Time Well Spent

During my experience with Walden University, I have learned that I have more friends and colleagues in the early childhood field than I could have ever imagined. As educators, we all share the passion for working with children and improving their educational experience, no matter what we do to make this happen. My Walden colleagues have been extremely support and insightful, contributing to my understanding about the early childhood field. I am looking forward to continuing to collaborate with my colleagues from Walden in order to promote our shared understanding about advocating for quality early childhood education and partnering to make a positive change in society.

I have also learned that I possess a strong passion for play-based learning and am committed to ensuring that all young children in early childhood programs experience learning through play during their time in school. The change in educational standards have forced teachers to teach young children more rigorous material in a shorter amount of time, adding stress on teachers, leading them to resort to rote-style learning to ensure they meet their required deadlines. As a result, children are actually falling behind in essential development because the skills that develop through play are not established. My mission is to advocate for play-based learning in all early childhood settings in order to promote positive changes in children's developmental outcomes. Teachers will receive support from mentors as they work together to include play while they meet curricular requirements.

My knowledge about Head Start and the impact that it can have on children's lives has also grown drastically. When I began working on my Master's degree, I had just accepted a position working with a local Early Head Start program while having only two years of prior experience working in the early childhood field and no experience working with Head Start. As I progressed through my degree program, I used the discussions and application assignments to further explore what Head Start stands for and impact it has made on the community I serve. I can now proudly say that I confidently contribute to the writing of my program's grant and other governing documents, knowing that the knowledge and experience that I have gained throughout the course of my Master's program is being used. I am looking forward to what the future holds in terms of my early childhood career and being able to confidently contribute to improving the lives of young children through quality education.

As I progress in my career in the early childhood field, I see myself moving up into higher administrative positions in the Office of Head Start, whether that be at a regional or national level. While I enjoy currently serving my community, I believe that I should share my knowledge and experience with educators on a grander scale. I have already been monitoring regional positions, noting the qualifications and other requirements for application. I would like to help other grantees establish strong partnerships with community resources to help ensure that the children in their service area have access to essential services necessary to promote learning. I also want to advocate to improve the availability for quality education experiences for all young children, not just those that qualify for Head Start services or live in upper-class society. I know of several middle-class families, mine included, that cannot afford to send their children to quality educational programs and resort to having either family or private, less qualified babysitters care for their children. These children are missing out on essential experiences that can help foster development. Childcare and other early childhood programs need to be more affordable in order to maximize the chances to improve the future of society through today's children.

My experience with Walden University has truly been wonderful. I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with my professors. The level of experience and professional connections is inspiring. I have attended two other well-known universities in my lifetime and I can honestly say that I never received the personal feedback and professional guidance as I received from my Walden professors. Thank you all for your support throughout this journey. I also want to thank my colleagues for the vast amount of information and insight that you have shared with my along this journey. I think it is truly amazing that I have had the opportunity to collaborate with such passionate educators that represent early childhood education from around the world. I hope that you all keep in touch. I would love to continue to collaborate with all of you as we continue to pursue our professional careers in the early childhood field.

Lastly, I have posted a Wordle that describes my Walden experience. I want thank everyone (family, friends, professional colleagues, etc.) who have supported me through this journey.

 

Contact Information

Tiffany Booze

Education Coordinator

Pickaway County Head Start & Early Head Start

465 E. Ohio Street, Circleville, OH 43113

boozet@piccaheadstart.info

International Jobs and Roles in the ECE Community

As I near the completion of my Master's degree through Walden University, one of my final assignments is to explore international organizations that positively promote working with children. The first organization that I have found is the Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI), which can be found at http://acei.org/. ACEI is a non-profit organization that strives to promote quality educational services worldwide. They work to customize educational experiences based on the traditional customs and resources available in a child's environmental context where they live. It would be an honor to serve as a member of ACEI's Board of Directors. Qualifications for candidates include professional knowledge pertaining to business or public policy related to education, strong leadership skills, and the passion to represent diverse populations around the world (http://acei.org/qualifications-for-candidates-for-the-acei-board-of-directors).

