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The Risk of No Risk

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

The Beginnings Workshop in the March 2010 issue of Exchange explores the challenge programs face in balancing the need for opportunities and the need for safety. One of the articles in this series is "What\'s the Risk of No Risk" by Deb Curtis. In her article she concludes:

"Keeping children safe is paramount to the work we do every minute when we are with children. We must always stop or prevent situations that threaten children’s well-being. But when we do intervene on behalf of children’s safety, we can do it with the understanding that life has many challenges and risks, and children deserve experiences and tools to learn to negotiate on their own. The saying, \'With few risks there are few rewards\' is very true. Learning involves risk. Relationships involve risk. Feeling competent and confident in the world requires meeting a challenge and working to overcome it.

"When children are involved in a situation we think is too risky or dangerous, rather than just stopping them we can offer alternatives that keep them safe while preserving opportunities for them to develop to their fullest potential. This work requires that we pay attention to the children’s perspectives, use our power thoughtfully, and act responsibly. We can ensure that children have a childhood where they feel exhilaration, while still being protected and supported by adults and their friends. We can support them in learning that determination pays off, and they can become competent decision makers, able to assess risks, contribute to the well-being of others, and reap the rewards of their efforts."

Beginnings Workshop Books On Sale

Beginnings Workshop Books are great teacher training resources with articles on key curriculum issues written by the field\'s leading authorities. And now you can save money by buying the entire set of the following 8 Beginnings Workshop Books...

Literacy
Behavior
Child Development I
Curriculum — Brain Research, Math, Science
Curriculum — Art, Music, Movement, Drama
Play
Child Development II
Professionalism

Help Teachers See Results

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

One of the online "classic" Exchange articles included in the March 2010 issue of Exchange is "12 Reasons People Love to Work for You." One of the reasons cited was that "You help people see results":

"Lilian Katz, in an article, \'On Teaching,\' in the February 1990 issue of Exchange, noted that every semester there will be two or three of her students who reveal that a single teacher, by showing concern or encouragement, saved their psychological lives. Katz concludes: "Just think how many children that adds up to over a career of teaching... it could be more than 100 people. That\'s a lot of lives to make a real difference to."

"As a director, the most effective way you can get teachers hooked on continuing in your center is to help them see the real impact they are having on the lives of children. You can do this by training teachers to be better observers so they can see the children progress, by encouraging teachers to give each other feedback on the changes they observe, and, foremost, by encouraging parents to share their joy over the progress their children are making. Knowing that you were responsible for helping a shy child come out of his shell or an overly aggressive child calm down is a type of reward that very few professions can offer.

"William Franklin, speaking at a Directors\' Network conference in New Orleans, quoted the remarks made by Pericles to his troops, noting that he could just as well have been addressing early childhood professionals: \'What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.\'

"There are many great reasons for working in early childhood, not the least of which is the real difference we can make in the lives of the children and families we serve."

Leading People in Early Childhood Settings

The Exchange CD Book, Leading People in Early Childhood Settings, offers an inspiring collection of 50 articles (including "12 Reasons People Love to Work for You") in PDF format offering a plethora of practical ideas and strategies for meeting the challenges of leadership in an early childhood settings, covering these topics:

Leadership Basics
Leadership Challenges
Supervisory Basics
Meeting Staff Needs
Motivating Staff
Managing Difficult People
Managing Difficult Issues

Framing Childhood

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

As I sat at my desk surrounded by captivating photos of my children and grandchildren, this question in New York Times Magazine (February 28, 2010) jumped out at me: "Has the curating of digital photos come to define modern parenting?" Here is was the question-asker, Virginia Heffernan, answered, in purposefully provocative terms...

"American children in 2010 have a bright, clear reason for being. They exist to furnish subjects for digital photographs that can be corrected, cropped, captioned, organized, categorized, albumized, broadcast, turned into screen savers, and brandished on online social networks.... The marching orders come immediately with the newborn photo, which must be e-mailed to friends before a baby has left the maternity ward...

