Time Well Spent

I will say that the past two years of this Master’s Program: Early Childhood Studies has been the biggest eye-opener of my professional journey so far. Through this program, I set out to learn skills and gain knowledge on how to be more effective in my leadership, and management skills. I have done that and so much more. I have done more self-reflection in my career and my leadership methods than ever in my life. Three deeply felt learnings that I gain from this program are:

  • I learned about myself, my personal biases, and how I came to have those biases through my own life experiences. This allowed me to really look at other’s situations and life experiences and be more sensitive to their needs.
  • I learned that I am a passionate early childhood professional that envisions the early childhood field to be equitable for all. This means advocating for quality care and education for all young children and families.
  • And lastly, I learned that I am capable of creating social change in the field. Through my capstone project, I began to really reflect on how to begin to make changes in my own community with challenging behaviors of young children. I know that I am capable to begin taking steps to make a difference in my community and state, and eventually nationwide.

My long term goal is to be an advocate for other early childhood educators and provide them the professional development they need at the moment and helping them figure out what works best for the teaching style. I have realized that there is no one size fits all for young children. What teaching style works for one may not work for others. I think it is critical to developing educators that realize this and are willing to create change in themselves for the sake of the child and the child’s learning.

I would like to end this note in saying thank you to my colleagues and all my instructors for sharing your personal experience and knowledge throughout my studies. It has been a pleasure to work with you and maybe I will see some of you again in your future successes in the field.  Farewell and best of luck to each of you.

 

 

International Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community

In researching international organizations or community of practices, I found several that interest me. The first one I looked at was the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). I found this organizations website to be a little overwhelming because they do so much. Their main vision is to seek to build peace through international cooperation in Education, the Sciences and Culture. They develop tools to help people live as global citizens free of hate and intolerance and works so that each child and citizen has access to quality education. They work to strengthen bonds among nations. One job that I may be interested in within the organization is the Head of Learning and Development Unit. The primary location is Paris!  It sounds like the main functions of this position is evaluating, assessing, and implementing staff development within the organization. Supporting and conceptualizing design and delivery of new and revised development activities at all levels and ensuring that policies, practices, and procedures, and content are in line with organizational priorities. I would need a few more years in staff development experience.

Save the Children was another organization that appealed to me. I like the fact they are advocates for children in health, education, protection, and in crises. They believe every child deserves a healthy start in life. One job that I would be interested in is a Manager of Education in the Head Start Program. As a front line representative of Save the Children, the Education Manager is required to ensure the safety and security of children and families that they come in contact with, adhering to the agency’s values and Accountability, Ambition, Collaboration, Creativity, and Integrity. My biggest passion is spreading quality throughout all early childhood programs. I really like the idea of being technical assistance to providers, teachers, and families.

 

 

The National/Federal ECE Community

In researching national/federal early childhood organizations, I found the Association of Children’s. At first thought of job opportunities in my field, this is one that never really crossed my mind. However, I love the work that the Children’s Museum does in our community. I never really considered them as a national organization. Their vision is to create a world that honors all children and respect the diverse ways in which children learn and develop. They believe that children’s museums are a unique community where children are valued citizens with the right to developmentally appropriate learning experiences, and play is learning and critical. They believe family, culture, environments, and society are recognized as critical factors in all children’s lives. One job that I would be interested in is a Director of Education position. The Director of Education leads the education department in planning, evaluation, analyzing, budgeting and executing all educational programming, activities, and events with thein the museum and out in the community. I think based on job requirements, I would need more experience in budgeting.

The Children’s Defense Fund is another organization that feeds my passion with young children. They are a non-profit organization that advocates for children and provides a strong, and effective voice for all children of America who can not vote, lobby or speak for themselves. They pay close attention to poor children, children of color, and children with varying abilities. I found a job opportunity that appealed to me. A special assistant in the Policy Department. The Policy Team is responsible for identifying and carrying out, in collaboration with other CDF departments and state offices, CDF’s policy priorities in child poverty, child health, early childhood, education, child welfare, youth justice, gun violence prevention and immigration, all intended to improve the odds for America’s children. For this job, I would definitely need more experience and understanding in policy making.

The National Head Start Association is another national organization that I would consider working for. They are a non-profit organization that believes that every child, regardless of circumstances can succeed. They work for policy and institutional change that ensures all vulnerable children and families have what they need to succeed. I believe that my consideration for Head Start in a career is because I currently work for a facility that partners with Head Start. I feel like the organization does great work and is a great asset to our young children and families. However, in our community, I also feel like the Head Start program lacks effective communication and collaboration within its program. One job that I would be interested in is the Operations Director. This would give me the opportunity to create effective change and leadership within the program.

