Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: National/Federal Level

The first organization that I would love to be apart would be the Children’s Defense Fund, they work in all capacities to advocate for children.  I would love to get the chance to work with Ms. Marian Edelman Wright who is known through the profession as an advocate for education. They have a teacher institute program that they for professional development during the summer time. They host conferences to help educators with their professional development so that they can better assist students that may have different barriers to their learning.  This would be a great organization to be a part of communities of practices to give insight to how you as an educator overcome these barriers to get your students the information they need. Also Dr. Edelman-Wright has done advocating for children having access to pre-k programs. There are not any opportunities for careers but they do encourage financial support to keep initiatives going.

The next organization which I am sure will be a common one amongst our group is the National Association for the Education of Young Children.  The NAEYC have several things that I am interested in that they are involved in but my main focus right now is standards for child care program workers. They have a program that is for the development of the workforce. It is called the Early Childhood Workforce Systems Initiative’s (ECWSI). They are working to assist states in creating and developing and implementing their own policies for all early childhood education professionals working with or even on behalf of young children. Their intention for this policy creation is to make teacher actions intentionally. This will help ensure the teachers will become competent and stable fixtures in these classrooms and able to remain professional of early childhood. The job that I would be interested in the early learners coordinator in which the coordinator will plan activities that would be vital to children and parents throughout a local museum.

                                     

I have interest in the Zero to Three organizations. They have several ties to the early childhood community. They focus on the development of children from birth to age three. The se of course are the most formidable years of a young child’s life. They too have suggestion on how to build a strong workforce for infant and toddlers. All children in early childhood need great teachers who are nurturing and professionals who can articulate curriculum and needs of the children.  This is especially important for really young children as their brains are growing and developing. You do not want to cause any childhood trauma so you would want qualified trained professional in your infant and toddler classrooms to make sure they are fostering appropriate development. They job on the Zero to Three site that would interest me is the Senior Training Specialist; it involves the person training and informing others of the prenatal to five developmental in children. It would require facilitation and creation of trainings and presentations to be given throughout the county.

Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

The first communities of practice organization is a local one for the Tennessee’s Shelby county. The organization is called the (MAPP) Mobilizing Action through Planning and Partnership. This organization is about improving the health of residents in Shelby County.

1.       They discovered 5 issues that affect the health of the residents in the county, which are healthy lifestyles, violence, mental health, health disparities, and collaboration.

2.       It is a strategic approach to community health improvement this involves professional from all realms to create opportunities for improvement.

3.       They focus on all entities working together instead of separate to optimize their efforts. “Every resident, business, organization or association throughout Shelby County is important and will work together to achieve our vision of a healthy community.”

4.       Their vision is to provide and assure opportunities for every resident to develop and participate in activities and services that enhance their health, wellbeing, and quality of life.

5.       The career opportunities would direct for the individual organizations involved in the practice.

6.       The thing I like most is the collaboration between all faculties in the city to make everyone a stakeholder including the residents.

http://www.communitycommons.org/groups/community-issues-management-cim/united-way-of-the-mid-south/mapp-strategic-health-priorities/

The second communities of practice organization are the Christian Engaged in Faith Formation. This is group of Christian educators who what to focus on their responsibility for Christian education or faith formation in any of its diverse forms, in and beyond the local church, they are in an association of United Methodists and persons from other denominations.

They encourage participation from all individuals regardless of their religious beliefs or affiliations. They work together in developing trainings like webinars and seminar trainings and conferences all to provide networking techniques. The one thing I like is that they want you to enhance your vocational commitment through active participation. In order to encourage this and other incentives they offer memberships to keep commitments from participants.

http://www.cefumc.org/blogpost/955635/184065/Tennessee-CEF-Launches-Communities-of-Practice

The Immersion Program is a program that helps promote literacy, through its work with librarians and their instruction. This program is under the Association of College and Research Libraries. This group can be beneficial in offer support to any organization that wants to implement literacy components into their programs. “Immersion allows you to embrace your educational role by embarking on a path of teacher development and pedagogical inquiry in a community of practice for academic librarians devoted to collaborative learning, individual renewal, and instructional effectiveness.” The quality of this program I like most is that they do their program in a curriculum styles to direct what is being learned then they promote the teaching of themselves to others.

http://www.ala.org/acrl/immersion