Another international organization is the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI), which can be found at http://www.icrichild.org/. The ICRI is another non-profit organization that promotes quality care and services to children around the world. They believe that they should only offer services where they are welcome, so their organization is invited to serve regions where local leaders offer their support. One of ICRI's current projects was to provide training to teachers about learning and implementing non-violent discipline techniques with their students. ICRI provides a variety of consultation services that work to improve the quality of care and services offered to children in a certain locality. As a consultant for ICRI, I could have the potential to work with public policy leaders and key educators to determine the need to provide higher quality services to populations in question. I could also provide training to educational staff about developmentally-appropriate practice and other professional development opportunities.

A third international organization is the International Step by Step Association (ISSA), which can be found at http://www.issa.nl/. ISSA is a relatively new educational organization that was established in 1999 in the Netherlands. ISSA strives to provide professional development opportunities for educators working with young children and acknowledging the diverse populations of children served around the world. ISSA works to build the capacity of educators' knowledge by providing unique professional development opportunities to bring educators up-to-date with current issues and trends in the education field. As an early childhood educator, I would find it interesting to serve as a program mentor or adult educator for ISSA. ISSA offers a variety of trainings and online courses for educational programs. By serving as an adult educator or trainer, I would be able to share my knowledge for the early childhood field and advocate to other parts of the world to offer quality educational services to children everywhere.

There are several other international organizations that promote quality educational services to children, but I wanted to feature a few programs that I found to be unique in the populations they serve and services that they provide.

Exploring Roles in the ECE Community at the National Level

This week, I am shifting my focus toward exploring national organizations that support my passion for the early childhood field. The first organization that I am focusing on is the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). NAEYC is an organization that sets the standard for quality early childhood services and promotes an understanding of the development of young children. An ideal employment opportunity at NAEYC would be becoming the Senior Director for the NAEYC Academy for Early Childhood Program Accreditation (http://www.naeyc.org/about/jobs). This position features an inclusive list of requirements and credentials for an educator to achieve, but the rewards would be tremendous. As a young educator, I strive to learn all that I can in the early childhood field so that I can take a leadership position and share my knowledge with other young professionals to inspire them to take initiative and advocate for high quality early childhood practices. Ultimately, I would love to achieve a top leadership role with NAEYC or similar national early childhood organization because I believe I have the passion and need to improve educational experiences for all children.

The next national organization that I am exploring is Zero to Three, which is a national non-profit organization that provides professional development, resources, and information to educators and families interested in learning more about early development in children. Zero to Three believes that play is the a child's work, allowing them to develop a sense of the world around them and make significant gains in all areas of their development ( http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/play/). As an early childhood educator, I am passionate about spreading the word about the importance of play in fostering a young child's development. An employment position with Zero to Three that I would be interested in pursuing is an Assistant Director that specializes in coordinating technical assistance for the home visiting aspect of the organization. My experience working with Early Head Start has enabled me to understand the importance of promoting the idea that parents are a child's first teacher and providing families with the knowledge and training to understand their child's development. In the Assistant Director position, I would be responsible for coordinating training staff to provide services to meet the training needs of the home visiting grantees. While I currently do not have professional experience coordinating training opportunities for other trainers, it is definitely an aspect of my career that I would like to develop.

The other national organization that I am focusing on is the United States Department of Education. The U.S. Department of Education is responsible for monitoring funding to support state and local educational initiatives to improve student achievement. Federal research provides the foundation for the initiation of key educational issues in the United States and around the world. The underlying purpose of the U.S. Department of Education is to retrieve data about state and local school performance and education-based trends to identify areas for improvement. As an early childhood educator, I understand that even though schools are mainly funded at the state and local level, supportive funds and national programmatic changes begin at the federal level. The Supervisory Education Program Specialist position, offered by the U.S. Department of Education, features the opportunity to serve in a new role that looks to improve communications between the state and federal levels of education (https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/381519000). Goals for this position are to monitor the State Support Teams to ensure they are effectively serving the needs of federally funded state-level agencies and work with educational agencies at the local, state, and federal level to share education data to improve student achievement.

The process of reviewing national early childhood organizations has truly been informative. It has enabled me to gain a better understanding of the missions driving some of the organizations that I often turn to for resource information and professional support. The description of qualifications for the employment opportunities that I have listed have also educated me in showing me the potential that I have for serving our country and early childhood industry as a key leader in the early childhood field.