Communities of Practice

Communities of practice, as we have learned this week is when groups of people who share the same passion or concern for something come together and learn how to do it better through interaction and collaboration (Helm, 2007). In the early childhood profession, there are many communities of practice that operate for the greater good of young children and their families. In my community, the first community of practice (go to resource) for early childhood educators, administrative staff, and families is Smart Start of Forsyth County (SSFC) (Smart Start of Forsyth County, n.d.). SSFC is a team of education and community advocates whose mission is to mobilize resources and shape public opinion to improve early childhood care, development, and education. They provide resources for families, including childcare scholarships, parent workshops, development specialist when needed, as well as assisting with food, diapers, and educational materials. Just to name a few resource they provide for educators are education scholarships, professional development, mentoring programs, and development specialist thqt assist in working with educators in the classroom and with families. They also assist childcare admin staff with funds for improving quality, technical assistance in the classrooms, with policies, etc. One position that interest me on their website is a Professional Development Coordinator. I am very passionate about providing professional development to the educators in our community. I have felt like this area has been very repetitive in our area. They provide professional development, but it does not appear to change or be what is really needed at the time and is not time sensitive to the culture of our teachers. Most of our teachers are single mothers, they complain mostly about working all day in the classroom and then going to training provided for two more hours after work. My goal is to eventually be able to provide free online professional development based on the needs of the educators in our community and at the leisure of their own schedule.

Another organization in our community that is a community of practice is the Childcare Resource Center (CRC). They are an organization that collaborates with other businesses that are looking to impact the early childhood field. They also provide resources for families in finding quality programs that fit their needs, as well as a resource for educators as well. At this time, I could not find job opportunities with this organization (Childcare Resource Center, n.d.).

The North Carolina Division of Child Development is the organization that organizes and implement the rules and regulations for childcare facilities to follow in maintaining quality. The set in place an environmental rating scale assessment to determine the quality of a childcare program. They ensure the administrators are following these rules and maintaining requirements for licensing. They are advocates for families, young children, childcare facilities and educators. I also could not find any job opportunities with this organization that appeal to me (Division of Child Development and Early Education, n.d.).

References

Childcare Resource Center. (n.d.). https://childcareresourcecenter.org/

Division of Child Development and Early Education. (n.d.). https://ncchildcare.ncdhhs.gov/

Helm, J. H. (2007, July). Energize your professional development by connecting with a purpose: Building Communities of Practice. YC Young Children, 62(4), 12-14. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/docview/197641713

Smart Start of Forsyth County. (n.d.). http://smartstart-fc.org/

 

Support of my Colleagues

Through out this class, I have learned so much about myself and my own communication skills. I my position at work, I speak with families and perspective families on a daily basis. As a reflection of the class and all that we have learned, I realize how body language, culture, and perspective on self plays a big part in how I present myself when communicating. I am also more aware of how others communicate skills as well. Throughout this course, my colleagues have helped me develop a deeper sense of myself an how to be more effective in collaboration when developing a team of communicators. Through suggestions, ideas, and their continuous support, I have no doubt I will grow to a more effective level of communication.  I am super excited to apply the new tools and strategies to my everyday professional and personal life. Thank you to my colleagues for always supporting my thoughts and sharing your own. I would love to keep in touch with everyone and continue this collaboration in the early childhood field. My email is: grubbs159@aol.com. Contact me anytime and good luck to you all in your journey.

Team Building

In thinking about several groups that I have been a part of throughout my life, I have to admit that several of them have been very easy to leave and several have been harder to say good-bye too. One group that comes to my mind that was very hard to say good-bye to was my high school majorette team. I became a part of this team in the 9th grade. It was a team made up of only 5 girls, because there just was not that many majorettes. The other girls were also in the 9th grade and we stayed with it for all four years. We became very tight, we practiced year round, we traveled to competitions and camps together and were like sisters. We respected each other, and of course had conflicts, but we all contributed to the team. We had a great leader that kept us on track, especially during the conflicts. Because we were such a great team and built trusting relationships among each other, he was very hard to let it go.In closing, we did celebrate all of our successes before going on our separate ways. Some of us still keep in touch, especially since we have social media. But we never really see each other.

Adjourning from my colleagues that I have worked with throughout my masters degree will be a moment of celebration. We will celebrate all the knowledge that we have gained from one another and the support we have given as well. Some of my colleagues, I have been communicating with since day one of my first class. I have had some eye opening moments in hearing some personal and work experiences shared. I would like to think we would still use our blogs as a way of communication and collaboration, but who knows in the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives.

Conflict

The center I work for is getting ready to open a second center. When this happens, I will move to the new center. I have been training one of my co-workers (per my supervisor) to work in administration and do my job at the current facility. This consists of managing staff/child ratios, daily schedules, helping families when needed, enrolling, and certain monthly reports that have to be completed by a deadline. I recently made a suggestion to her on an easier way to complete a report and to also ensure accuracy, that she was working on. I was trying to help her because I noticed some mistakes that she was making on the report. She immediately go defensive and told me that I should have told her that from the beginning. She was already used to the way she was doing it. Her facial expressions and tone of voice all said to me that she was upset.  She walked away without even giving me the chance to respond.

