Every since I was a very small child I always wanted to be a teacher and I always wanted to work with small children. At a very young age I become a mother and I enrolled my child in Head Start and that is where my passion for children and families resonated. Someone helped me to understand the importance of parental engagement and why it is important to a child development. Early Childhood Education is the most important education that a child can get because it set the foundation for later life skills. I am a firm believe that Brain development is most rapid in the early years of life. When the quality of stimulation, support and nurturance is deficient, child development is seriously affected.
Part 2: Why are advocates essential in the early childhood field?
Many children do not reach their full human potential because of their families’ income status, geographic location, ethnicity, disability, religion or sexual orientation. They do not receive adequate nutrition, care and opportunities to learn. These children and their families can be helped. It is their right to develop as well as to survive. Good nutrition and health and consistent loving care and encouragement to learn in the early years of life help children to do better at school, be healthier, have higher earnings and participate more in society. This is especially important for children in poverty. A good foundation in the early years makes a difference through adulthood and even gives the next generation a better start. Educated and healthy people participate in, and contribute to, the financial and social wealth of their societies. Early Childhood Advocates focus on the whole family and that is key to children receiving everything they need to succeed in life.
Part 3: What do you hope to I learn about public policy and advocacy?
At this point, I hope to learn how can I effectively help parents to help their children to succeed. I also want to learn about as many resource that are available to help parents and children. I want to learn about other educators who are currently working in Early Childhood and what are they doing in their community to help with public policy and advocacy.
Very inspiring post! I lvoe your energy and passion for the families and children. I also agree that if we don't have advocates for these children that they will never reach their adult potential and this is a sad thought. Today, we have so many families that need intervention and the longer I remain in this field it seems to be growing at a fast paste.
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ReplyDeleteVery inspiring post! I lvoe your energy and passion for the families and children. I also agree that if we don't have advocates for these children that they will never reach their adult potential and this is a sad thought. Today, we have so many families that need intervention and the longer I remain in this field it seems to be growing at a fast paste.
ReplyDeleteArthurine,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post this week. I also found that I love working with families and for me they are the main reason why I went into this field. I look forward to reading more of your blog in the upcoming weeks.
Jazmin
I too am passionate about this specialization because of my strong belief in the importance early childhood experiences have on human development. Additionally, I strongly believe in the importance of remembering that young children are human even though they do not have the same ways of communicating or taking care of themselves as adults do! Sounds silly, but I do think that we sometimes forget that kids deserve wonderful experiences not just because it will impact who they are as adults, but because at this very moment they are human beings! It seems that we so often focus funding on fixing problems that occur in high school or adulthood, but it seems like you and I both know that investing in early childhood may help to prevent some of these challenges from even existing!
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