I
have had the privilege this term to connect with Jon Swain, a professional in
the field in London, England. Through my
connections with him and the additional readings that he pointed me towards, I
was able to learn a lot about early childhood and the education system there. I discovered that there is so much that I
would love to adapt from their programs and implement here. I spent many hours in research about the
early childhood education and education system in general there and saved lots
of materials and already began writing a part of things from their program into
my next community training.
Additionally,
learning about early childhood in another area helped me to realize that there
are many places that are successful in their practices that I can study and
learn more about. My husband and I spent
a great deal of time this past weekend looking up what the top countries are in
education. They we chose four that
seemed to consistently be in the top and decided that we would study and learn
more about their systems and determine what things would work here and could be
adapted. We also talked about started a
coalition group to work with others to get community input about how parents
and educators feel about the current system and their views about what could be
changed.
The
other positive part about my experience was simply understanding that an early
childhood professional does not always have all the answers, nor has always gone
through everything that others in the field have been involved. We all have our strengths, our levels of
expertise, and our experiences that give us the knowledge and insights that we
have. I enjoyed understanding that I do
not have to know everything, but that I can become an expert in several things
and train on those things as I continue to learn and grow in other areas. My
areas of passion and experience can help others who are in the same situations
I have been in, and can provide insight to those who have not been there
before.
My
goal is to spend the next several weeks learning about the field of early
childhood in several different countries, and then determining what I believe
could benefit the education field here in the U.S. Then I want to continue to connect with
organizations that I have become a part of the last few months and see what
type of influence I can have in the field.
I want to take stronger advocacy efforts and possibly even begin a research
project of my own in the next couple of years where I can test the information
that I have compiled.
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