Happy Childcare Worker and ECE Appreciation Day!

 

Tomorrow Thursday October 22nd is Childcare Appreciation Day in Ontario ... during the pandemic so many of my peers have risen to the challenge of taking on yet more risk and responsibility due to the pandemic and have done so with little to no additional resources or support provided to them by the government that deemed them 'essential' but than put in policies that once again ripped the rug out from underneath them by create diminishing their resources and making empty promises of support like PPE and so forth which 3 weeks into October many have still not recieved this months allotment of PPE and yet they are at work making due with either providing their own or reusing what should be expired PPE.

They rise like this because not only because they KNOW that working parents rely on their services but because sadly for so many of them they have NO CHOICE but to yet again being asked to rise and do more with less because they are working pay cheque to pay cheque, often multiple jobs, because despite the cost of childcare to family's that money does not roll over to them much of that goes to 'overhead' of operating so they are so under paid that missing even one day of work can mean a bill goes past due or they cannot make their rent! They rise because if they do not they risk drowning!

My hat is off and my heart is so full for all those who are out on the front line now giving it their all and with a smile and happy demeanor for the children in their care despite the burdens upon their shoulders - because early childhood educators and childcare providers are SUPER HEROES! They should be valued and appreciated EVERY DAY and our government should do MORE to show that they are valued!

To all my peers - you ROCK!

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh,Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

Why do ECE have to tie their PD to Standards of Practice?

Still so many ECE complaining about the CPL having to tie back to our Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice! 

In my opinion the whole point of the way our CPL is deigned is exactly to force ECE to focus on tying their work with children to the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice  because sadly our entire industry has global issues with a LACK of them. IMO while it’s not something we like to talk or reflect on because individually we like to think we are all amazing at what we do and put our heart and soul into our work  the reality is that “collectively” the Auditor General report on childcare back in 2014 showed a serious lack of “quality” evident across Ontario’s childcare industry - the amount of serious occurrences reported in licensed childcare centre from loss of children to the death of children was statistically high considering these are only those actually “reported” to the Ministry and not all those some centres try to sweep under the rug and that the licensed sector only represents 22% of the childcare use in Ontario, the amount of centres operating on “probationary licenses” due to serious non compliance found during inspections with what are bare minimum standards and so forth! The documents too long and in-depth to list all the challenges that were shown - its a dry but informative read if you'd like more information on the challenges found in the industr.

And while I agree with my peers that it’s not fair that the front line bear the brunt of having to “raise the bar” on those issues but reality is if we want to be seen and valued as professionals we need an industry that clearly understands the Standards of Practice of the field they work in - hence why we ALL have to do this style of PD in order to reach those few who really need to do more active reflection about their role as an ECE.

Plus they are not just picking on us mandatory PL was also introduced in 2016 by the government to teachers college too for its members - the difference for them though is that they all share ONE employer in the Ministry of Education so it is easy for their employers to “provide and track” all their employees PLF as theirs is called via both their annual job reviews and PD day workshops and so forth to ensure to their college that the criteria is being met by their members and they get audited too but for teachers the process is easier because the employer is able to support the process and send their “PD records” and so forth ... sadly the ECE field does not have that same benefit of one shared employer especially one thats actually a branch of the “government” itself and not just Joe Public with its own agendas so we have to play all the roles of assessment, learning planning, implementing or own PL and “tracking” it all ourself!

However we will never have what teachers have in way of value/respect from society until we RAISE THE BAR in our own profession - and the CPL like it or not is the first step in that! And the more VISBLE we make that commitment to life long learning and that raising the bar process with a workforce well versed in its own standards of Practice and easily able to tie what we do back to those Standards to the public the better!

Unfortunately IMO the public seeing any % of that workforce so vocally complaining about having to do a CPL that asks them to reflect on their Standards of Practice or who doesn’t want to have tie their work TO the Standards of Practice because it’s hard doesn’t display a whole lot of confidence to dispel the societal belief that what we do “ is just glorified babysitting”.

