Time Well Spent

Being my last class at Walden University I wanted to give some reflection on my time spent during the program and my own personal growth.

I feel that I have learned much, but through this program I know that I have developed three deeply felt learnings or messages.

The first one is that passion can be renewed and evolve into different aspects. For example, during my time at Walden I found a new passion for early childhood education that was undeveloped before I started the program. My main passion for helping children have a great early start in their life is still strong but other aspects have caused stronger passions in different areas that I was unaware of before. It has helped me create new goals and new ideals for what I want to accomplish in my professional and personal career goals.

The second item that I have learned is to always create new goals and work towards them. I have always made goals for myself in all areas of my life but by really fine tuning goals and working towards them helped me feel so much more accomplished and my knowledge worthwhile to others. 

The final message I have been taught are personal items about myself. I have been shown how bias' affect others, how my language can affect others, and how my outlook on life also has an affect. By looking at all of these things I was able to make myself into a more understanding individual and help myself be more versatile to help all individuals more than I was starting this program.

One long term goal I have for myself is to keep continuing to gain education and help myself to understand more because in turn I can help others by improving myself.

I am very thankful to all the individuals that I have met throughout this program including the instructors and my colleagues. I wish you only the best of luck in everything that you do. Without everyone in this program I do not believe that my education would be as worthwhile as it is. I will always think fondly of everyone and hope to keep in contact with people to see how the change the world - because all of you will!

Job/Roles in the ECE Community: Internationally

This week I explored the international community of early childhood. I used this opportunity to look at different communities of practices as well as different roles or employment opportunities that I found interesting for early childhood professionals around the world.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) was a community of practice that appealed to me.  UNICEF has many parts to their mission statement but it encompasses: “the protection of children’s rights to help meet their basic needs, ensure ethical principals, incorporates development, mobilized political and material resources to help countries, ensure special protection for disadvantaged children, responds to emergencies, does not discriminate, promotes equal rights, and enshrined peace and social progress”  (UNICEF, 2013).  This organization encompasses so much and helps all the needs or all children, I could not find something that I did not believe in for this communities of practice. For this organization a job I found very interesting was a child protection specialist located in Iraq. This job requirements is, “the development, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluations of the Child Protection programme within the country programme (UNICEF, 2013). I understand that children in Iraq need support with many different factors that are happening within that country. I would feel fulfilled to help these children and have this job.

The second community of practice is the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development  or abbreviated OECD (2013).  “The mission of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world” (OECD, 2013). I feel this organization was important to include because it has some political background and helps governments to find solutions and come up with plans to help better the economic, co-operation, development of children. I could not find a job that I was qualified to do but there were many (lawyers, safety specialists, economic jobs)  that helped better the overall development and economics of children.

The last community of practice I researched is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization or the UNESCO (2011).  The UNIESCO is interested in developing the educational value, cultural value, and scientific discoveries to help better people around the world (2011). When I looked at the site for employment  there were none at the moment for the early childhood perspective part of the community of practice but there was research scientists, finance and administrative officer, and director of internal-oversight service.

International communities are just as important as local and national ones. International organizations can see trends and help many different children around the world.

 References:

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (n.d.). Retrieved October 8, 2013, from http://www.oecd.org/home/0,2987,en_2649_201185_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). (n.d.). Retrieved October 8, 2013, from http://www.unicef.org/

United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2011). Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-are/introducing-unesco/