Continuing Professional Conversations
This week, discussion with my international contact, Don Giesbrecht, CEO of the Canadian Child Care Federation (CCCF) centered on quality early childhood professionals, professional development, and the sharing of professional goals.
Mr. Giesbrecht emphasized that the issue of creating and accessing quality early childhood environments is a topic that is personally close to him as well as that of the CCCF. Mr. Giesbrecht emphasized that in order to have high quality programming, he believes that the profession must have highly passionate, skilled, and well compensated people working with children and families. Mr. Giesbrecht expressed the importance of high quality professionals and his passion for this topic quite nicely when he stated, “At the heart of quality early childhood educator is the educator themselves…they bring it to life”. I must agree with Mr. Giesbrecht in the vital importance of having people in the field who are passionate about serving young children and their families.
I also asked Mr. Giesbrecht what type of professional development is available for early childhood workers in Canada. Mr. Giesbrecht informed me that professional development opportunities such as conferences are available throughout Canada through early years associations in each of the provinces and territories. He shared that the CCCF believes that professional development is an important component for early learning educators and that they will soon be announcing some upcoming online workshops and courses for early childhood professionals. Although my schedule does not allow me to consider other professional development opportunities at this time, the CCCF is becoming a very important resource for me and I am sure that this type of information will be helpful and inspiring in the future.
Mr. Giesbrecht offered some insight towards gaining professional development when he shared his own experiences. He has embraced all of his learning opportunities and shared that learning can be done in any environment as opportunities to grow as a professional are constantly present. He advises to always be present in the conversations that are happening around you and truly pay attention to the message being relayed. He pointed out that professionals can grow and obtain the skills they need to do their work in the field by combining their knowledge and experiences with their passion and skills.
I admire Mr.Giesbrecht for his professional goal of advocating for a national plan and leadership for young children and families. His passion for children and his work towards establishing a national respect for them through universal opportunities and access to high quality programming has been expressed in this and previous communications. I admire him for the commitment and passion he has for young Canadians and their families and it has been such a privilege to correspond with him over these past months. I support Mr. Giesbrecht in his work and efforts as CEO of the CCCF in which he is hopeful that the CCCF and other early learning organizations will continue to develop and grow since their role in the field is vital to sharing knowledge and creating a professional community.
(D. Giesbrecht, personal communication, August 15, 2014)
Early Childhood Studies 
Sandra thank you for your very informative and thoughtful post. I can tell that you enjoyed learning from your international contact. I foresee that the professional relationship you have build with your contact will extent past this assignment into the work of CCCF. Furthermore, I cannot agree more with you that passion is one of the necessary qualities a EC professional should have. Its not measurable like the other qualities but its one of those things that you know it when you see it and I can definitely tell that you are passionate!
Sandra,
Mr. Glesbrecht makes a great point when he speaks of how important professional development is for teachers. As we complete our weekly coursework, we begin to understand how accessible learning and information from all over the world is. Not so many years ago, we would all have been spending lots of time in the library to complete our assignments. Now, we have the ability to access just about anything at any time that is convenient to us. What a great opportunity for everyone to be able to engage in professional growth.
Like you, I am grateful for the commitment and passion of top early childhood professionals like him that develop our learning community.
Carol
Hi Sandra, thank you for sharing such an insightful post. When Mr. Glesbrecht shared his personal experience about professional development and expressed that ” learning can be done in any environment as opportunities to grow as a professional are constantly present”, and his adivce to “always be present in the conversations that are happening around you and truly pay attention to the message being relayed”, it is really true to me. As a TA, most of the experience of professional developmenet I got is through conversations with my classroom teacher. When I see some issues that happened to children and parents, afterwards I would share my thoughts about those issues and ask for advice or professional thoughts from my classroom teachers, which might happen when we were having our lunch. Through casual talks or formal conferences, we can as well improve our professional developement once we open our ears.
Xiaowan
I think it is great they the offer online workshops as a part of their professional development. As you mentioned, scheduling time for professional development can be challenging. It made me think of this masters program and how we are able to work and continue our education at the same time. I think making workshops available online would increase interest, participation and would therefore lead to many benefits.