Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Contributing To The Profession / Seeing Beyond Problems

Chapter 13/ Planning and Administering Early Childhood Program

Aloha Everyone!

One of the responsibilities of a director is helping others find a place in this profession of early childhood care and in the education system. “Professionalism!” I think this is one of the keys for a successful program. Professionals possess specialized knowledge, prolonged training, requirements for entry, standards of practice, significant societal need, altruistic, service-oriented, and indispensable service (page 340).

Reading this chapter opened my eyes to two positions in the education system. Individual advocacy – a person(s) working for the children and family. Collective Advocacy - a person(s) working for young children, working mothers, and/or individual with disabilities. I didn’t realize that there are different roles that people plays in the education system. Some advocates will be leaders, advisors, researchers, contributors, and a friend (pages 343 – 345).

It is our duty as administrators and as teachers to advocate for our children in early childhood care and in the education system. Also to give back to this profession we need to always think “Professionalism!”


ExchangeEveryDay

Seeing Beyond Problems / October 2, 2009

A director needs to see beyond any problems in order to make a program successful or become successful.

In this reading the director started his first six months with difficulty due to staff members quitting and lot of students with behavior problems. This director still believed he can make it work and in the end, it turned out to be a blessing. He hired new staffs that had the same goals as he did. Being more committed in helping students with behavior problems, his program became successful!

"Lesson Learned: Some things just take time. As hard as it is for most of us to accept, most problems can’t be fixed immediately. Take some time, cry a little, and hang on. It will get better."

6 comments:

  1. Hey Gary,

    I definitely agree with how important it is to think professionalism because that is very important in order to have a successful program. As teachers, I feel that we need to continually strive for professionalism in order to have a high quality program for children. After reading the chapter, I too, was able to learn that there are different roles that we can have as advocates for our children, families, and profession. I also wrote about the Seeing Beyond Problems in my blog because I thought it shared a good lesson that we need to always keep in mind. No matter how bad something seems, we need to just let it run its course and not expect a problem to be fixed over night. Although something may seem really bad at the time, it'll usually get better.

    -Jaychelle

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  2. Hi Gary,

    I also believe that professionalism plays an important role in having a successful program for all staff members. Without professionalism how can we run a program. I feel that we as teachers need to make ourselves better by going trainings, workshops, and endless knowledge on child development. The textbook also mentioned about teachers as being advocates for children and their families. The book provided 5 different advocates--leaders, advisors, researchers, contributors, and friends. Which advocate(s) do you see yourself?

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  3. Hello,
    As I read your posting I couldn't help but think that it takes a very special person to be all the things required to really fulfill this job. Sometimes I think I'm doing well and at other times I feel lacking.
    We use to have a lot of turn over in our school until I started hiring differently. Now we have almost no turn over except for an occasional military dependent. I think you have to be comfortable with your personality and use the talents that you do have. I appreciate that we can be different and yet still advocate.

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  4. I do think that professionalism plays an important role not only for a successful program but also to your community. Especially since we live on a small island (Kauai) almost everybody knows everybody's business. Word does get around about teachers, directors, and aides - sometimes it isn't nice. We know who gets fired for what, who quits and why, what teacher doesn't do their job, and what aide is sloppy. It's really does play a big part in professionalism. I think that no matter how high up in the education field one goes it's important to continue to be professional as well as to take some refresher courses. I say this because sometimes we forget and there is always new ideas to learn from and new ways of doing things.

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  5. Hi Gary,
    How might individual and collective advocacy be enacted and supported by administrators?

    You are in a different situation from the rest of the class as you are studying to be an elementary educator. Do you think advocacy should be part of being an elementary teacher or principal? How can teachers be supported to be advocates for students when administration often makes decision based on outside policy, without any element of being advocates for the community being served?

    I wonder how the Sumison article might add to your discussion.

    Jeanne

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  6. Hey
    I like your exchange article. I also wrote about that one too. It is hard, yet time goes on and we can accomplish anything if we just believe. it will get better. We all make mistakes and we learn from them.

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