Thank you and Farewell, At least for now

First of all, I wish to express my deepest thanks. Dr. Teri, as my instructor, you critiqued my work in order for me to improve and make it better. You showed me how to take big pictures and narrow them down to smaller pieces; the pieces of the puzzle do not all fit together at once, it takes time. So, Dr. Teri, thank you for making me a better educator and advocate. To my colleagues, thank you for your continued support, some of you I just met in this course and others I have had throughout my Master's program. I have learned a lot from each of you and will take what I have learned with me beyond this course into my future career.

Secondly, as I look ahead I realize that a passion I always had in the past, but got away from, has been reignited and will be used as I continue on my journey. I am going to write; it was suggested that I write a curriculum based on my capstone project and I am going to do it. Beyond the curriculum for my capstone project, I wish to write a coordinating curriculum on math using the same concept. Additionally, I also want to try and write a children's book or book series.

Finally, as I look back on this course I realize I am not the same person I was when we started eight weeks ago. I now truly believe that I can make a difference and I have an existing community of practice to support me along the way. I think of the expression "Rome wasn't built in a day" and take a deep breath knowing that advocacy efforts are not completed over night and may take time, but the end result will make changes positively impacting the field for years to come. And as I mentioned above, issues are tackled little bit by little bit, so the big issue you wish to impact can be changed piece by piece.

I wish all of you the best as you continue on your path to accomplishing great things.

Jobs/Opportunities in the ECE field: Internationally

While continuing to pursue new knowledge and gain a better understanding of opportunities available outside of the classroom, we looked into international organizations this week.

 The first I looked into was the academy for educational development (AED). My reasoning was simple, I had never heard of it before. What I first found was that AED has been acquired and is now known as FHI 360. So I continued pursuit and found that in relation to education, there are currently two opportunities in the United States. The first is a research associate which requires a Master’s degree in international education and completion of research projects. The second is a director’s position which again asks for international education experience but also wants a minimum of 10 post-doctorate years of experience. So while these jobs are out of reach for me at this time and not necessarily of personal interest, it gave me an insight into the international piece of striving to improve education.

The second site I looked at was the UNICEF website. I looked into this website a little more since I have had minimal experience with this site in the past. What I found was that the job opportunities available are currently overseas and since they would require relocation which is not of interest to me I did not pursue the requirements for the positions. However, what I did find was a wealth of information I had forgotten existed through the UNICEF website. So it is now marked in my favorites list in order to revisit the website for information later.

The final website I looked at was the site for World Vision. I am familiar with the website and what World Vision strives to do since I was once a child sponsor. However, I had never looked at opportunities to work for World Vision before and when I did for this blog entry, I found there is a need for a grants officer for All Children Reading. I thought wow, children, reading (which connects to the literacy capstone project I have created), and World Vision, I have to check this out. Unfortunately, I do not have any experience in completing the tasks required for the position nor do I meet the requirements of the position. But knowing this organization is working on tasks such as this will make me stay more abreast of the global happenings through this organization.

The opportunities are available if we want them, or know of others who may be influential.

Jobs/roles in the ECE community: National level

As I thought about the roles I would like to have, I thought of national organizations I would like to join. The first, is the national association for the education of young children, NAEYC. I have accessed the website, www.naeyc.org, several times throughout my different courses and teaching career for information. While an excellent source for information for research purposes or help in the classroom, they also offer the opportunity to purchase resources and join the NAEYC. More specifically, however, is that there are job opportunities with the NAEYC which would all require a relocation to Washington, D.C. A need exists for a lawyer, a project manager, coordinators in different areas, and a human resources (HR) generalist. While I do not qualify at all for the lawyer position, if I had experience operating a team or being in charge of adults, there are coordinator positions with my masters degree for which I could apply. The HR position requires HR experience and experience working within an organization so I am not qualified for it at all. The NAEYC is an organization I would like to become actively involved with and one day maybe even work for as the desire of the organization is to further enhance the success of learning for young children.

As I have looked into and become more aware of the children's defense fund, www.childrensdefense.org,  through different courses, I browsed the website once more for this assignment. What I found was that while the national office location is in Washington, D.C. there are other offices located throughout the United States for more local, regional access. The positions available within the children's defense fund require administrative experience which I do not possess and all would require relocation to the office where the job is held. What I am finding is that the positions within organizations require more experience with adults and management then children. So it brings the question to mind how can one acquire experience with adults if like myself, we prefer working with children?

Finally, I looked into the United States department of education. For our country, I believe working with the national department of education could be rewarding, knowing that what you are doing is impacting the lives of children and families throughout the nation. The research analyst position requires a doctorate degree and although for the education requirement for the program specialist I thought I met, once previewing the questions to determine how qualified for the position a candidate is, I realized I did not meet the expectation of writing proposals and speeches. More information can be found at, www.ed.gov.

Of the three, the NAEYC would be the most likely organization I could become a part of to change the field of early childhood.

Exploring roles in the ECE community: Local and state levels

As I have thought about my program coming to an end and how much I want to help advocate for change, I thought about organizations that already exist to promote change. While on the national level, I would like to join organizations like NAEYC, we were asked to find some closer to home and I thought of one I was already a part of, one I found during a previous course, and one my mom was just a delegate for this summer at a national convention.