I considered going after her and trying to talk to her to find out why she got so upset. But I have learned over the years, that sometimes I have to think about a situation and reflect on my own actions before going any further with the conversation. It was time for her to leave for the day, so I just let it go. The next day at work, I could tell that she was still upset with me through her responses to general questions and facial expressions. I decided to meet with her that day and tell her that I did not mean to make her upset, I was only trying to make a suggestions. She told me that the training for the new position was a little overwhelming and I was only making it worse by changing how to complete the report. I told her that I understood and I apologized for adding to her stress and if she felt more comfortable doing the report her way, that was fine. I only wanted to make a suggestion. \

Strategies that I have learned to manage this conflict and others is to stop and think about what you want to say before saying. Sometimes reflecting on a situation helps to get your thoughts together so you do not say something negative to keep the fuel going. In this particular situation, she was rude to me with her response and my natural reaction was to retaliate with negative right back. But I didn’t, I reflected and gave myself time to think. I also learned that when it is time to have a conversation, to listen to the other side, to get an understanding of what they are feeling and needing.

Myself as a Communicator

Evaluating myself as a communicator, I found that I evaluated myself as a Action oriented listener, a moderate communicator with situational anxiety, and have moderate verbal aggressiveness. I think that my scores for myself were right on target with exception of the listener score. I would have thought that I was more people oriented.

In comparing my scores to two other people (a co-worker and close friend), I scored a people oriented listener, low level of anxiety in communication, and and in the low range of verbal aggressiveness. I absolutely agree with my scores on communication anxiety, because it definitely depends on the situation I am in as to whether I am anxious about speaking in public or small groups. I think it surprised me that they see me as I really think I am, but when taking the evaluation, I really score myself differently.

The one thing that I have learned this week, is how important communication is over first impression or assumptions. As an early childhood professional, it is so important for me to listen, and communicate with others whether it is co-workers, families or children to better know them and help them,

Strategies to Effective Communication

In reflecting on how I communicate with my family, co-workers, families I work with and people within the community, I would say that communication is very different. My family is very diverse in regards to race, religion, sexual orientation, and varying abilities. We share a lot of the same values and beliefs, however, we have developed some of our own values and beliefs throughout the years. We respect each other, and learn from each other. Just as we know that children learn from real life experiences, we too are the same. If there is something we do not understand, we can ask each other questions without offense taken. If it is a question that may be offensive, we let each other know, “hey, you can ask me that, but someone else may take offense to it”. We know that within the family is a safe zone.

Communicating with co-workers, families, and people within the community is a little different. I have found that there is a lot of listening, and reflecting, and thinking before responding. As an early childhood educator, I have interacted with may people in the community, co-workers and families that do not share the same ideas about child rearing that I do and we do not always agree about what quality and equitable care should consist of. When this happens, it makes it hard to communicate. You certainly want to respect others beliefs, however, your passion is the reason you do things the way you do.

Three strategies that I can use in the future to help me communicate more effectively are:

  • Try to really listen to their reasoning and see it through their eyes instead of my own.
  • Do not be judgmental and remember that just like my personal schema have influenced my thinking, so has theirs.
  • Listen to others and learn.

Communication Skills and Styles

The TV show that I watched, that I do not normally watch is “American Housewife”. After watching it with the sound off, I decided the show was about a husband and wife and their three children. The show opened up with the mother looking in the mirror making strange faces and rolling her eyes as if she was thinking to her self or she was hearing something in the background. Then she began looking very frantic, searching for something while the children were following her around, all talking at the same time. The children looked angry and appeared to be yelling raising their hands as they were taking. The mother looked frustrated and also appeared to be yelling and debating. She used a lot of hand gestures while she was talking as well. Then she appeared to yell for her husband and also looked frustrated with him as well. Then it appeared that she handed the children off to her husband.

In another scene, she looked like she went into a school meeting with other moms and quit whatever she was doing with them. The other moms looked irritated with her. She also met with some other women, who by their facial expressions appeared to be friends of hers and giving her advice.

In another scene, one of the moms from the meeting appeared at door and seemed as if her feelings were hurt by something because she was crying and the mother started to look regretful of something.

After watching the show with the sound on, I realized that I had some of the relationships wrong. The mother on the show was looking for something at the beginning of the show, but she was not yelling, and the children were not yelling either. She was not frustrated with the children, she just kept asking them to help her look for the keys. And when she went into the meeting with the other moms, she wasn’t leaving the group , she was trying to join the volunteer team and the other moms said no. They did not like her because of previous actions. And the mother that showed up at her door was not crying or did not have hurt feelings, she was actually telling her the truth.  I think I did get the relationships right with the exception of the relationship she had with the other moms. I believe that I would have understood the relationships better, if it would have been a show that I had seen before. I would have known their personalities, and knew facial expressions and how she responds to certain people.