https://ei-ie.org/

 

Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: National/Federal Level

The three national and federal organizations that appeal to me are:

1.     National Head Start Association

2.     The National Child Care Association

3.     National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS-SDE)

The reason the three organization appeal to me is because they share similar visions on ways to provide children the opportunity to have early childhood learning experiences. The first organization is the National Head Start Association goal is the success of generations of children who might otherwise struggle throughout their lives. NHSA has created the NHSA Knowledge Center to facilitate our vision of reaching the most vulnerable children with the Head Start model. Their future success rests on the knowledge, commitment and collaboration of families, programs, researchers, and policymakers.

I would love to work for the NHSA as an advocate for quality early childhood education and support for families. I have a personal passion for this organization because it has made a positive impact in my family’s life when I need support at my lowest life struggle. I believe in this organization but I feel I would be able to empower others that do not really understand how excellent this organization is for the children and families in our communities.

The next organization that I would add to my community of practice is the National Child Care Association(NCCA) because it supports policies that are beneficial to children, believes there should be equal participation with regard to funding for all providers of Early Care and Education Birth through 5, regulations should be equitable, across the board, for all providers, public or private and right to work environment for early care and education professionals. I know that many times this issues are not addressed in the appropriate manner which causes children that need childcare are not be served and professional are not getting the support they need to ensure they have the education needed to teach children. I know that educators need the appropriate educations to provide services for the children but it will take supporters and people that understand and share that vision as I do.

The third organization I would like to have in my community of practice is National Association of Early childhood Specialist in the State Department of Education (NAECS-SDE) which also promotes high quality services to young children and their families through improvement of instruction, curriculum, and administration programs. They work with others to share ideas and suggestions to find solutions to common problems that occur in the early childhood field. I would like to work for this organization because I am very familiar with trying to create strategies and ideas of how to better serve the children in our community.

Reference

www.nhsa.org

www.nccanet.org

www.naecs-sde.org/aboutus

Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

The three places I would be interested in working for are:

1.      The Department of Social Services: The Child Day Care service provides subsidized child day care for eligible families who are working or in job training and need assistance with caring for their children age birth through age 12. Parents are issued vouchers to cover all or a part of the fees.   Care is provided in licensed Child Day Care Centers and Family Care Homes. The parent's fee for care is based upon the number of family members and the gross family income. This programs has assisted many families which gave parents the opportunity to work and/or attend trainings that will help them become self-sufficient.

2.      Work Family Resources: This organization provides families with scholarships that will cover the full cost or part of childcare for children. They also provide the following:

·         Working with parents to locate quality child care programs

·         Helping income eligible parents access financial assistance to pay for child care

·         Providing on-going professional development opportunities and support to improve the quality of child care programs

·         Maintaining a database of legally operating child care options

·         Collecting and distributing information on the supply of and demand for child care

·         Providing on-site training and enhanced services to individuals and businesses.

3.      Early Head Start/Head Start: This is a federal funded program that provides early childhood educational services for families that are at or below the poverty level of living. Early Head Start serves families with children ages birth through three and low-income pregnant women The program provides comprehensive preschool program designed to meet emotional, social, health, nutritional and psychological needs of three and four year olds and their families. Children have the opportunity to attend a high quality learning environment at no cost to the families. This program is available for working or non-working families but parents must meet the requirements established by federal guidelines. Head Start is a federally funded. One main focus of the program is trying to the meet the goal of helping low-income children to be better prepared for school.

I would like to work at either of these organizations because they focus assisting families with securing affordable early childhood care. But of the three I think the position I would be interested in applying for is: Director of Child Development for a Head Start program.

The Director of the Child Development Division is responsible for assuring all the Head Start and Early Head Start program mandates and standards for excellence are met on a daily basis. This position develops the structure, systems and procedures to facilitate this. In addition to operating responsibility for fiscal, legal, and programmatic aspects of the program, it bears the responsibility of assuring that the program is strategically positioned for the future.

