Time Well Spent

Throughout the many courses I have taken at Walden University, there have been struggles, challenges, triumphs, and success. Even though times got tough I would not be the individual and early childhood professional I am now without the bumps in the road and the knowledge and strengths I have gained along the way. I feel the most powerful lesson I learned is the crucial nature of self-reflection and what it can do in respect of the work and continued success in early childhood education. Without the chance to reflect on my own biases and prejudices during my courses I don’t feel I would have effectively taken responsibility for my own thoughts and opinions and been able to successfully reflect on and understand how I came to take hold and believe in these certain thoughts. I believe that I have now become more aware of the prejudices that exist in our classrooms and within families and my passion in anti-bias education has grown. I have also learned the true power in advocating for young children. Never realizing that my voice can make a difference in early education as a whole, I am now more confident in myself and the knowledge I have gained and accessed in order to improve the education of our young children and making sure they lead successful and fulfilling lives in a discriminatory free environment. I have become aware of the skill, passion, commitment, and knowledge needed in order to successfully meet the needs of children and be an effective advocate.  I have also learned the power of collaboration in the field of early childhood and how an effective leader can make all the difference in reaching goals and communicating properly. With many different opinions, working styles, and cultures had in the many individuals we work with, it is important that an effective leader changes leadership styles when necessary to achieve optimal results. I have learned a lot about my own leadership style and the characteristics I hope to take hold of in order to become an even better leader. Having had the opportunity to build a community of practice has affirmed for me the need to collaborate with others and the work that can be done when you have more heads than one.

My goals for the future are to continue to advocate for anti-bias education in today’s classrooms and the importance for family involvement in education. I would love to make my capstone project become a reality and build workshops not just for parents, but for teachers and staff in educating them on anti-bias education and the importance for positive adult guidance in the early years. The diverseness of our world is increasing as well as the need to provide children with a safe school environment without the fear of discrimination and bullying. I hope to encourage parents to become more involved as well as accepting of the cultures and traditions that may exist in their child’s classrooms. I can only hope that my work in the future can make a difference in the lives of children and their families, as well as give educators the drive to continue making strides in providing the best education possible for all their students.

I can’t thank my colleagues and professors enough for the guidance, opinions, and constructive criticism given to me through my Master’s. I value other’s opinions and thoughts knowing I can only grow from the mistakes and lessons learned. Knowing I wasn’t alone in some of my questions and challenges was comforting and pushed me to do my best. I have learned so much from our discussions, blogs, and responses and know that I have worked with amazing individuals that are going to do great work and make great improvements in the field of early childhood education.  I would have never thought I would have made it to this moment, but here we all are and I thank you all for your support! Here’s our chance to make even more of a difference in the lives of our young children and I know you will all have great success!

                                

   

Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: Internationally

The international organization examples listed for us are somewhat familiar to me already and have reviewed some for previous courses. Knowing this, I wanted to make sure that I really dug deep and found organizations that are truly new for me and ones that could potentially bring me and others new knowledge and information. These are a few I found.

Association for Childhood Education International - ACEI

ACEI has a commitment to “support and advocate for access to education, equity in educational settings, quality educational content, and the child’s right to education” (ACEI, 2015). I feel that ACEI is a great organization because it pieces together all the parts that children need in order to be successful. “ACEI members have acted as social change agents,  involving themselves in various critical societal issues in their efforts to ensure that children around the world are protected, supported, and educated in ways that allow them to reach their full potential” ( ACEI, 2015). I love how ACEI promotes intercultural understanding in order to reach a mutual respect.

I did not find any open job opportunities while searching ACEI’s website, although I found a job that If able to work for ACEI I would love to have. It is the Director of Advocacy and Outreach. With this job I could assume that I would need the knowledge of other organizations and community programs, officers, board of directors, and so on in order to get ACEI’s misson and commitment across.

International Child Art Foundation – ICAF

Alongside my passion for children and early childhood education, I have had a lifelong passion for art. I feel bringing out the creative and imaginative side of children is important and can sometimes be a coping mechanism for children that are going through challenging times. With that being said, the ICAF stood out to me as a wonderful children’s foundation with a great cause. The ICAF’s key programmatic objectives are” to cultivate children’s imagination, reduce violence, and remediate suffering” (ICAF, 2015). On this website you are able to view children’s artwork from around the world and appreciate the creativeness of all children. There are also resources for kids, teachers, and professionals with opportunities to subscribe to children’s art magazines and be involved in the World Children’s Festival. “Our mission is to enhance academic performance and imbue global citizenship by nurturing children’s creativity and developing their empathy-key attributes of 21^st century learners and leaders” (ICAF, 2015).

Although I did not find any open employment opportunities on ICAF’s website either the job of Creative Advisor is one that I would love to be involved in. Even with having no open positions you can still be involved in ICAF by volunteering and interning at their organization. This would be a great chance to be a part of a great organization while working with wonderful individuals that are involved in making a positive change in the lives of today’s children.

