This week I learned about NPEN.org.
This is the National Parenting Education Network. It is all for people who work
with parenting. I met with Liz Pierce for my week 4 interview because she works for Children's Museum of Richmond.Our conversation led to her telling me about NPEN, incidentally she is the chair of it. However I am having trouble signing up
for the free listserv….so we shall see how it goes. At the current moment I don’t
have spare funds to join organizations.
Playing on the internet I found NAECTE – National Association
Early Childhood Teacher Education. They have their own journal as well. I hope
to find good information there. However in their paper they advocate only a
certification and I would like to challenge the country’s day care/preschool system
to require four year degrees [though I am slowly thinking that two year degrees
may be sufficient though not the best]. Something about college changes people’s
thinking. It expands their mind and the way they think. It teaches them to entertain
idea other than their own and not feel pressure to accept the new ideas as their
own. College is important. But that is
just my opinion. http://www.naecte.org/
I found a specific organization that may be helpful to me.
It is called nacctep.org. It stands for
National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs. Woot!
This one sounds really good. They offer scholarships to students to help them
become teachers. It is for both early childhood and k – 12. Basically they want community college to be a
part of recruiting, preparing and retaining new teachers. I am super supportive
of this. As I mention above, two year degrees are ok. I hope that community
college will inspire people to continue and earn the BA’s. I have worked with
people who've earned two year degrees and though they are better than those
with no education – it is not the same as “regular” college.
I am super aware that I am heavily influence by my own
experience, my own values and thoughts. I am influenced by my own self. This
has potential to be bad but for now it is helping me survive. I want to do well
in this class and in this class I need a focus. My focus is I want to improve
the education of teachers so that when they go into the classroom they will be
able to think. Yes this focus is super selfish. I don’t want to work with
people who are dumb as bricks nor do I want to send my kids to a center where
they will be taught by those dumb as bricks. So perhaps what I really want to do is improve
critical thinking and mind opening. I want to challenge the “this is how we've always done it” mindset of early education.
This week at church, I met a woman at church who works for
the STAR initiative. STAR is creating a database of all the early care centers
and rating them based on a whole bunch of areas. The center I worked for was
preparing to be rated when I left. We talked about my education and I could be
a rater for them. This was a thrilling experience. It was huge confidence boost
– an assurance that I am not wasting my time in early child studies teaching
adults. It was really good.
I also had a revelation this week. I don’t know where my
life will take me. I want to see there are options out there for me. I am
afraid of focus because in my past what happens when I focus is I latch onto
that one idea and cannot see or accept the rest of the world. The job market is
not a fully stocked grocery store at the moment and I need to be ok that I do
not have to follow one path. It is ok that I may end up teaching, I may not. I
may end up at STAR or doing parenting classes or doing any number of things. I
am afraid that if I focus sooo much on this capstone project I will forget that
there is a great big world out there and the world will not end if I pursue a
different path from what I planned.
