My Vision for working with children has always been a very child-led approach and as I reflect on a visit we had in the class last year from an educator named Lesly Henderson, I realized that my natural approach was actually being taught by many and this was a great source of confidence in my ability to work with children, as I had been told to be ‘more structured’ by some, I didn’t feel right for me and I now claim a child-led approach with confidence and one of the main components of my practice working with children. Inclusivity is at the forefront of my vision and being flexible is something I’m good at and now know is a super valuable characteristic in a human relations field of work.
In three years I see my greatest strengths with children to be my patients, flexibility and building strong relationships with and for the families in my care as well as the community. I have seen how valuable it is for kids to build strong bonds with each other and their parents get to know each other and let the relationships flourish outside of the daycare environment, all the way through to elementary school and in there own private lives as well . Families can rely on each other in times of need. The Empowering Pedagogy textbook states that in the province of New Brunswick, one of the core values the province has is for its youngest learners is that the children and families be respected and share responsibility for one another in order to enhance communities and cultures.
I envision the early years environment as flexible and nurturing, The environment as the third teacher. The Empowering pedagogy text says on page 177, “the Environment is directly correlated to the depth of learning the child will experience.” The early years environment has to be a place for children, caregivers, parents, and educators to feel included and valued and build pride within the community.
I see children as capable individuals with individual wants, needs and expectations. As we learned more about Regio Amelia, it speaks of the child as capable of speaking one hundred languages, if we see children as protagonists of their own experience of learning, we support them in having the right to express their understanding of their world through many languages.
I view families as diverse and know best for their children. All Families need to feel valued, respected and engaged. On page 40 of our textbook, it states that for families to feel they are members of a community, they must feel engaged. The family’s sense of worth and empowerment has a positive effect on the parents, the children and the early learning professionals.
I suspect that cultural diversity is something very important to strive to better understand as it is our responsibility to do as early learning professionals. Cultural competency is the ability to facilitate mutually rewarding interactions and meaningful relationships in the delivery of services for children and families whos cultural heritage differs from our own. This is called an essential skill in the Empowering Petagodgy textbook and having practiced and learned my own cultural awareness I’ve been able to see this as an essential skill.
I envision my colleagues as individuals with diverse backgrounds of education and life in which to draw knowledge from and gain inspiration. It is shown in the textbook on page 44 that adults learn when they have opportunities to engage in practical learning and feel respected as a learner, also it says an integral part of being effective in planning and developing learning experiences and programs for families and children is being able to engage in dialogue with other professionals. This is something I am learning and now realize it is an important part of being a professional.