Early childhood educators and advocates know that early childhood matters. It’s what you do every day with children; it’s your life’s work, and for many, it’s your driving passion:
As advocates for young children and families, and advocates for the profession – early childhood education – you have long argued for improving quality and for investing more public dollars:
To make the case, several different arguments alone or in combination can and should be used.
Early education is a right for children!
All children deserve great places to be every day and great people to be with!
Children deserve good parents, good health, and good learning experiences!
Children deserve to have delightful and joyous childhoods that lead to bright futures!
It’s the right thing for society to invest in young children!
Families deserve support to raise children. After all, families are doing the work and paying to raise their children, who will grow up to become the leaders and workforce of tomorrow and support us all. The care of children that happens outside the early childhood education market, in families, is valuable to the economy.
As a society, we can help by investing in family supportive policies like paid family leave and family-supportive workplaces.
Parents need to work to support their families and they need dependable, quality programs for their children while they work!
Employers benefit by having a dependable workforce, and parents are more productive when they have good, stable childcare!
Investing in early care and education is an investment that strengthens the overall economy. In fact, higher quality is correlated with higher economic impact. Numerous economic impact studies have shown that early childhood education is a significant industry, comparable to those that get a lot more economic development attention and public investment, such as tourism and hospitals.
Early childhood education is a multi-billion dollar industry, and contributes to the economic health of local communities. This money stays in the community; it is not a product that is shipped out and sold elsewhere. Early childhood education jobs are the jobs of the future – it is a service that people need that cannot be done electronically from any place in the world!
The brain research argument is that the early years of a child’s life, from the prenatal period onward, are when the brain is developing and growing faster than any other time. This period is critical and sets the stage for all of later learning and adult functioning. The baby’s interactions with humans and the environment shape the brain’s architecture. Positive and nurturing early relationships develop healthy well-functioning brains.
‘All children are born wired for feelings and ready to learn.’
In those first months and years, the comfort, reassurance, and gentle stimulation that come through relationships with families and caregivers help babies and toddlers begin building self-control, persistence, curiosity, caring, and a sense of confidence. These are important concepts in their own right. They are precursors to essential skills that children will need to succeed in school and in life, such as emotional intelligence, empathy, ingenuity, conflict resolution, teamwork, and the ability to get along with others.
The Perry Preschool and Abecedarian longitudinal research shows that high-quality early childhood education programs have financial benefits much greater than their costs.
The three basic ingredients that make a high-quality program include:
This kind of quality costs.
The primary reason high-quality costs more is that better qualified teachers deserve to be paid well. College and university educated workers command higher salaries and have options other than working in early education.
Lately, some in the early childhood research community have questioned the strength of the relationship between teacher credentials and program quality, and ultimately child outcomes. It is still absolutely true that higher levels of education, that is college and university, especially when the content is early childhood education, are generally related to higher program quality.
Anyone who works in early childhood education, especially those who hire and supervise teaching staff, knows that the truth is both matter – the more educated you are, the better teacher you can be IF that education was specific to early childhood development and learning. Also, that reflective supervision, mentoring and coaching – to implement what is learned in ongoing professional development – are what help teaching staff keep doing a good job.
A useful education focuses on how infants, toddlers, preschoolers and primary grade children learn and grow, and how adults facilitate and promote children’s learning and growth through interaction. A useful education is practical; it deals with real situations and has lots of fieldwork in real everyday settings where children are. Ivory towers don’t produce good teachers – the real issue here is how we ensure that higher education is effective and practical and specific to early childhood.
Make sure to save the date October 8, 2009 on your calendars for the PCPC Annual General Meeting … watch for more information in the upcoming months!
If you enjoyed the lead article ‘Four Good Reasons Why Early Childhood Education is Not Just Important, But Essential!’ you will definitely be ‘rejuvenated’ at our AGM where we present:
Motivation and Passion in Life with Kids:
How to Have It, Maintain It and Share It! With Mary StuartEvery day is a new day! Keeping up the joy and enthusiasm for life’s most important job — guiding children — can be challenging! Come prepared to rekindle the passion and be rejuvenated again in your role as Educator and Parent!
Location: Mitchell Field Community Centre (89 Church Avenue — at Yonge and Finch)
( * For those of you who attended our AGM last year, and for those of you who will be attending for your first time, PCPC wants you to know, that we have secured a room that has better acoustics than last!)
As a non-profit, co-operative charity, we need you, our members, to approve the audit and elect the Officers for 2009/2010.
Watch for your insurance renewal forms which will be in the mail in September for an October 15 renewal date.
Marketing your Centre is a very individual process, but there are some very basic performance checks:
Have families evaluate the service and information that they received – ask them on a scale of 1 to 5 such questions as:
If you don’t receive a 5 on any of the categories, ask, ‘What would it take for us to earn a 5 with you?’ – This is where you will hit pay-dirt uncovering any additional or unexpressed needs or wants.
Points to Remember:
Research shows that when parents are involved in their children’s education, there are significant long-term positive results. Children with involved parents, no matter what the family’s background, are more likely to:
WOW! How can you get more involved in your child’s Centre?
Currently in our 30th year, Bouncing Ball Nursery School provides children from 2 1/2 to 5 with a positive educational and social experience and provides opportunities for parents to experience the program along with their children.
