Goals are essential to my professional growth as an early childhood educator. I am currently working on three goals in my effort to provide the highest quality of service to my students and their families. My goals are advocacy, professional development (PD), and public policy. These goals are paramount to servicing my community.
Advocacy in early childhood education gives a voice to young children. Educators must use their knowledge and expertise to communicate to the world the importance of providing high quality programs to young children and their families. Early childhood programs not only serve as the beginning foundations of formal learning, but these programs also connect families to resources which enhances the lives of the children and their families as seen in programs like the Perry Preschool (Schweinhart, Montie, Xiang, Barnett, Belfield, & Nores, 2005). I'm striving to be the voice that my children and their families need to promote and bring awareness to the importance of early childhood programs.
PD is important to my work because it provides the avenue for me to grow in my knowledge of young children. Educators have to stay abreast of the latest research on teaching and learning. Within the field of early childhood there are so many different positions, and the level of education varies, also. But through study groups, coaching, mentor programs, teaching team, and continuing education programs; early childhood educators can learn and grow professionally. The benefits of learning best practices and strategies creates the high quality learning environment all children have a right to (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2015).
Public policy is the lifeline to early childhood programs surviving. I tell my college students all the time how important it is to be involved in politics. I stress that I'm not asking them to declare their allegiance to one political party over the other. I'm asking them to share with the elected representatives their views of early childhood programs and experiences working with young children. Politicians are the policy makers. Advocacy and public policy work together. Early childhood educators have to be the voice of early childhood education issues, and the resource for shaping public policy. (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2015)
References
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (n.d.) Position statements. Retrieved March 8, 2015, from http://www.naeyc.org/positionstatements
Schweinhart, L.J., Montie, J., Xiang, Z., Barnett, W.S., Belfield, C.R., & Nores, M. (2005). Lifetime effects: The high scope perry preschool study through age 40. Monographs of the High Scope Educational Research Foundation, 14. Retrieved from http://highscope.org