Exploring Local and State Level Roles in the ECE Community

This week, my colleagues and I were asked to explore various early childhood local and state level communities and organizations that we are interested of which we are interested in becoming a member. Since I currently live in Ohio and Fairfield County and work in Pickaway County, I am focusing my attention to these regions for exploration. The first organization that I would be interested in becoming a member of is the Pickaway County Educational Service Center. I chose this organization because I know that my Head Start program currently partners with them to provide services to children with disabilities in the county, but I want to know more about the other services that the program offers. According to the Pickaway County ESC's website (http://www.pickawayesc.org), it has been serving the county's educational needs for 100 years. They are dedicated to ensuring that the county's educators are ready to serve the children in the community by offering up-to-date training and mentoring services to continuously improve each educator's professional credentials. One of the employment positions that I would be interested in if an opening became available is the Curriculum Supervisor. Curriculum Supervisors are assigned to a school district (or particular grade level as in Circleville City Schools) to monitor proper curriculum implementation and review the school district's curriculum to ensure that it is meeting the developmental needs of the children. This particular position appeals to me because I believe that curriculum should be developmentally appropriate for all children and be offered in a variety of delivery modes in order to maximize learning opportunities for the children.

Another agency that I would be interested in being a member of is the Ohio Department of Education (http://www.education.ohio.gov). The Ohio Department of Education serves as a service center for all of the state's education programs, providing supportive services such as professional development for educators, monitoring fiscal performance, and reviewing curriculum and assessment. The overall administration of the department is overseen by the Ohio Board of Education. One professional position that I would be interested in pursuing in the future is that of the Director of Early Learning and School Readiness, which oversees the operation and implementation of all early childhood programs in the state of Ohio, including but not limited to publicly funded preschools, birth to kindergarten entry child care programs, and kindergarten readiness programs. This position is appealing to me because I see it as a state level equivalent to my current position in Head Start. I am the Education Coordinator for the Pickaway County Head Start and Early Head Start program and oversee the education-based operations throughout the program. The state-level Director position would allow me to demonstrate my professional knowledge in the early childhood field and encourage me to step up as a leader and advocate to provide quality early childhood programming state-wide.

The third agency that I am interested in is Action for Children (http://www.actionforchildren.org). Action for Children is a non-profit organization that provides free child care and early childhood information and training to families, professional development training opportunities for current educators, and advocacy for quality early childhood programming. A career opportunity that I would be interested in pursuing is an Early Childhood Technical Assistance Specialist, which requires an extensive knowledge of the state's child care licensing requirements, Step Up to Quality rating system requirements, and various curriculum and assessment tools. As previously mentioned, I possess a strong interest in learning about various curricula and assessment tool used with young children. This position would encourage me to expand my knowledge about curricula and assessment used in the state and mentor early childhood programs and individual professionals in implementing quality early childhood programs.

As I continue to explore the early childhood education community and resources available to me, I will add local and state level agencies and professional opportunities that appeal to me.

Wordle: Early Childhood Passion

 

As a part of the introduction to my Capstone for my Master's in Early Childhood Studies through Walden University, my colleagues and I were asked to reflect on the themes presented throughout our degree program and choose five themes that resonated most with our passion for the field. The theme that I am most passionate about is play-based or child-initiated learning. I believe that children learn best about the world around them by having the freedom to explore it through play. Play enables children to interact with their environment and develop all areas of growth. As an educator, I believe that it is my responsibility to provide a supportive environment for my students to be able to explore while still being available for assistance or gentle guidance. 

The second early childhood theme that drives my spirit as an educator is that of testing and assessment. I believe that testing and assessments should be used as tools to determine the current developmental status of a child in order to assist the teacher and parents in creating a positive support system for enabling the child to reach their greatest potential. Children should not be expected to fit into a stereotype and be penalized for under-or-overachieving goals set for them. Tests and assessments are created to reflect the idealized expectation for the typical child at a certain stage in life. However, if researchers truly understood early childhood development, they would realize that there is no such thing as the typical child. Assessments need to be used as a tool to assist in planning activities to support the child, not as a guideline for the child to meet. 

