Becoming an Early Childhood Educator Essay

U. S. President Barack Obama emphasized on the importance of education in a country for not only one time. He believe that education provide the opportunities to every single citizen to work on their strengths and ability to fulfill their responsibilities to the country by contribution on specific career in order to build up a strong country. I strongly agree with his point of view as education is not an individual responsibility but to all. Education is the basis of a country in order to strengthen the economic status and development. Thus, it’s our responsible toward the society and nation to educate our next generation by provide a positive social and physical environment to instill wholesome character building in young children. Society now day faces variety of problem especially family issue that commonly happens include child abuse, divorce cases, youngster tend to run away from home, abandoned baby and etc. One of the factors that caused these issues is lack of realization on importance of education. There is a quote stated: If we would amend the world, we should mend our selves; and teach our children to be, not what we are, but what they should be. (Quote by: WILLIAM PENN, Some Fruits of Solitude) Most of the parent didn’t realize their responsibility to their child as a role model in the growth of their children during childhood period. They might lack of exposure on the importance of early childhood education, or they unconsciously neglected their children’s need due to financial pressure in order to provide and maintaining the living standard of family. Thus, it’s our responsible as an educator to assist the parent on educating our next generation. It is my pleasure to meet a truly dedicated teacher in my life, although she was only teaching me as my class teacher for 1 year but her contribution and the bonding between me and she has brought the greater impact to my life. Compare to the teachers of old time with today, sadly to say, there are not much improvement among the quality of educator. Most of the educator are work for survive, they are lack of the passion and realization on their role and responsibilities, perhaps they do not know how to apply their knowledge on teaching method skillfully. In fact, it is the greater satisfaction as an educator to witness the growth of a child from innocence young age to a mature child. This is a most important period to instill a positive personality in a child as the behavior he practicing now will bring toward to adulthood and became his characteristic. The greater success of an educator is not the quantity of reward, but the recognition of the effort by the parent, student and society. The most precious and valuable achievement is to witness the success of wholesome character building on a child when they turned to an adult and continue influence the people around them with positive attitude. It is hard to achieve the objective of education with single contribution. Therefore it is important to bring together all the educators who having same ideology to work together as a role model to influence people around include the parent, children and colleagues to understand the importance of education. The main responsible of an early childhood educator is to instill the positive character to a child to develop wholesome character include sense of belonging, sense of responsibility, positive moral value, lifelong interest on learning, curiosity to the world and mentally and physically healthy and wealthy. Teacher as the second person after the parent as the role model to a child should practicing good behavior and attitude. Besides, a good teacher knows how to apply the knowledge skillfully to help children adapt to the knowledge on their level of understanding without killing their curiosity to the world. On the other hand, educator also played an important role to the parent because society in Malaysia now day is improving along with the realization on the importance of education. However, although the parent understands the importance of education, they are still lack of information in term of knowledge and skill to apply on their children. They are keen to seek for professional advancer and services as the agent of education to their children. In fact, this is a big step for the society; educator should always work closely and collaboratively with parent to encourage them involve in their child’s learning process to create love and caring environment for the children. The philosophy of a preschool setting that believed and practiced by the entire organization included administrator and teachers determine the process of achieving the goal of an organization. Same goes to personal philosophy held by a teacher, it is important to work collaboratively on behalf of children’s interest regardless personal identity and background. Teachers should be always ready to lend their hand to each other and strive for improvement together by sharing information and joining workshop, seminar or training together. Whenever there is dilemma, teacher should ask for the comment and suggestion without hesitate from senior colleague who willing to share their experiences and solve the problem together. Beside, teacher also played a role on providing a safe, healthy, loving and caring environment to young learner to develop sense of belonging and bonding among the children by always staying alert on potential danger and awareness on child’s behavior, health, physical and mental needs. Teacher should be always practicing 3R which is responsive, respect and reciprocal. Consistently interaction with the children is needed to understand child’s unique character and develop trust and respect relationship among children. However, teacher should allow necessary independent learning and respect child’s right in order to foster the development of children to prepare the children to be ready for the future challenges in their life. Knowledge on young children development is very important for educator. Therefore educator should be always seeking for improvement to provide highest quality service to the children. A knowledgeable teacher is always stay well informed on the latest update on government decision on education such as changing school syllabus and assessment for the student. Beside, by participate in variety of workshop, seminar and training; teacher will learn different teaching method to adapt children’s development milestone. Same goes to courses that offer in colleges and local university; it will improve the qualification and knowledge of teacher. By joining professional association, teacher will be always staying informed on the latest teaching approach and able to seek for professional comment from others. On the other hand, teaching should be stay adventurous when applying new skill to the children, learn from trial and error by observation and self reflection consistently. Teacher should be sensitive on child’s development to evaluate and improving the teaching method creatively in practical way. By understanding different learning pattern of the children, teacher should apply knowledge and skills in plenty ways for children to adapt to the knowledge. In conclusion, a professional early childhood educator should be having mental and physical readily with positive and optimistic attitude, be ready to takes up responsible and handle every dilemma and always strive for improvement. It is very important for an educator understand his/her role on the position held and to be flexible to adapt every changes and different situation. Lastly, enjoyment for the satisfaction of teaching will lead the educator to longer journey as time goes by because â€Å"You never know how much it’s worth until it’s gone†.