Hello everyone! I am an Early Childhood Education (ECE) Professional and I am excited to share with you what my field is all about. First, early childhood is defined as ages birth through 8 years old. When people hear "Early Childhood Education" it is most common for them to think of preschool teachers. While preschool teachers certainly make up a large portion of ECE professionals, there are many more opportunities in this field outside of the classroom. For example, you could be a Director of a facility. A director is responsible for curriculum development, implementation, and management of day to day activities of that particular center. Teachers in a preschool or child care setting report directly to the center director. ECE Professor is another option in this field. An ECE Professor is the instructor of students who are studying ECE. Inside the field of ECE, there are many specialties. You can choose to be a behavior analyst who comes into a classroom and evaluates a student who struggles with behavior, writes a behavior plan for that child, and shows the stakeholders how to effectively implement that plan. You can choose to be a quality control specialist who would come into various centers and evaluate the environments, curriculum, teaching practices, and policies to ensure high quality education and developmentally appropriate practices are being used.
Early childhood education focuses on the growth of the young child. This includes physical development, intellectual development, and social emotional development. There has been a recent push on focusing on the social emotional development of young children. When we can teach a child early on how to identify their emotions and how to respond appropriately, we save that child from future difficulties such as aggression, bullying behaviors, and emotional difficulties. The field of early childhood education values development of the whole child to ensure that we are giving them a strong foundation on which to build to become well rounded healthy adults.
Some of the advantages of ECE is working with an age group that is pliant. Meaning that children this age are more adaptable to change than older children. They are very eager to please and learn best through play. You get payed to play with children! How great is that?!?! Another advantage of this profession is that in general, you have the summers off! If you are looking into entering this field you should first enjoy being around children. You should be friendly, patient, and flexible. As you can imagine, in a day with 20 four year old children, no matter how well planned in advance you will need to be open to the needs of the students and adjust your plans accordingly. Two year-old's do not care what your lesson plan that you worked weeks on says, they care about what they want or need in that moment. You should have a good understanding of what is developmentally appropriate for the age group that you are wishing to work with. Remember, ECE is birth to age 8. Your choice of age group will determine your approach. A plan for a 3 year old will look a lot differently than a plan for a 7 year old. Entry level positions typically require a high school diploma. If you are interested in moving up in the field there are many degree options to choose from in the fields of education, social work, and psychology.