Leadership, advocacy, and nurturing positive relationships all combine to form my third passion in the field because they all link together to highlight important aspects in my role as an Education Coordinator for Head Start. As a leader, it is my responsibility to obtain and share up-to-date information and research in the early childhood field. Collaborating with early childhood professionals, I strive to educate families about the importance for advocating for their children and learning about the supports available for improving the quality of education not only for the child but for the family as well. Parents who understand the importance of being a voice for their children are able to form positive relationships with their children and each child's educator. This cohesive partnership between parents and educators promotes nurturing relationships for the children to grow up in, resulting in a group of children who are more likely to achieve or exceed developmental milestones throughout their childhood as long as these supportive partnerships remain in tact. 

Communication with Colleagues

Over the past few months, I have had the privilege of working collaboratively with my colleagues from Walden University. We have been working on this journey together toward achieving our Master's degree in Early Childhood Studies, but taking the information that we have been given and applying it to our own career paths. It has been humbling to see how far we have all come in our understanding of the early childhood field and I enjoy reading the progress that everyone has made. The revelations about how we can apply the information to our own programs and then reading the success stories that result when our education improves the quality and outcomes of the services that we are providing to our families makes this journey very worthwhile. I just want to take this time to thank all of my colleagues from Walden University for taking the time to read my blog and discussion posts and truly provide me with feedback that pertains to how I can become a better educator. I truly wish you all the best of luck as you continue to pursue your degree and make a difference in the lives of children everywhere!

Tiffany Booze

The Adjourning Phase

When I reflect back on the groups that I have participated with in the past, I am led back to when I was in high school, where I was a member of several of our school's choirs and the varsity cheerleading squad. All of these groups held high standards for how they performed. My high school choir was given the honor of performing at one of the top cathedrals in New York City. Also, our cheerleading squad competed in the Nationals competition at Walt Disney World  twice and ranked among the top five in our division both times. When it came to my senior year of high school, saying goodbye to both of these groups was very difficult because I enjoyed working with the members of each of the groups and was going to miss performing with them. With each group, we held an awards banquet at the end of the school year. The purpose of the banquet was to reflect on our journey and celebrate the accomplishments that we had made as a group and as individuals. Ten years later, I still miss performing with these groups and often reflect with some of my friends about the memories that were created.

When looking into the near future, I imagine some of the same feelings and events will surround the adjourning phase of working with my colleagues from Walden University. Even though I have not met any of my colleagues personally, I feel a strong connection with my classmates because of thoughts that we have shared and memories that have been formed. I am looking forward to completed my Master's degree program at the end of October and am hoping that I will be able to attend graduation in January, so I can finally meet some of my colleagues in person. I have enjoyed the many opportunities that I have been given to communicate and collaborate with my colleagues because it has enabled us to form professional bond that I believe will keep us connected even after graduation.

Communication Conflict

One source of disagreement that I am currently having at work is the idea of implementing the Family pages for our Teaching Strategies GOLD program. I currently feel like it is a resource that could be very beneficial for our families in helping them understand more about their child's progress and give them a tool to readily access information about their child's development while in our program. One of my colleagues, however, feels that by implementing the use of the Family pages, it would require our staff to input the same data into another database, resulting in wasting valuable time that could be used for planning and family advocacy.

One way that I can work to resolve this conflict in a nonviolent manner is to show respect for my colleague's opinion. She has been working with our program longer than I have and has a closer relationship with our home-based staff, which is the group of teachers that she is concerned about. By choosing to respect her opinion and listen more closely to her reasons for why she is opposed to adding the responsibility of using the Family pages, I can come to a better understanding of both her as a person and as a strong contributor to our program.

Another way that I can work to resolve this conflict is by responding to her reasoning in a positive manner. I can respond to her by restating her reasons in order to justify that I was listening to her. After restating her reasons, I can then state my point of view in a way that is reflective of her reasoning, but is still founded on my beliefs.

This particular colleague and I do have a positive relationship and generally work well together. Her opposition is simply based on the fact that our home-based staff already have many requirement that force them to prioritize which duties will get done first. However, after I review the Family pages application of the GOLD program, I may be able to find a way to compromise with her and ease the requirements of this portion of our staff by requiring them to do less than what she believes is required in this task.