Than adding to the uproar in frustration is the College of Educators current survey proposing a new 'class' of membership for those with administration background and the sheer panic from current supervisors that they may be 'forced' to go back to school. Yet there is no evidence that in the College materials that states supervisors would be FORCED to apply for this class of membership and not just remain RECE class. In fact it mentions considering the ability of members to 'move between' them as desired?

IMO unless the Ministry of Education changes its criteria to require RECE to have this new 'class' of membership with the College as criteria to WORK as a supervisor in a centre than IMO there is no reason why 'current' supervisory would have to have this proposed 'class' of membership they could just continue to have only a RECE designation.

From what I listened to and read on the College website is the OPTION of being an additional 'class' for those who have additional training and consistently work in Administration/Supervisory roles to be able to distinguish themselves to public from just 'regular' RECE. Many many other regulated industries have different 'classes' of membership based on additional qualifications - I personally do not see this proposal as a NEGATIVE thing at all!

I keep hearing everyone go on about wanting to be seen and paid and valued like TEACHERS but teachers have what they have mostly because they are unionized and have the government as an employer but ALSO because they RAISED THE BAR over the many many decades of public education from back when just anyone being able to teach as long as they could read and write themselves to having to have achieved a BA level education and an additional 2 year teachers college to having to also engage in continual professional learning framework themselves and so forth.

IMO we are at a chicken and eggs conundrum here - we feel we do not get paid enough to do all the stuff being asked of us HOWEVER if we want society to VALUE us and be willing to invest more money in childcare than we need to be visibly showing that this is a job that not just ANYONE can do - we need to raise the bar and show it takes skills, knowledge and continued learning to remain an effective professional!

Seems like so many frustrated early childhood educators out there right now filled with anger which is disheartening because our work with children is so demanding as it is without us bringing that kind of energy into our programs! 

Big deep breath's friends! Growth and change can be scary but it can also be BENEFICIAL ... the College is looking for ways to help raise the bar in our profession in a way that will help it better serve the public and better trained professionals committed to life long learning are what the industry truly NEEDS. We should not be fighting moves that are aimed at resulting in this! Right now we need to 'nurture' the chicken so that in the future it can lay us that golden egg of an industry that is SO VALUED by the public that they are willing to invest in early learning and care the same way they invest in education!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

When Good Job Goes Bad

Last night along side a packed room of fellow Registered Early Childhood Educators I attended the second workshop in the series Renegade Rules at Childreach Centre "When Good Job Goes Bad". 

We spent the evening reflecting on the role of the language we choose when working with children and does the 'intent' behind the language we choose actually result in the outcome we are thinking it will or is there a better way to approach things like 'praise'. 

Admittedly based on the poll of the room ALL of us regularly resort to the 'good job' form of praise. There is lots of articles on the internet about the benefits of praise so of course we all think we are doing our job by praising! 

Why do we use 'good job'?

• Habit - it is what we heard growing up so we repeat the behaviour
• Quick catch all
• Simple language

What do we really mean when we use 'good job'

• to praise /encourage
• positive reinforcement 
• to connect / build esteem / let them feel noticed

What situations do we tend to use 'good job' more frequently

Typically mundane tasks and new self help skills.

 

Charity shared that statistically speaking the average child hears 'Good Job' 17 times a day per consistent caregiver ... so that means their teachers or daycare providers during the work day and than 17 times more with each of their parents at home! That is a whole lot of 'praise' going out to young children - but what are the emerging effects of this 'good job' praise?

Here are few slides from the presentation around research over the use of over praising with 'good job'

 

 

We reflected a bit on the following statement about who does 'good job' serve than ...

Collectively the consensus was that this could definitely be true in certain circumstances - such as when we praise children with the sole desire to reinforce the behavior we deem 'better' in an effort to alter their behavior when it is not so perfect. So in those incidents the praise is not authentic but rather manipulative because we know most children seek adult approval and therefore will be motivated to get the 'good jobs'. For praise to be effective it needs to not only be authentic but actually meaningful to the person receiving it.

 

We moved on to discussing the pros and cons of 'good job' forms of praise.