Education International – EI

EI is not an organization that is focused primarily on children, rather it is an organization that is comprised of education employees and is driven by educating teachers in order to provide children with the best possible education. In order to meet the needs of our children and guide them to meet their fullest potential our educators needs to have the knowledge and training to do so. “It is the world’s largest federation of unions, representing thirty million education employees in about four hundred organisations in one hundred and seventy countries and territories, across the globe” (EI, 2015). Education International (EI, 2015) promotes the principle that “quality education, funded publicly, should be available to every student in every country”. Also with my challenge for my capstone project being the importance of anti-bias education, I was drawn to EI because they “advocate for equity in society; it combats racism and xenophobia; it challenges discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and racial or ethnic origin or characteristics”.

Education International does have the position of Program Officer open in their organization. I liked this position because they are to provide professional support in relation to education and employment issues. A Program Officer would also coordinate advocacy meetings, liaising with intergovernmental organizations, as well as prep and organize campaigns and conferences. The skills and abilities I would need to conduct this job is knowledge and experience with trade unions, fluency in French, Spanish, German or Russian would be an advantage, and knowledge of the workings of international institutions.

Resources

http://www.acei.org/

http://www.icaf.org/

http://www.ei-ie.org/en/

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

The first two organizations that I chose to write about have a focus on parent involvement in education. I know I have stated many times before in blogs and discussions that I am a huge advocate for parent involvement in their children’s educational process and journey and they should be fully knowledgeable about their child’s development and how to help guide them toward reaching their full potential.

National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE)

NCPIE’s (2015) mission is “to advocate the involvement of parents and families in their children's education, and to foster relationships between home, school, and community to enhance the education of all our nation's young people”. Although I could not find any employment opportunities on their website after conducting a thorough search, I see where one of their partners are Parent Information Resource Centers (PIRCs), located in many states throughout the U.S. If not able to work for NCPIE directly, I would love to be involved in a PIRC in my area in order to “work closely with parents, educators and community organizations to strengthen partnerships so that children can reach high academic standards” (NCPIE, 2015).

National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA)

The National PTA’s (2015) overall goal is to “to make every child’s potential a reality by engaging and empowering families and communities to advocate for all children.” With being “a powerful voice for all children, a relevant resource for families and communities, and a strong advocate for public education”, today PTA is “a network of millions of families, students, teachers, administrators, and business and community leaders devoted to the educational success of children and the promotion of family engagement in schools” (PTA, 2015). An employment opportunity that is available at this time at PTA that would be an amazing career is an Executive Director, providing you have a Master’s Degree and 10 years of experience working with a nonprofit organization. With the Executive Director providing visionary leadership to the NPTA, monitoring day to day operations of an organization, maintaining a positive fiscal oversight, knowledge of fundraising, as well as staff recruitment and supervision would just be a few of the abilities needed to perform as an Executive Director.

The last organization that I found would actually be one that I would include in my community of practice. They advocate for social justice and equity and are a 100% volunteer driven organization.

National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME)

“The NAME was founded by a group of individuals that came together united by passion and vision for multicultural education to create an organization that would celebrate diversity, as well as challenge the existing social inequities” (NAME, 2015). NAME (2015) states three objectives:

• To provide opportunities for learning in order to advance multicultural education, equity and social justice.
• To proactively reframe public debate and impact current and emerging policies in ways that advance social, political, economic and educational equity through advocacy, position papers, policy statements and other strategies.

• To provide the preeminent digital clearinghouse of resources about educational equity and social justice.

With NAME being a volunteer organization, there are many chapters that are located throughout the U.S. Knowing this, I would love to become a member of the organization, be involved, and maybe even consider organizing a chapter in my local area in the future.

Resources

http://www.ncpie.org/

http://www.pta.org/index.cfm

http://nameorg.org/

Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

I chose to search organizations in my current state of Pennsylvania. These are three organizations in my state that appealed to me:

Pa Child Care Association - PACCA.

What drew me to PACCA is why they exist “to be a strong and effective advocate for quality early care and education programs” (PACCA, 2012). I believe that whether our passion is curriculum, diversity, or management in early childcare we all want our programs and facilities to be exceptional and effective for our young children. The PACCA “strive to give leadership and support to those organizations that assist the early childhood education community, families and children” (PACCA, 2012).

They do have a job opening that is available at the moment which I would be very interested in having. The title is: Management of Early Care and Education (ECE) Center (Director of Early Child Care Programs and Services). For this particular job I would need a Master’s degree along with seven years of related experience (management in early childcare education settings). I would also need to be familiar with the sliding scale fee structure for childcare facility tuition, experience in research of funding opportunities, and CCAMPI (child care assess means parents in school) in order to manage this grant and subsidy program for student parents.  

Pa Partnerships for children – PPC

I enjoyed PPC because they are a “voice to improve the health, education and well-being of children and youth in the Commonwealth by advancing government policies” (PPC, 2015). With their mission being health, education, and well-being for children, I feel it covers all the bases. We all know that the early learning of children is extremely important but also is their health and emotional state of mind.

