Education of The Early Childhood Teacher
Early childhood teachers exhibit many different levels of educational preparation depending on their role, what type of setting in which they teach, and in which state that they teach within.
Generally early childhood teachers in the United States receive training in three ways: (1) earning an undergraduate or graduate degree in early childhood education or child development, (2) earning an associate degree in early childhood education, early child care and development, or child development, (3) developing and demonstrating competency through a competency-based assessment system such as the National Child Development Associate (CDA) program.
Most early childhood teachers in public school pre-K-Grade 3 classrooms possess state certification through an undergraduate or graduate degree from a college or university program approved by the state for training teachers. Teacher Assistants in these classrooms receive are required to obtain an associate degree (in any area, not just early childhood related areas) with some course credit in child development or early childhood education at the very least.
On the other hand, most non-public institutions offering child care and education vary in the type of education required of their teachers. Larger more commercially known, chain child care centers, for example, either align their teacher qualifications with the public school's model or offer even more intense qualifications (i.e. experience working with certain types of children, experience working with diverse types of children, specific training in Montessori or High/Scope curricula, graduate/advanced degrees). At the opposite pole of the spectrum, many day care centers focused mainly on providing supervision for working parents and less on providing a credible education program for their development employ teachers with little or no formal early childhood training. An associate's degree in a related field, CDA training, or a history with working with children of a certain age often suffices as adequate qualifications. However, many states continue to tighten and raise their standards for quality and education among early childhood programs in order to recommendations for full, state-approved licensure.
Read more about this topic: Early Childhood Educator
Famous quotes containing the words education of, education, early, childhood and/or teacher:
“There are words in that letter to his wife, respecting the education of his daughters, which deserve to be framed and hung over every mantelpiece in the land. Compare this earnest wisdom with that of Poor Richard.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Casting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I observe they are instructed in religious matters before they can reason about them, and consequently that all such instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed
And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it. The two things that nearly all of us have thoroughly and really been through are childhood and youth. And though we would not have them back again on any account, we feel that they are both beautiful, because we have drunk them dry.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome about A.D. 100] hoped that teachers would be sensitive to individual differences of temperament and ability. . . . Beating, he thought, was usually unnecessary. A teacher who had made the effort to understand his pupil’s individual needs and character could probably dispense with it: “I will content myself with saying that children are helpless and easily victimized, and that therefore no one should be given unlimited power over them.””
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)