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.