This position stood out for me because it aligns with my goal of assisting families acquire quality affordable early childhood care for their children.

I will have a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education I have over 20 years’ experience in child development and early childhood education; orientation to the concept of the total family. I am able to work effectively with corporate executives, board members, community leaders, volunteers, board committee members and division staff to achieve optimum results and I have excellent interpersonal and communication skills to work as a part of a team sharing the same goals and outcome

Thank You

Thank You

 These eight weeks have been very informative and eye opening while learning the importance of effective communication and how to successful collaboration can lead to positive outcomes in the field of early childhood education.

I have always considered myself a good communicate but I have learned this happens when I am in the people in the same cultural group or background as I am. Through the pass weeks I have gain much knowledge a strategies to use that will help me effective communicate with people that are not in my circle.

Your blogs about the different ways of communicating and collaborating has also given me better insights on how we share some of the same imperfections and the strategies you plan to enhance them. We are representatives of an important line of work and we must work to build relationships with families from different cultural backgrounds and that may not share the same values, visions and goal as we do, but must provide them with respect, mutual trust and commitment to give them our best.  

I wish all of you the best in your future endeavors and much success when establishing effective communication and collaboration experiences with your families and friends.

Adjourning

Adjourning

Working with a group whose primary focus is to achieve an outcome is the type of group I appreciated being a part of. The team objective was to create a lesson plan for teachers to use when preparing goals and activities for children.  There were five members of the group: parent, teacher, education, disability, and nutrition manager. It was important for us to have a diverse group to be able to get different perspectives of what children need to be successful.

It took a few meetings before we got to the norming and performing stages of this project but once we started communication, listening and made adjustments we reach the ultimate goal creating a workable document. We first had to learn to trust the input of each member and the importance of having the tool encompass the wholistic approach teaching children.

Once we completed the creating the lesson plan we all realized we were in the adjourning stage of the process. Adjourning is the encounter is over and we are going back to our lives before the group began. We were very happy with the finished document and we were excited about sharing the tool with the teaching team for them to beginning using it when preparing lesson for the children.  Through the group accomplished the mission with success we agreed to meet after the lesson plan had be implemented to see if we needed to add or make changes. I truly enjoyed working in this group because we had important assignment that would help teachers’ better plan for each individual child.

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

Resolving Conflict

Resolving Conflict

I can remember a disagreement I had in a management meeting about the who is qualified to care for young children when their parent (s) were attending a training or workshop.  One of my colleagues’s stated that we could have high school students that volunteer in our program to care for the children, but as I shared according to Division of Child Development the persons’ have pass a TB skin test and approved through the division of child development. I think we were passionate about our opinions and the discussion became loud and out of order.  I think this approach of communication resulted in not addressing the initial concern and we both let the meeting feeling anger towards one another.

This situation was an example of inappropriately addressed conflict. Both of us had a concern and felt our resolutions were the right one. As early childhood educators we know the rules to follow when we are taking care of the children enrolled in our program. But my colleague felt the issue of caring for children not enrolled did not have to follow the same rules.

I took the time to reflect on what happen in this situation and how I could have handled the way I shared the rules of monitoring children. I noticed my colleague was frustrated about the issue and speaking before she had the opportunity to express her emotions was not the best choice. So to keep situation like this from occurring again I plan to implement some of the principles of nonviolent communication I have learned this week.

I know the communication between us about this situation should have been addressed using the NVC approach. In this week’s lesson we have learned different strategies to express our opinion in an effective nonviolent manner. I think the “Thirdside” strategy approach of learning to listen at the total concern before giving my opinion and advice. I wanted us to be able to collaborate to establish a solution that will ensure our program is following the required rules.  

The other strategy I think would help with better communication would be the 3 R’s theory of respecting and acknowledge my colleague’s opinion and responding in a less closed minded manner will lead to a mutual respect and empower our professional working relationship.