Exceptional Emerging Leaders 2015

I believe that high-quality early learning experiences should be the norm of childhood, not the exception, and I believe the key to achieving this goal is in investing in the teachers, classrooms, and administrative systems that make up our early learning programs. I seek to shift our societal thinking about educators away from conceptions of childcare workers and babysitters, and toward a view of educators as early learning and developmental professionals.

I seek to create systems for change that result in sustainable growth for early learning programs, helping early learning professionals see the way their beliefs about children, their assumptions about early childhood education, and their systems for thinking and practice either help or hinder them in their early learning efforts. I seek to build structures for training and support that enable early learning professionals to operate at their highest potential, providing them access to resources and tools that improve their practice and empower them to make a difference for the children and families they serve.

I seek to maintain a balance in my professional, personal, and family life, recognizing that I am most effective when I have tended to the needs of each area. I believe that I am able to make my best contributions when I offer them from a place of fullness and health, and I believe that I can make my strongest impact by contributing in a way that enables me to maintain a sustainable level of engagement. I seek to achieve this balance in myself, as well as to support others to achieve it.