Passion, Motivation, and Wisdom

"The centerpiece of my vision for personnel preparation is a well-paid, well-educated early childhood intervention workforce situated in 'learning communities' whereby parents, practitioners, administrators, consultants, and university and community college faculty are mutually accountable for creating quality early environments for children."

-Pamela J. Winton

"As the nation deliberates on what is best for its children,  the question of who will care for them grows increasingly critical." 

-Marcy Whitebook

"Children’s environment of relationships in the first years of their lives shape the architecture of their brains, influencing their abilities long into adulthood. This brain research tells us that adults---not just parents, but teachers and providers too, function as either protective or risk factors in children’s development. And that means we must, as a society, do whatever we can to ensure that the teachers and providers who spend their days with children have the preparation, support and reward that allow them to play that protective role in children’s lives."

-Marcy Whitebook

"In today’s early childhood settings, children are almost always segregated by age and have to interact with play partners who are as inexperienced as they are. As a result, many of the play skills that children learned in the past by observing and imitating their older playmates now have to be taught directly by teachers or learned from behaviors that teachers model."

-Elena Bodrova

"I wanted to be a teacher because I had a built-in passion to make a real contribution to the world and to fix all the injustices in the world. I wanted to do that through teaching." 

-Louise Derman-Sparks

“Every day that I go to work, I look forward to it because I know the services I’m providing for the children is for their benefit.”

-Raymond Hernandez

References

Bodrova, E. (2008). Make-believe play versus academic skills: a Vygotskian

approach to today’s dilemma of early childhood education. European Early

Childhood Education Research Journal. 16(3). 357-369.

Laureate Education Inc. (2010). The passion for early childhood. Baltimore: Author.

Whitebook, M. & Others (1989). Who cares? Child care teachers and the quality of care in                  America. Final report, national child care staffing study. Child Care Employee Project,            Berkeley, CA. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED323031.pdf

Winton, P. J. (2000). Early Childhood Intervention Personnel Preparation. Topics  in Early Childhood Special Education, 20920, 87.