            The first is found at www.nieer.org. It is the national institute for early education research and strives to connect educators, politicians, and writers to promote positive successful change in early childhood. While a national institute, it is located here where I live in NJ at Rutgers University. Having such a vast array of resources through this site locally may give me an outlet to turn to for references to enhance my ability to advocate effectively for early childhood and children here in the state of New Jersey. Currently I did find out they are looking for data collectors. It is a position for graduate students who can be flexible. With the research source I have available to me through NIEER, it will allow me to connect with the next organization more effectively I believe.

            The second organization I found is advocates for children of New Jersey. This site allows for those who browse the site to make donations, sign up for monthly newsletters, become a part of “action alerts” allowing you to send letters directly to officials on issues, connect through social media, and spread the word through family and friends. Through this site, I can find out what issues are already being addressed here in New Jersey and what avenues I can use to advocate for the concerns and issues I have for early childhood. Currently at this time I was unable to find any current job opportunities but was able to find a list of positions with background information on those who hold the positions as well as a board of trustees list. While both of these would be useful to me and contacting current members of both to join my CoP to further enhance the reach of my goal, the one with members closest to me I believe is the last one I found.

            The New Jersey Educators Association, or NJEA, has members local to my community’s school district, has regional members, and members who represent the state. As I looked through the site, I found the NJEA is currently in need of a variety of positions to be filled. Although I would like to make a difference, the positions NJEA needs requires more public policy and advocacy experience as well as more experience working with professional development of fellow educators which I do not possess. However, I do know that the NJEA has delegates that attend a national convention and vote on issues affecting education nationally. My mom recently went this summer with a fellow teacher in our local district to represent at the convention held in Atlanta. The one downfall I have found about NJEA is unfortunately at present members must either be in college or work in a public school, so someone like myself who was employed at a private preschool is ineligible to join.

            All of these resources could enhance the advocacy opportunities I wish to pursue. In addition, connecting with members of each of these organizations as a part of my CoP will give me more support for the issues I hope to change.

References

www.acnj.org
www.nieer.org
www.njea.org

Looking Back

As I look back the one thing that I have not done yet, but desire to do in order to stay more abreast of early childhood happenings is join at least one professional organization. I want to use my knowledge and what I have learned to impact the early childhood field.

Thinking about learning and sharing within a community of educators as we have done for the last eight weeks leaves me thinking about a lot. First, as we learn and grow together we become more aware that we are not alone and when we work together we can accomplish so much more. Secondly, working together enhances the number of voices heard in regards to an issue. While one voice and one person can make a difference, if there is a larger group effort to achieve the same, the voices combined together will get more attention. Finally, one a negative note working together can sometimes lead to different personalities and opinions clashing. When this happens all parties involved lose.

We need to work together as educators, on similar issues, to work better together to impact the early childhood field.

My Hypothetical Family situation

As a current teacher, English speaking, and married to a wonderful man, we have just found out that the child we will have is going to be born with Down Syndrome. For those who may not know, it is a condition where a child is born with an extra copy of chromosome 21. While services are available, and treatment is available my child will be subject to other medical conditions a 'normal' child will not. Each child born with Down Syndrome exhibits different characteristics, both physically and cognitively. Thus from family members to community members to educators, all involved in my life will now need to be aware and understanding of the differences between them and my child. But don't count my child out on anything! As an educator, luckily my husband's job will allow for me to stay home and my child will be taken care of in our home by myself and whatever therapists he may need. My family and I, as well as my child, will need health services, support services, and early learning and development services to insure our child and family are receiving the best possible care. Without my income once our child is born, while we are currently able to afford for me to stay home, it will change our economic situation. I have also come to learn that in our area that not many know about Down Syndrome so I will now become an advocate in our area to raise the awareness of Down Syndrome and how although it can change the appearance and cognitive ability of my child it will not prevent my child from being an active member of society.

My hope and goal, as is that of my husband, is in having a child with Down Syndrome coming in the next few months, we will not only raise awareness of Down Syndrome but of children with all different kinds of special needs in order to make our community more accepting of the differences among us in a positive manner.

* All information gathered was found from the National Down Syndrome Society retrieved from http://www.ndss.org/Down-Syndrome/Down-Syndrome-Facts/

Political Will to Improve Early Childhood Systems

This week, and last, I enjoyed learning more about the Kindergarten strand of the Early Childhood system since I prepare my students for Kindergarten. What I have learned over the last few years is that the Pre-Kindergarten I teach today is the Kindergarten from when I went to school. I enjoyed learning last week that the Kindergarten program here in my current state is changing to become more play oriented and self monitoring. However, unfortunately the low income status in my current location is still a barrier to overcome in regards to the partnerships and abilities of families and educators to work together for learning purposes.

On the other hand, within the strand I teach (Early care and education) my concern still remains to be the issue of salary and benefits when private sectors are compared to public sectors. If both sectors had educators compensated equally with money and benefits, such as insurance, then more high quality programs would be available for educators and children.