Awesome Blossom has reopened its doors again. I have a Master's in Early Childhood Education from University of Washington. My mom who is a partner in the daycare is a graduate of Science with a Master's in Telugu language and yet she had to undergo mandatory course work and training in Early Childhood Education as a part of the process of getting licensed. As she was immersed in her reading material, she reflected upon her own early childhood years and said, "When I was a little girl of 4 in the early 50s, I observed nature, friends, siblings and learned things on my own. Nobody spent time educating me till I was off to grade school where the whole focus was on theory and grades. Now, this field seemed to have developed into such an elaborate subject with extensive research to back it up."
This is so true. Early Childhood education is a Science and Art these days. I have been in this field since 1997 and I have watched it grow in leaps and bounds ever since. There are a lot of educators, politicians as well as parents who recognize the importance of educating young children in a systematic manner. In fact, it is a commonly known fact that people's brains and behavior actually start getting molded when they are in the womb of their mothers. Hence, mothers are repeatedly advised to keep calm, read, be happy and eat healthy so the baby will be a healthy, happy adult. Hence, what is the formula we need to adopt in our homes, daycares, preschools so we are ensuring that these little guys grow to their fullest ?
First and foremost, we need to understand that we are all trying to aid in the process of the creation of a happy, healthy adult. This is our ultimate goal. We are not just trying to feed the baby, potty train the toddler or send kids off to school and college. We are doing all these tiny steps to help the individual be successful. That of course, brings us to defining success. How do you define success? Is sending your children to school and ensuring that are a straight 'A' student defined as successful? No, it’s not. Is ensuring that you are doing everything so they can get into one of the best schools in the nation, success? Nope, not really. Is it ensuring that they are off to college and then they have a successful career and are independent and are making a lot of money defined as success? I am sure you agree that it is not enough. Then, what is success? In addition to all these, we as parents, educators, teachers and adults in our children's lives need to ensure that they need to develop into compassionate, confident young people with open minds. They also need to have the ability to explore their own potential to the fullest and be happy in life with what they have. More importantly, they need to get ready to face challenges in life by making wise choices and the right decisions. All these really start when our children are infants, toddlers and preschoolers in our own homes and schools.
It is crucial that young children as little as few months old be in the right atmosphere of nurturing and love. They need to be in an environment where there are ample opportunities to explore and which will help them realize their potential to the fullest. Their social, emotional, physical and cognitive aspects of their development need attention, focus and growth. These children need to have peer interactions with other children of their own age group. they should have oppurtunities to make choices. They need adults who are educated in all aspects of growth and development of young children. Early Childhood Educators need to have a lot of love for this age group, be extremely patient and have a good sense of humor to tide through the emotional meltdowns or outbursts of young children. Time and again, I have had parents of children in my care come and tell me that since their child had enrolled in Awesome Blossom daycare, their children had become less shy, more outspoken and confident, they were happier, they had more awareness of their surroundings, they had more knowledge of their physical environment and also made better choices in their little lives.
As an early childhood educator, I firmly believe that the early years are very important and need due attention. These are really the formative years which will ultimately help these children be "successful" in life. I am happy that the world is seeing it that way too now.