Pros to Good Job

• When authentic praise gives positive reinforcement
• Might be one of the positives their hear in a day
• Helps build relationships, bonds of attachment
• It is a tool to building trust

Cons to Good Job

• When 'good job' becomes overused and you do not give a 'good job' for something it can lower children's self esteem because they assume the absense of the 'good job' is its opposite meaning 'bad job'.
• Over use of 'good job' results in loss of intrinsic motivation to do things
• Praise becomes addictive where they do something for praise not to learn new skills or engage in meaningful work
• Overuse removes the meaning / lacks authenticity children quickly discover everyone gets cursory 'good jobs'
• Hinders independence when children seek outside approval and praise to do anything and without it they just do not do anything
• Can create environments that are more competitive and result in jealousy
• Can result in people repeating unwanted behavior immediately after praise in an effort to get praise again when they stop those behaviors. 
• A 'good job' becomes 'expected' and leads to more empty praise as we attempt to appease their requests for 'did I do a good job' 
• 'Good job' in itself lacks specificity ... the language is ambiguous to children whose developing language skills do not grasp the actual 'meaning' of what 'good job' is outside of the positive tone it was used with indicating it is a desirable phrase to hear! 

Yet dispite all the 'cons' we listed for 'good job' the reality is that human beings NEED praise - there is so much research out there about the benefits of praise! 

Why change and move away from 'good job' than when it is so ingrained in our culture and practice?

• language is too general
• despite our intent it actually results in thoughtless language interactions
• due to its general over use it lacks authenticity 

So if children need praise but 'good job' is not having the effect we desire than HOW should we be providing that authentic self esteem building praise?

 

So of the tips provided were:

Focus on the actual behavior and effort  being exhibited verse on their attributes of 'good'.

Focus on the appropriate behavior or skill you want to reinforce

Do not OVER PRAISE! Keep praise authentic so it does not become used for every mundane task or behavior we expect of children.
 

Pay extra attention to when praising 'effort' as it is a fine line of wanting to encourage them to 'try again' while also not wanting to come off as condescending! 

 

Remember those teachable moments - do not let praise get in the way of authentic interactions and language development. Sometimes the praise itself can just be really listening and connecting with a child when they are engaged in a new task!

We engaged in reflecting on average daily scenarios where we might 'good job' and brainstormed alternative ideas that focus on the above strategies.

There was so much amazing conversation and reflection that we ran out of time to do the last few reflection pieces so were encouraged to do them at home.

How Does Learning Happen? How do we let children know that they are valued and belong in our spaces, without using empty praise? 

• making their learning and work visible in the room via photographs, stories and work samples. Creating that authentic documentation to share with their family as well as peers in the program
• slow down and show interest in their accomplishments in meaningful manners and interaction
• ensuring they have a voice in the program that they are heard and noticed on regular basis - embracing that truly child led learning pedagogy where we observe and reflect and meet them where they are at.

How will we hold ourselves accountable now that we have this deeper understanding of the way simple language can impact children?

• Continue to be more reflective in the choice to change from 'good job' to more authentic specific praise.
• Be mindful in those busy moments

How will we hold OTHERS accountable?

• Share what I have learned via this blog post
• Role model the change I want to be in my program
• Help others see the value in adapting to more authentic praise through the results of using it in the program

The Renegade Rules series is a 3 part series and I am truly looking forward to the next one on No Thank You cause I know I use that phrase a LOT in the program and am interested to see what different language options might be more effective.

You only get one childhood. Lets make sure it is full of magic, nature and discovery!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

Why do ECE have to do self assessments?

Seeing this question a lot in CPL support groups! 'I already did the self assessment do I have to do it again at the start of a new two year cycle?'

Yes, we we do - there’s a chart on the college website that shows what you need to do in year one vs year two of the cycle. So if you’ve completed a full two year cycle than you start back at Year One is doing a new self assessment, new learning plan, and new record of learning for the new cycle.