Our educational philosophy is the belief that learning should be an active process for young children; learning through play and actual experiences. Emphasis is placed on helping children acquire skills that enable them to deal with situations, make choices and experience success within a carefully arranged structure. Learning opportunities are individualized and age appropriate so each child can develop at his or her own pace. Our afternoon program does have strong academic components, as it is designed to be an alternative/complimentary program to Kindergarten.
Andrea Coulson
Bouncing Ball Nursery School- Secretary
http://www.bouncingballschool.com
For more information and forms:
http://www.preschools.coop/resources/kwt.htm
childlife … inspire their best!
Children have taught me to strive for excellence – in my self, in what I do with and for them. As I strive for excellence in myself then I am able to inspire the best in children, my colleagues and the parents I work with.
Striving for excellence is not the same as striving for perfectionism!
Striving for perfectionism is unobtainable, de-motivating and de-moralizing. It is not something we should be aiming for within ourselves or our children.
Striving for excellence on the other hand is actually very motivating. It is discovering who I am and what I can do and who I am meant to be. As we move in this stream of thinking and doing, we naturally begin to teach this to the children in our care. Your excellence is different from mine, but if we are both striving towards it, we will make the world of early childhood one of wonder and awe….
Children learn what they live…what are you teaching them?
Mary Stuart, E.C.E.D.H.
Early Childhood Specialist
Director
childlife … inspire their best!
www.childlife.ca
justask@childlife.ca
September is Breakfast for Learning Month! Start the school off on the ‘bright’ side! September is Breakfast for Learning Month – help shine the spotlight on child nutrition and its positive link to learning! For more information about Breakfast for Learning visit their website at http://www.breakfastforlearning.ca
September 22nd is the First Day of Autumn!
Once again, at the beginning of this new school year, the Ontario Science Centre is offering our popular Early Bird Special!
School Bookings
416-696-3140
school_bookings@osc.on.ca
www.OntarioScienceCentre.ca
http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/school/curriculum/grade.asp
Cookbook and Recipe Books: Cookbooks are a fun way to get your parents involved in your fundraising activities. Ask parents to submit their favourite recipes, and put them all together in a book. It’s best to organize them into categories, such as main dishes, desserts, cookies, beverages, etc.
Have the books available for sale at your Centre and at all of your fundraising events. Announce the books in your newsletter and parent boxes. Arrange a get-together of everyone who contributed to the book and their guests and give them a supply of the books to sell to their friends and family.
The Henry White Kinnear Foundation
Address: Suite 3910, Toronto Dominion Bank Tower, Toronto Dominion Centre, P.O. Box 142, Toronto, Ontario, M5K 1H1
Contact: Arthur R.A. Scace
Telephone: (416) 361-3117 (telephone)
Funding Interest: Child Development
Granting Region: Toronto Area
Grant Information: Applications are reviewed in March, June, September and November
The Howitt/Dunbar Foundation
Address: 83 Lynwood Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M4V 1K5
Contact: Diana Dunbar Tremain, President
Funding Interest: Children
Granting Region: Ontario
Grant Information: Application must include charitable registration number, outline of request and budget, financial statements, and other sources of financial support for the project; deadline is August 1 (annually)
The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation
Address: 7 St. Dennis Drive, Suite 101, Don Mills, Ontario, M3C 1E4
Contact: Jack Weinbaum, President
Funding Interest: Children
Granting Region: Toronto Area
‘101 Dalmatians’ and ‘Peter Pan’ are the only Disney animations in which both of a character’s parents are present and don’t die within the movie!
This new section of the PCPC electronic newsletter will provide you, your Centre and the families who use your services with the contact information for organizations that care about the environment and it shows in the products and services that they offer!
Your Healthy House
Contact: Stephen Collette, Principal
Telephone: (705) 652-5159 (telephone)
Email/Website: stephen@yourhealthyhouse.ca (email); www.yourhealthyhouse.ca (website)
General Information: Your Healthy House is a company that completes environmental assessments on homes and advises homeowners, builders, designers, architects and medical professionals on how to achieve healthy indoor environments. The work is of particular importance to clients with allergies, environmental illnesses and multiple chemical sensitivities, for whom a healthy house is essential to overall health. Stephen and Your Healthy House also advise corporate clients on energy efficiency and sustainable building.
PCPC: Parent Co-operative Preschool Corporation
1571
Sandhurst Circle, PO Box 63512, Toronto, ON • MIV 1V0
Tel 416-410-2667 (Toronto)
E-mail info@pcpcontario.org
Website www.pcpcontario.org or
www.pcpctoronto.org
Terms and conditions
PCPC is a registered charity. You can make a donation
by credit card via PayPal here.
List of centres »
Interactive map »
e-newsletter 25: Bill 168, preventing violence in the workplace · June 17
Free seminars on Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) · May 18
e-newsletter 24: Full Day Learning · May 18
Full-Day Learning Act passed: update and links · April 29
PCPC centre featured in Star article · February 8
All 'Going Green' articles on one page »
Going Green 23 · January 15
Going Green 22 · December 17
Going Green 21 · December 4
Going Green 20 · November 20
Going Green 19: A Brief Overview of “Green IT for Dummies” · October 27
Our new website »
What is a Co-op? »
The PCPC Board: Who we Are »
The Benefits of Membership »