An Effective Early Childhood Educator - Essay Example

Early childhood education refers the comprehensive nature of child development that takes place before the child goes to school. It shall cover physical, linguistic, social, cognitive and educational growth of a child in its first five to six years (Barker, 1987). The role of the educator has a powerful impact on the child development during this period. Thus to describe the characteristics of ECE educator, one must take into account professional and personality factors . Making it simple, educators effectiveness comes from a combination of knowledge, skills, and personality traits (Katz 1993). Obviously all the three are important. However, a positive attitude plays vital role in the functionality of knowledge and skills. One can have both knowledge and skills, but without a readiness to do something, both will make little difference ( Cantor , 990). Further, for younger children importance of positive attitude and readiness to teach the little kids become even more crucial. Thus in the following I will discuss the recipe of an effective early childhood educator primarily focusing on the personality traits and then discussing the knowledge and skills required. The literature cites numerous examples of positive teacher dispositions (Glenn 2001; Usher 2003). These examples often include characteristics such as passion, a good attitude. Researches and my personal experience, both reveal me the importance of passion for teaching young children (Childcare groups: a passion to be outstanding, 2009). It is not easy to be an early childhood educator. I can refer it as a sense of mission that let an ECE educator work through. This is possible only if she feels that her work is making a difference in the life of those little angels. This sense of accomplishment can motivate the educator. For instance, at Wilson Elementary School, I observed a remarkable passion in the Early Childhood educator to develop the lives of those young kids. And the kids were responding with equal love and respect for her. Respect for children is another basic personality trait to be a good early childhood teacher. It is not only respecting children from all backgrounds, but also as having the belief that everyone’s life is enhanced by exposure to diverse people. In line with respecting diversity is the trait of patience. ECE educator needs to have patience when working with children and their families. Daniels et al (2003) suggested that to deal with diverse ability group, educators must possess patience. As I stated earlier, children are different in abilities. Thus every child does not learn with the same method and in a same pace. Only with creativity ECE educators can handle children from diverse backgrounds who have different cultures, languages and even abilities. Certainly, children with differing learning styles think and learn in different ways. Thus, creativity in the way of managing learning is essential. A stereo type educator will always come up with his/her own preferred teaching style. Moreover, Joyce, Calhoun, and Hopkins (1997) advise not to be a slave of any single method. I perceive that each model represents a typical learning style whereas students differ in their learning preferences. Kolb (1984) has pointed out that people have four preferred learning styles. If the educator is not able to cater all the learning styles, he would face more behavioral from the students. Some students’ behaviors can challenge even the most creative teacher. However, if the ECE educator is stereo type, she will not only fail to manage the class, but also will not let the young minds fully bloomed. Cole et al (1998) established that transformation in attitudes, and skills of educators is required to handle students having challenging behavior.A mischiving behavior could be out come of some disorder. ECE educator must have knowledge of different learning disorders so she can timely recommend the student special care. A child apparently experiencing academic problems may have the roots in certain learning disorders such as dyslexia. Such a child might have a reading or numeracy difficulty some speech disorder such as aphasia.ECE educator must be at least aware of the basic diagnostics of such problems, their treatment options and strategies for coping such students academically. Such disorders can be controlled if dealt properly at early stages with proper classroom environment and clinical treatments. ECE teacher must be able to provide a prepared environment where children can freely respond to their natural work tendency   The prepared environment offers the important elements for optimal development. Usually, environments are not prepared for children. If the teacher is able to provide the   furniture, appliances, and fixtures in a way that comfort the child, her development would be optimal and natural. Similarly, majority of the educationists has the opinion that motivation affects what and how much people learn (Ormrod, 1998).Thus, an ECE educator must be a motivator. Children need motivation to accomplish any task. If the educator knows how to motive young kids, only then she can take the students through learning process. Moreover, she must have the functional knowledge of theories of motivation such as Maslow’s Need Hierarchy, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. For instance, If she motivates students with prizes , tags and souvenirs, these are the kinds of extrinsic motivation. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation comes through the inherited interest in the learning itself. Abraham Maslow has suggested that intrinsic motivation emerges only when more basic human needs are satisfied (Ormrod, 1998). Thus the educator must learn how to present learning in a meaningful and interesting way. Using art and craft projects in the classroom helps kids in a range of ways and make learning meaningful and fun. Such activities primarily involve students and eliminate the element of boredom from the classroom. Further, these help in presenting leaning items in a real life context which maximizes the meaningfulness of the learning items. This also helps in motivation students and developing the sense of community in the classroom. A teacher, who successfully motivates her students, builds a healthy interpersonal relationship with her students. Young children need a strong sense of belonging to their school, classroom and teachers herself. Further, such interpersonal relationship plays a major role in an effective classroom management. Many experienced and inexperienced teachers face problems in managing behavior of students due to the lack of their ability to create such a relationship. Research has established that teachers’ interpersonal behavior strongly influences students’ motivation (Ormrod, 1998). Educators should be able to focus on the learning and development of each child. As discuss earlier that each child is unique, her learning needs are different, the educator must be able to identify learning goals for individual children. Upon the basis of this information she shall plan, and evaluate the development of each child. The educator must be aware of holistic child development including her cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. Development in one domain is interdependent to the development in another domain. For instance, a child’s language skills influence her social communication ability. Thus, any domain cannot be isolation from one another. The educator needs to consider across the domains development through integrated activities. The educator’s ability to develop integrated activities is essential for the holistic development. In my opinion, the integration must be across the subjects as well as across the domains as discussed above. For instance, while teaching pre-number concepts, the educator can integrate the adjectives. Further, if the activity is conducted in a real life situation, psychomotor and cognitive development can be integrated. Practically, the educator would take the students to measure actual distance out of which one is short and another is long.Simply, it comes from her ability to use natural environment. Good ECE educators create this environment naturally. As discussed earlier, if the educator uses real life situations to develop her students it will yield multiple benefits. It would make the learning meaning full. It would involve the young kids in the learning process. It would make learning enjoyable. And it would cater the holistic development of the child.g disorder IN conclusion, for holictic development of child in ECE, the educator must be a passionate, poliate and patient person having the deep knowledge of learning styles, and learning disorders alpng with the skills to prepare a suitable environment and creative life like activities. Work Cited Barker, Walter. 1987. Early Childhood Care and Education: the Challenge, Occasional Paper No 1,Hague :Bernard Van Leer Foundation Cole, Ted. 1986. Residential Special Education: Living and Learning in a Special School. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Daniels, Harry et el. 2003. Study Young People Permanently Excluded from School. Research Report RR405. London:DfES. 2009. Childcare groups: a passion to be outstanding, Ofsted Crown copyright , Ormrod, Jeanne Ellis.1998 .Educational Psychology: Developing Learners(2nd ed.).New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Read More