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.