Professional Goals, Hopes and Dreams

In the area that I work, issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals seem to be discussed consistently. While many professionals outside of early childhood do not have the knowledge of what a quality early childhood program should look like, those within definitely do and hold early childhood professionals accountable. Working in a public school system does not always allow for the knowledge of early childhood to be shown as educators from as young as pre-kindergarten and Head Start are held accountable for certain aspects of achievement that may not be appropriate for their age. This happens when supervisors are unaware of developmentally appropriate practices for young children and expect results that may be too challenging for our youngest learners.

There are so many professional development opportunities available in my district but not all apply to early childhood programs. The ones that normally do are ones that need to be paid for on your own and make it tough to get to! Some of the professional development opportunities available through the district normally include time to understand the curriculum materials, classroom management, assessing young children, and learning ways to use technology. These are all types of professional development that I have been able to attend in the past two years. There are no actual requirements for professional development unless a course has been made mandatory (this happens normally once per year with material that needs to be discussed) but there is also no limit as to how many professional development classes can be taken either. For certification purposes, there needs to be a certain number of credits taken every five years, but beyond that there are no requirements.

Some of my professional goals include working to get all of my students reading by the time they leave kindergarten. This is one of the goals of the district but the level that they want all children to read on by the end of kindergarten is a bit too high in my experience. While it is achievable by some, if not most children, the district fails to take into consideration students with learning disabilities or even students that are learning English as a second language. Working to give these students confidence is a high priority for me and one I will continue to work on throughout my career.

A short term professional goal is to become a pull-out teacher and work with struggling students in both math and reading from kindergarten to sixth grade. If I have that position I feel that I can really help make a difference and instill confidence in students that have been struggling for so long.  While that position is just available for one year, I would hope to take what I have learned back to my normal kindergarten position to help with skills that students are struggling with later in their schooling. I have no desire to become an administrator, but I would like to come out of the classroom as I explained to help those students that really need it. Perhaps this will not happen this year, or even in five years, but I would like to be able to do this in the future.