We don't know what we don't know...

Working with adult learners is a difficult task.  Us adult folk think we know everything.  I mean, I woke up this morning and made it through an entire day independently.  I'm doing well.  The learning within the context of our day seems minute.  It's not "scary" or "overwhelming" and tends to be task-based within the structure of our normal activities.  It's really not scary when you realize you don't know something -- to the Google machine!

Our most vulnerable moments as adult learners tend to be when we realize we don't know what we don't know!  

Pause.
Let that marinate.

Sometimes, we need an outside catalyst to come along and shake our foundations with a question that truly makes us aware of our knowledge.  The joy I find within this type of interaction just cannot be described.

You learn something new every day, right?

Knowing this about myself has (I think) made me a better leader within our center.  I meet regularly with all of my team and we have scheduled time for reflection.  What's going well?  What isn't?  What do you have questions about?  What surprised you this month?  What would you have done differently?  The conversations that come from these meetings have shifted from task-based and very business-like conversation to more of a "how does that make you feel" vibe.  It's a safe place to talk about the demands of the positions my many different team members hold.  Our jobs are tough and it helps to have someone to bounce things off of without fear of criticism or punishment (I'm pretty confident that's why I blog).

I had a reflection meeting with a teacher yesterday who served as a teacher aide for a very long time (think almost as long as I've been alive) and was recently promoted to assistant teacher.  She also (!!!) just won a scholarship to pursue her associate's degree (I'm like a proud momma over here).  One of my big goals for my team is that we continue to learn and grow.  It's all I ask; how they learn and grow is up to them, but we cannot simply be stagnant.  She is now in a position to mentor and support the new teacher aide who was hired.  We spoke of her progress and areas to really help this new teacher develop and I provoked this conversation with "Well, she doesn't know what she doesn't know quite yet.  What have you noticed she might need support with?"  Our conversation was so rich and productive!!!  We spoke of ways to provoke this new teacher (to nudge if you will) and help her take ownership of her role within the classroom.  I think we're a pretty unique center in the way we operate within teaching teams.  There tends to be a lack of title association with the division of labor, but more of a sense of "we're in this together."  I've seen teachers really work together to capitalize on strengths and develop the areas that may need development.

Did you have a moment of awareness today in which you realized you didn't know you didn't know something?  Wasn't it exhilarating?

Have I ever told you how much I love my job?  Conversations like this are the reason why!

xoxo

Embracing continuity of care

Maybe the title of this one should be "Embracing continuity of care and getting others on board too."  Because I love it.  I want more of it.  I just need to convince the 'powers that be' that this is a no-brainer decision and we should move forward with my plan.  I've been practicing my case for mixed-age groupings and feel I've spoken with enough colleagues to now be more articulate in the positive outcomes as well as highlighting the challenges and presenting possible solutions.  I'm ready!  Bring it!

• More family-focused
• Mixed-age groupings would better allow us to support the child in the context of his/her family. When children gather within social experiences, they are not segregated by age and forbidden to socialize with other age groups.  It is our responsibility to prepare children and help build a strong social-emotional foundation in partnership with the family.
• Parents and teachers would have up to three years to build a reciprocal relationship before transitioning to our preschool program; the Birth to Three staff would still be nearby and the relationship could continue into the preschool years.
• Better assessment data
• I didn't even think of this at first, but think about how much more valid the assessment data would be for the children who stay with one consistent and reliable assessor for the first three years.  The teacher would have years of prior knowledge to refer to when assessing children's progress.
• Parents and teachers would have a stronger relationship and when completing the Ages and Stages Questionnaires together, they would be better equipped to respond to the questions and reflect on the child's growth over time.  This safe relationship would also allow an easier referral process if there were concerns about the child's development.  
• Better for the children
• We would essentially be minimizing transitions to the bare minimum.  Children could be in the same room until age 3 and then transition to preschool.  As they prepare for kindergarten, they transition into their new school and we celebrate.  Awesome, right?
• The alternative to this would be to have one infant (6 weeks to 15 months) and one toddler/two (15 months to three years) classroom as well as our preschool room.  This would mean a possible 4 transitions (into the center, into the toddler room, into the preschool, and into kindergarten).  Less is more when it comes to transitions for tiny humans.
• If we use this scenario, I could loop the teachers with the children so they at least have a familiar face. The only concern with that is turnover.  We have had pretty low turnover at this location (KNOCK ON WOOD) but if the teacher leaves, I'm sending children into a new room with a new teacher and no familiar teacher to support the transition.  I know there are ways to make it work if it's the only option, but right now, it's not the most attractive possibility.
• Better for our staff
• Teachers get very attached to the children they work with and this would afford them three years with their babies before they transition to the preschool classroom.  I suspect I would see a boost in morale as those relationships with children are often the highlight of teachers' days at the center.  This could further work to reduce teacher turnover as they wouldn't  have to learn a whole new group of children but rather could watch their relationships blossom.
• Typically, when I ask teachers about the best part of their job, they say something along the lines of "When the babies get excited to see me come into the classroom."

