During the course of my God directed early childhood professional career, I hope to attain five areas of training. Hopefully God will bless me with the $16,400 before I die to complete them:
1. National Board Certification as an Early Childhood Generalist: I find this training indespensible because not only do the regulatory powers (State Departments of Education and public/private school districts) recognize these types of teachers as highly "highly qualified" but also the actual process teaches an essential skill: self-reflection on one's practice. It only costs $3,400...that's all...lol.
2. American Montessori Society (AMS)Montessori Training: I respect and use many of Maria Montessori ideas in my own teaching, but I disagree fundamentally with using her techniques as skills that have been frozen in time. From what I know and have read about Montessori (carefully review her book The Montessori Method), she possessed a clear, progressive perspective on teaching young children. I sincerely believe that she would have integrated many of the most respected theories in her philosophy if she had lived until this day. AMI (The orignal Association Montessori International that Maria herself founded), unlike the AMS, does not integrate current ideas when training their teachers. How can a professional early childhood educator ignore the current groundbreaking research on the brain, emergent literacy, and multiculturalism? We can't relevantly and most efficiently teach young children of the 21st Century by only using principles that are 40 years old. We must do like AMS does: integrate the old with the new. This training is sooo extensive that many who complete it end up getting an M.Ed. (in Montessori Teacher Education) in the process. The price tag rings of graduate level expensiveness, too: $5-6,ooo.
3. High/Scope Preschool Curriculum Course: Formerly known as the LTTP (Lead Teacher Training Program), this $2,000+ course trains you to teach as a (surprise) classical and manical High/Scope professional. I take much of my own philosophy and teaching style from a supervising teacher who was trained under the system, so I feel it would benefit me immensely. The active learning and assessment parts mostly intrigue me because of their habitual use of tons and tons of documentation which the teacher does in a clear systematic fashion.
4. WestED PITC: THE curriculum for teaching infants and toddlers. It's separated into four modules. You take two modules concurrently for $2,000 apiece thus making the entire curriculum a whopping $4,000+. I see so many schools and daycare centers use ridiculously inappropriate techniques when teaching babies (reciting letters? using a pencil???). I hope to use the knowledge to better create an argument to add an area for a state recognized infant/toddler area of certification.
5. Parents as Teachers (PAT): During my first years of exposure to parent involvment, all of the parent educators underwent these modules. Costing yet another $2,000, this program trains early childhood professionals to teacher parents how to teach their children (Did that make any sense?). Since my area of research interest has layed heavily in the parent involvement area, its importance needs no explanation.
When I combine all of these skills, ideas, and applications, I believe I possess a large portion what I need to determine my focus and goal in this industry.
We shall see.