They currently do not have any positions available, although there is one position that caught my eye. The position is: KIDS COUNT Director. This individual serves as a liaison to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s national KIDS Count project. This project “seeks to enrich local, state and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all children and raise the visibility of children's issues through a nonpartisan, evidence-based lens” (PPC, 2015). For this job I would assume that I would need to be up to date on research regarding current issues in early childhood education and be versed in the evidence found that will secure a better future for children. Public speaking and advocacy are also skills I would need to possess in order to be an effective liaison and properly portray the necessary information needed to be brought to these discussions.

Pa Head Start Association – PHSA

I chose the PHSA because it works with economically challenged families and children and as stated on their website “embraces diversity” (PHSA, 2015). The PHSA’s mission is to “maximize the cumulative talents of Early Head Start/Head Start parents, staff, administrators and friends to collectively improve the future for economically challenged children, families and communities, by providing quality leadership, training, information and advocacy at the local, state, regional and national levels” (PHSA, 2015).

There are no job openings at the moment, although the position of Early Childhood Education Coordinator would be one that I would love to fulfill. When working in this position you are being a mentor, advocate, and trainer to provide the utmost efficiency in the school readiness of Head Start children. I would need to possess knowledge in culturally responsive curriculum and classrooms, be versed in agency resources and technology in order to answer questions and provide proper guidance to staff and parents, have the ability to collaborate with and have working knowledge of local community resources related to disability services, as well as possess the ability to meet the needs of all children.

References

 http://www.pacca.org/

http://www.papartnerships.org/

http://paheadstart.org/

 

What I Have Learned

I am so grateful for this course and the knowledge and resources I have gained and the amount of information that will help me to successfully become an anti-bias educator. We live in a true “melting pot” where differences in culture, race, beliefs, and traditions are all around us. I feel every early childhood educator should be exposed to anti-bias education and the need to implement it into our classrooms and schools throughout the country. Unfortunately, I feel lately our biases, judgments, and discrimination towards differences are becoming more apparent and the need to have acceptance is crucial. Although I cannot change people’s minds or opinions, I can help them to see the differences in others as strengths instead of negatives and give them an opportunity to learn and share from one another. I want the children and families in my school to feel welcomed and accepted for who they are individually and as a family and know they will be respected for their beliefs and values. It is so important that we learn to build respectful relationships between our parents so that true, honest communication can be had and everyone’s needs are heard and resolved. I want to thank all of my colleagues for their comments and discussions during this course; I truly value your feedback and opinions. I feel I have learned something from each and every one of you and appreciate the devotion and passion you all have for the field of early childhood and making our classrooms equal for all. I wish everyone a wonderful and relaxing holiday break and the best in the future! Good luck and thank you!

Creating Art

Start Young

Treasure your culture; take value in your beliefs

Because all our differences make us unique.

Our similarities bring us closer; while the unknown tear us apart.

We need to have patience and acceptance from the start.

Teach them early; give them respect

For misinformation is something we tend to regret.

Our want for equality; our willingness to persist

Will hopefully one day make it hard to resist

The many ways we can all overcome the fear

And someday justice for all will appear. 

"We Don't Say Those Words in Class!"

There was only one time that I ever witnessed an adult hush a child when asked about an individual’s disability. I was standing in the checkout line at a grocery store reading one of the magazines that stand on the racks close to the front of the line when I heard the mom in front of me say to her son “ Zac, it’s not nice to point, keep your hand down”. This got my attention and was now curious as to what the boy was reacting to. I lunged forward to put the magazine back down when I heard the mom say a little more sternly to her son now “Zac, I will talk to you about it when we leave. Hush”. As I looked around the little boy to take a glimpse at the individual in front of him, I noticed the woman checking out, on the line in front, only had one arm. I guess the woman heard the boy ask a question to her mom and she turned around. Zac’s mom whispered “I’m sorry”. The woman just smiled and turned back around.

I can see how the mom’s reluctance to speak to her son about what he noticed regarding  the woman in front of him can send him a message of not to notice differences in others and ask questions. It’s important that children know it is OK to ask questions about differences they notice in others because this is how we develop acceptance and politeness. It is especially crucial when children are interacting and learning together in an inclusive classroom As Derman-Sparks and Edwards  (2010, p. 125) “all children-those who are typically developing and children with disabilities- need to be able to ask questions, get accurate information, explore their feelings, and learn positive ways to interact with their peers”. I feel it’s important that children understand how to be polite when asking questions to others with disabilities and not to hurt their feelings. Many people that I have come across with certain disabilities don’t mind sharing information and asking questions about what happened to them and how they get by on a daily basis. Although, I know it can be a sensitive topic to some and they choose not to converse with others. I feel it is important children understand this as well, that some individuals will feel more comfortable than others and not to be discouraged if someone chooses not to answer their questions. If I was in that situation, at the moment I realized the woman heard my son being inquisitive about her one arm, I would have politely asked the woman if my son could ask her a question. I feel the woman would instantly know what kind of question he would be asking. It could be a great learning experience for all. As anti-bias educators we need to support children in “developing cognitive and emotional strategies to know what they want to say and be able to say it” (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010, p. 127).

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young

          children and ourselves. Washington, DC: NAEYC.