In my opinion a new self assessment is required because over course of two year period the field changes - so there could be new regulations that effect our work, new laws that affect our work, new research on best practices and so forth may have emerged that would affect our work, our roles change as we might get promoted or have a student to mentor for first time, our job focus changes throughout our career or we change employers, we change our setting from centre to school or early years program or what not. Plus even if nothing at all like that has changed ideally as a RECE with two more years under our belt we’ve GROWN and that might change our self assessment reflections 😉

I love this quote from John Dewey .... the reflection component of the College of ECE's Continual Professional Learning process is the MOST important part of the process. The Self assessment has us reflect on our work in relation to the Code of Ethics and Standard of Practice for the profession. After engaging in professional learning taking the time to truly reflect on not only what we gained from the experience but how we plan to use that to implement change or improvement in our practice!

I have engaged in continuous professional learning for over 30 years now. I am a dedicated life long learner as it is how I recharge my energy and soul to ensure that I remain passionate about our field. However I am grown enough to admit that the 'reflecting' on the professional learning I engage in to ensure that I actually transfer that new knowledge into working practice has sometimes been lacking. There is little use to have a brain full of amazing knowledge and book smarts galore if we struggle to actually implement that in our daily lives with the children, families and community partners we work with!

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

Faced with facts still denying reality

So the other day there was a lot of debate from my share about the College of ECE having no control over the 3 components in the CPL that everyone hates and despite sharing the regulations that clearly state what the college does and does not control ECE are still feeling that the college could just scrap the process because it is just too time consuming.  

So this is my response to that - YES when reading the regulations they do have 'some' control but my whole point of the post with links to the Education Act and the Regulations specific to the CPL was there are certain things legally required of the College to ensure they have as part of the process - so like it or not the self assessment, the learning goals and the record of learning components are all required under the Act's regulations. As are keeping records and the auditing process to cull that members are actually engaging. The framework of the CPL is set out by the Act and it is not going anywhere easily! The Ford government is making cuts to education they are not going to be willing to open the purse strings to revisit amending regulations for early childhood educators around professional development!

So sure within those required regulations the college has wiggle room around how those 3 steps look. So they could perhaps be able to streamline the self assessment portion somehow but the self assessment is something that needs to be done 'consistent across membership' under the Act so we all need to be using the same process/benchmarks to assess ourselves so the Expectations of Practice seems that standard benchmark since job descriptions are so vastly different they would not be a consistent benchmark, they could require us to have MORE or less learning goals than the 3 over 2 year period they could have chosen 3 annually for example. And yes they could choose to control how much PD is actually required of members in a quantitative manner and perhaps give us a stricter amount of hours or really stringent lists of what would qualify as PD.

IMO within the current process they have chosen around the actual 'pd' actually gives US a whole lot of that control back. Aside from the self assessment and dictating that we must have 3 goals over a 24 month period they have given a very broad definition of what PD actually is - technically this right here having this conversation could be PD under the current flexible guidelines if I had mentoring other ECE on the CPL completion as a goal.

So if we only want to do 3-5 PD activities a year or heck spread that over the whole 2 year period that is OUR choice the College has no quantitative definition under the CPL as how much or how little PD you actually must engage in as long as you complete the 3 step process required under the laws mandated and do SOMETHING on your record of learning for each of those goals you are technically compliant!

So do we really not have the 'time' to do this? If we look at 'time' if we were to do ONE PD activity under each goal over a 12 month period - so that is 1 activity every 4 months and it can be as little as reading a 5 minute article online and doing a little 5 minute 'this is what I learned/found interesting and this is how to plan to apply that to my practice' .... that is 10 minutes of PD and do that 3 x per year - 30 minutes out of our 43,800 minutes or 60 minutes of our time out of 87, 600 minutes of our life in a two year period. I think so many ECE are blowing this 'time it takes' up in their minds into something it actually isn't ... some people will always go way above and beyond what is required and that is their journey but if you just want to meet the requirement - stick to the space they give us in the forms. There is not a whole lot of space there for TWO years of PD. Read the samples on the college website - they are not complicated and they all stick within the space allotted in the forms.
 

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life