Honestly, when we look at all of the amazing benefits, the challenges seem more manageable but also totally worth it!  Professional development for our teachers?  Of course!  Pile it on!  We want to make sure our teams are ready, knowledgeable, and excited about working with children for the first three years.  Seems like a pretty smart investment.

Now let's see what our friend at licensing says... I'm hoping for good news.

A dance with licensing

The center I work with is licensed by DCFS and we meet and exceed the regulations.  I have a phenomenal relationship with our licensing representative who I work with very closely when brainstorming changes.  That being said, today I sent an email that may or may not have stressed that relationship.

The more time I spend in this field, the more I recognize the presence of those who quote standards and regulations that are within their comfort zones, not necessarily what's considered best practice or developmentally appropriate.  Some things still make people uncomfortable.  As an advocate for tiny humans and their families, I'm an avid reader and researcher.  I've invested many hours reading materials about attachment and primary care-giving   I strongly believe in mixed-age groupings where the teachers have the professional development and knowledge to support children over the span of their first three years of life.

I have three classrooms in my very small, close-knit center and I'd really like to change our program model from only birth to three to include a preschool classroom.  Ideally, our two remaining birth to three classrooms would be birth to three.  I want children to come into the center and stay with their primary caregivers until they transition to preschool and stay with that preschool group until transitioning to kindergarten.  Dreamy, right?  So glad we agree.

I had a conversation with my licensing representative and she shared that I cannot mix infants, toddlers, and two-year-olds in the same classroom because it's not safe.  "Just think about how big some of your two-year-olds are and then imagine them with infants."  I did.  I pictured it.  And it made perfect sense to me that they be together.  Families do not consist of children all the same age, unless you've been blessed with multiples.  We don't keep children from younger siblings or cousins.  Granted, teachers will require a bit more support with helping children to respect those younger children and planning for such a vast age grouping can be tricky.  But that's why we have an Infant Toddler Specialist.

Imagine my surprise while reading the standards for child care (dude, I read everything) and finding the following:

"Children may be combined in any of the following ways:

                    1)      infants, toddlers, and two-year-olds may be combined; and/or

                    2)      Two-year-old children through five-year-old children may be mixed in any combination; and/or

                    3)      Four-year-old through six-year-old children may be mixed; and/or

                    4)      Children of all ages may be mixed during the first hour and last hour of programs that operate

                           10 or more hours per day.” 

I'm not one to fight with those who have the power to shut down my program so I sent a sweet-as-pie email asking for more clarification about this section of the standards and whether this meant that I could indeed group them together as I had hoped.  Response is pending.

So I suppose the main point of my presentation here is that if it's permissible by the standards, I'm doing it.  I'm moving forward and blazing some kind of trail because it's what's best for our children.  I want to eliminate transition as much as possible and create a solid foundation for our children and families.  Sure, it means I'll be spending copious amounts of time offering professional development and technical assistance to teachers, but THAT'S MY JOB anyway.

C'est la vie!

Grow Your Own Staff!

I ask a lot of my team.  I have high standards and expect people to rise to meet them.  It's a blessing and a curse.  We work hard and I love to let them play hard too.  We deserve that.  I want teachers who love to play.  If they can't play, they can't facilitate play experiences for our kids.

Vacation requests are taken quite seriously.  We have a fabulous system that I created last year when I took over the center and basically, vacation is first-come, first-serve and only 2 people can be out at once.  This helps to ensure we can stay happy while our colleagues are enjoying their much deserved R&R.  Sanity is important in this field so I'm not really looking to decrease the existing levels.

I'm down a teacher right now because one of our young ladies had her first baby (awww) and after 12 weeks together, she decided she just wasn't able to return to us.  This vacancy has caused me many long days and even longer nights at home getting my actual work done.  When I spoke of this issue at our recent meeting of directors, one director suggested that I ask teachers to have mercy on me and reschedule their vacation.  Sounds easy enough but vacations are few and far between for us and I know that many of my teachers have BIG plans for their time off; some are leaving town and others are spending time with children.  Another suggestion was to "hurry up and hire someone."

I refuse.