Communication Evaluations

I really enjoyed reviewing the results of the surveys for this week's application assignment. In addition to my participation, my mother and a colleague also completed the surveys, basing their results on how they thought I would score myself based on my communication skills. I found it interesting that all three of us placed myself in group 1 for the listening styles survey. I would have to agree that I am very people-oriented. I really try to focus on the message that is being relayed and the person who is relaying the message. In a conversation, I would much rather listen than speak. I have always been a quiet person, even in a professional setting. One surprising revelation that came from the results of the verbal aggressiveness survey is that I tend to be moderately aggressive. I like to view myself as passionate, especially when it is something that I care deeply about. If there is something that I know should be said or heard, I relay that message, even if it means that the person receiving the message could possibly be hurt by it. There are times where I do regret what I say, but for the most part, I think long and hard before I say something. This survey, however, made me realize that I may want to use more caution and evaluate my level of aggression depending on the situation that I am in.

One thing that I found interesting in the readings for this week was the concept of cognition for one's self. I know that I have a low self-esteem, which often carries into my professional life. I try to be a perfectionist at work because I have a fear of making a mistake or not being good enough. Whenever I lower my standards for something, I feel as though I have let other people down. I know that this is an area that I need to improve because my low self-esteem can potentially be sensed by the children and families that I work with. I want to teach them to think highly of themselves and be proud of their accomplishments and abilities, but first, I need to believe in myself. The other topic that I found interesting this week is the reliance that we tend to have on technology in order to communicate with others. Again, I am guilty of relying too heavily on technology because I can hide my feelings behind the text. I use technology because I do not want others to see my fears about bringing up a touchy subject or discussing a concern with a parent who potentially may not handle the situation very well. But, as a leader, I need to be able to have the confidence to interact with all types of individuals on a face-to-face basis and accept the fact that everyone makes mistakes and people often are uncomfortable in one-on-one situations.

Cultural-Based Communication

This week, we have been discussing how culture influences our communication style and our views about how other individuals communicate. I will readily admit that I am generally a shy person, no matter who I am around. I view myself as a strong listener, speaking up only when I am truly passionate about something. However, my role as an education coordinator does not allow me to take the back seat in communication scenarios, so I have to be willing to step out of my comfort zone in order to address people in many different circumstances.

I do tend to communicate differently when I am around people who have a different cultural background than myself. For instance, if I notice that a person may not be a member of my community, I tend to weigh more heavily on my role as a listener than as a verbal communicator. I also tend to avoid eye contact during conversations with these people because I fear that I am being judged and may possibly offend them if I make eye contact and they are uncomfortable with it.

In order to communicate more effectively with people from all cultural backgrounds, I first need to stop judging and trying to decide whether or not a person comes from a particular background or not. It should not matter what that person's background is. If they are willing to have a conversation with me, then I should be willing to respect them. Another step that I can take to effectively communicate is to find something in common with the other participant. Common interests or communication styles enable all participants to be able to offer understanding to one another. I can also try to put myself in the other person's place and view things from their perspective. By viewing the conversation from their point of view, I show that I am willing to fully participate in the conversation and honor their opinion, even if I may not fully agree with it.

Observing Communication Without Sound

This week, I chose to watch an episode of Army Wives. I chose this television show because I have always been interested in watching it, but have never had a chance to do so. While viewing the show without sound, I noticed that I was really focusing on observing the characters' emotions and body language. Based on the body language of the characters, I noticed that there was a lot of jealousy between some of the groups of wives. I could also sense the tension in some of the relationships based eye movements and posture Once I turned on the sound of the show, I realized that many of my feelings about the characters were validated. By being able to listen to the sound, I was able to gain more information the nature of the relationships. If I had prior knowledge about the show, I would admit that my feelings toward the characters would persuade my observations and force me to focus on certain interactions among the characters instead of being able to take the objective approach that I did.

Competent Communication

When I think of competent communication, one person in particular comes to my mind. My supervisor, who is our Early Head Start Director, is a great communicator, both on a professional level and on a personal level. Whenever I am speaking with her, she takes the time to truly listen to me. She evaluates what I have said before she responds. She also makes eye contact with me when I am speaking, which also reassures me that she is listening. Even in emails, she always seems to take the time to stop and think about how she wants to say something before she actually does it. To me, that shows that she cares about her audience and how her audience views her. I feel important when I speak with her, even if it is simply sharing my frustrations that I experienced earlier that morning while trying to get my oldest daughter to preschool. Another key point that makes her a competent communicator is the fact that she holds an open door policy in her office. She is always willing to take the time to communicate with her staff, no matter what the topic may be. I have learned a lot about communication through my relationship with her and it has carried over to my interactions in my position in the program.