I will not hire another person just for a quick fix.  We need someone who will stick with us and be a great fit for our little family.  It's worth taking the time to find that great fit than to go through the interviewing, hiring, and orientations on repeat.  Ain't nobody got time for that!  It's worth taking my time and taking one for the team in the meantime.  I will cover to ensure my staff gets the rest they need to be their very best for their children.

I'm very much interested in growing my own staff.  To me, that means promoting from within whenever possible and bringing in new staff into assistant teacher roles where they will have some time in a sheltered place to learn the unspoken culture of our agency and site and all of the requirements that will be asked of them as lead teacher candidates.  It's a lot of pressure to come into an agency, especially agencies with multiple funders, and learn the ropes while learning the children and getting comfortable.

I'm so pleased that I was able to promote one of my teacher aides this afternoon to her next challenge with more responsibility and more reflection!  She's been at the agency for quite some time so this was a long time coming but I've had a pretty clear vision of how she would grow and change and take on these new challenges and she has met every expectation and often times exceeded them.  I love to check in with her and put my finger on the pulse of where she's going and how I can help her get there.  She's almost done with her associates degree and I have big plans for her future; she just doesn't know it yet.  But I love that today while we were chatting about her promotion, I asked if she could believe it was happening and her response was "I believe everything you tell me I can do -- you've been right every time."

I love being right.  ;)

But I also love that I can be the support, the scaffold, to encourage others to continue their journey in the early childhood field.

Sometimes, we all need somebody to lean on!  Ya singing?  You should be!  ♫

The Reflective Supervision Buzz

It's kind of a buzz-buzz word right now, the latest and greatest -- reflective supervision.  All the cool sites are doing it.  Funders are starting to require it in some programs.  But are we really doing it?

What is reflective supervision and what does it mean to implement it correctly?
Can anyone do it?  Does it take a certain skill set?

And if people are requiring it, why aren't they providing more training and support on the topic?

 I had the great privilege of working within the Student Mentor Teacher Fellowship with a dear colleague and one of the most important aspects of this program was that someone was responsible for mentoring the mentor.  How novel!  Why are we so quick to assign this very important responsibility of reflective supervision only to turn around and walk away?  This is important work!  We need to support the mentor who is supporting the teacher who then in turn supports our children.

I suspect it boils down to us not thinking about what's best for children -- sad but true.

We've got a million reasons for not giving teachers the reflective supervision they so desperately need:

"I have a meeting."
"So-and-so was on vacation."
"Things are just so crazy around here."

Sound familiar?

Yeah, we've all said them.  I know I'm guilty at times.

What's more is that reflective supervision cannot happen without a trusting and secure relationship between the mentor and the teacher.  What teacher wants to sit down and discuss weaknesses with someone who doesn't care or expects perfection or genuinely seems disinterested?!  No one, that's who.  It becomes a facade.  It's fake.  We go through motions because it's what funding agencies want...

I'm thankful that I've seen the light and refuse to be that director.  I am busy.  But so are the teachers.  We make time for each other to sit together and talk.  About everything, even non-school things.  We're building a relationship so that when we talk about those areas to develop, it's not so awkward or difficult.  Much like we encourage strong relationships with families, we need strong relationships with teachers.

So what is reflective supervision?  To us, it's a protected time to talk about learning and teaching in the context of the center and the individual and to reflect on where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.  It's more about the relationship than the content for some of our teachers.  They're all at different stages and some are more ready/open for reflective supervision than others.

I've never had training on the topic and have done a lot of research on it in my own search for understanding.  I would love to see more of our funding agencies step up and share not only the requirement, but to also highlight the importance and process as well.  It just grinds my gears to hear people say they're using reflective supervision when anyone can clearly see they're just supervising.

If we want to grow our own, we better start watering these seeds.

Vacat--- Staycation!

I am really fortunate, the agency I work for allows me to take up to 21 days of PTO (Paid Time Off) each fiscal year.  That's a lot of days when you allow your brain to translate from calendar weeks to work weeks -- that's 4 glorious weeks of time away; although sometimes it's for less than fun reasons, like a migraine or the flu.  Either way, that time is accruing each pay period.

Let's get to the gritty of it, shall we?  Phone call from accounting is telling me I have 200 hours to use by June 30.  This, my friends, is 25 days.  Which would be fine if I weren't "one of those people" who tends to live at my site.  I'm beyond uncomfortable leaving my site for 25 days.  That's an entire month and super unrealistic.  But no one said you had to take it all at once, right?  Normally, you'd be correct.  But I sure did get that suggestion.  Followed by, take the time and go to Puerto Rico or something.  Go somewhere fun.  This from accounting.  Who deposits my checks each pay period.  Do you know something I don't?  Because I'm surely not makin' it far with that check.



I blocked off several "mini vacation" periods on the calendar and while it is challenging to prepare the site and the staff for them, I'm certain that they can handle the actuality of the situation.  I don't doubt them for a moment.  It's the prep work that pushes me slowly into maddness.  For example, I had to go to the grocery store and purchase 3 weeks of baby food and formula for the infant room because I'm the only one who does that task (since it almost always involves using my own funds & waiting for reimbursement).  To do that, I had to put together the infant menus first and so on and so forth.  I got it all done.

It's done.  I am for the most part, ready to peace right on out of that building for the next 2 weeks. I have to check in on one of those days to meet with a coworker and facilitate an amazing staff meeting -- OMG.  This staff meeting is going to be amazeballs.  We're going to view a video I got from Reggio Emilia, Italy that focuses on the infant-toddler centers and I am SO FREAKING EXCITED.  So much to plan though to make sure it goes smoothly... but I'll have all of this time at home to get it done!  (See, always working!)

I think we all know that there's no real way to turn off that portion of your brain unless you really are fortunate enough to escape to a locale with a beach, blue water, and umbrella drinks.  I intend to leave that portion of my brain on and to start cooking the things that have been marinating in my brain for the past year that I've been in the position of Site Director and prepare myself to really be the agent of change. And I'll be working on my NAEYC Program Portfolios because if I don't, they will haunt me in my sleep.



Just another day in the life of an exhausted Site Director!  I just know that when we finally achieve the honor of accreditation at our site, it will be my 3rd accomplished site (100% baby!) and my 1st infant-toddler accreditation.  Maybe I should be a NAEYC consultant and help other programs accomplish this honor as well.  HEY!  There's an idea!

Let's put that in the tank for marination!

Get ready to hear lots more from me as I begin my 2 weeks stay-cation here in blustery Chicago effective 5pm tonight!!

XOXO

Ripple Effect | ECE Students

Today we welcomed an early childhood teacher into the center to complete an observation for her coursework.  As I escorted her to the classroom, I couldn't help but feel we were creating a ripple.  Her course required an observation of an infant being fed by a primary caregiver.  First I was excited just to hear her use the phrase primary caregiver because so often it's not common practice.  Then I realized how excited I was to bring new blood into the center!  I started thinking about the ripple effect we stand to create within this building, within Chicago, and within early childhood education itself.  Welcoming early childhood students, possibly inspiring them to focus on Birth to Three programming... maybe, just maybe, one day hiring them within our own team... changing the culture of early childhood.  All in a day's work.

Being the catalyst for change is such an amazing experience opportunity. 

The other day, I posted on a former coworker's Facebook page, wishing her a happy day at work and response was so sweet -- "Miss Danielle, sound like you are doing great! I often think of you back in the days at Waterloo! My, how far you have gone! Mom must be proud!"

Goodness.  I was touched to hear someone thinks I'm doing great.  Some days, I'm not so sure.  I was also immediately back in my very first classroom in Waterloo, thinking about how much I didn't know.  I had no clue what I was doing... but I sure thought I did.  How much I didn't know I didn't know!  I thought of those little faces I was responsible for teaching and how much my pedagogy has changed since 2007.  My image of the child is dramatically different.  Oh how I wish I could go back and see those children and hug them tightly (both in apology and gratitude).

When I think back to my student teaching experiences, I am so thankful.  I learned so much and although I didn't pursue a career in elementary education, I still remember how much I loved reflecting with the teachers at that little school in Lancaster, WI.  Seriously, best.  Team.  Ever.

Now I am in a place to welcome students into my center and it is an exciting thought!  I've come full-circle.  I am welcoming potential teachers and am responsible for their impression of early childhood  this is the time when they will get their feet wet and figure out if this is the field for them.  And if they really enjoy their time here at our center, maybe they will come back as teacher candidates when they graduate!  By opening the center to observations and student teaching  I am asking the teachers to be role models.  And I'm sorry, there's really nothing better than knowing you're doing such a great job that people are coming to watch.  Holla!  It's important to me that we inspire the next generation of teachers through a warm, supportive field experience.



I won't sugar coat this environment though; Birth to Three takes a special breed of teachers.  One of our infant teachers got peed on the other day.  We routinely go home covered in questionable fluids. We have numerous conversations about poop. We listen to crying as a form of communication.  It's not something just anyone can do.  But if people can identify their niche early, it will help guide their coursework and career path.  Our team is downright amazing and I'm always looking for equally amazing people to join our team.

At the end of the day, who doesn't like to talk about poop?!