"Thus a parent is minted. Good thing the drill starts early, as the signature act of Internet-era parenting repeats itself, again and again, in tighter and tighter cycles, throughout a childhood. It determines the rhythms of beach vacations and snow days. Eventually the business of family-image production and dissemination incorporates increasingly sophisticated and expensive cameras... software... and organization systems. Before long the family has become a multimedia publisher, and consumer of digital tools, gadgetry and broadband."

Making Quality Happen

Places for Childhoods: Making Quality Happen in the Real World demonstrates how centers can face real-world challenges and make quality care a reality. Special selections authored by recognized child care experts enhance this collection of updated articles written by Jim Greenman for Exchange magazine. Readers will be empowered by new ideas on how to make child care programs work for children, families, and staff.

Obesity Prevention

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

We\'ve all seen the alarming statistics on the "obesity epidemic" among American children and we have all witnessed first hand the declining physical fitness of children in our care. But can early childhood programs play a prevention role? Indeed a recent study, Children\'s Activity and Movement in Preschools Study," suggests that there is much that programs can do! The study of 3- to 5-year-olds in 24 diverse child care programs in South Carolina, reported in NIER (January 2010), found that...

Children were engaged in moderate to vigorous physical activity during only 3.4 percent of the preschool day!
4- and 5-year-olds were less physically active than 3-year-olds.
Males were more active than females.
Children in higher quality preschools were more likely to engage in physical activity than children in programs of lower quality.

Clearly, early childhood programs are currently part of the problem, not the solution. There is significant need for early childhood programs to design their spaces and their activities to stimulate more vigorous physical activity.

Exchange Resource on Promoting Physical Activity

The Beginnings Workshop Book Curriculum: Art, Music, Movement, Drama contains insightful articles on music and movement and on gross motor development. This book can be ordered individually or as part of the discounted Set of 8 Beginnings Workshop Books.

Is Your Nature Team Set to Go?

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

The World Forum Foundation is committed to connecting 2 million young children around the world with nature. To make this happen we need to have our readers organize Nature Action Teams in their communities to lead campaigns to nurture future generations of environmental stewards. Teams will be equipped and trained to carry out their campaigns at the Connecting Children with Nature Action Forum on October 17 - 20, 2010, at the Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska City, Nebraska.

Based on two previous Working Forums organized by the Nature Action Collaborative for Children, we now know that multi-disciplinary efforts to connect children with nature yield dramatic results. Therefore, we are inviting the participation of multi-disciplinary teams that include at least two of the following professions within their team: early childhood educators, environmental educators and advocates, designers, planners, landscape architects, community health experts.

The deadline for applying for participation — March 15th — is fast approaching. Attendance will be limited. Teams can apply for participation at www.WorldForumFoundation.org/actionteams. Teams will be selected based in part on the order in which they are received, and in part on how they contribute to the geographic and professional diversity of the initiative.

Guidebook on Developing Outdoor Play Spaces

Natural Playscapes: Creating Outdoor Play Environments for the Soul is an inspiring, yet practical resource on bringing outdoor playspaces to life. It describes how children relate to the natural world, gives many examples from around the world of how early childhood professionals and parents have planned and constructed natural playscapes. Included are blueprints, step by step instructions, and tip sheets such as "20 Ways to Create Natural Playscapes," and "15 Free or Low-Cost Things to Enrich Your Playscapes."

Play and Science

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

In 2007 the congressionally chartered National Research Council issued influential recommendations for improving K-8 science and made a pitch for introducing scientific study with children as young as four. This message received a mixed reception in the early childhood community already concerned that the growing emphasis on academics is crowding out the playtime children need for healthy development. But Kathy Hirsh-Pacek from Temple University observed in Education Week (January 20, 2010) that efforts to expand preschool science teaching need not necessarily conflict with young children\'s need for playtime. Science can be taught in the context of play. She notes:

"The people who are pure play people suggest that you need to have free play for young children, and I think the evidence is pretty clear on that. But I also think the evidence is pretty clear that you don\'t just need to have free play for children. There\'s free play and there\'s guided play. You just have to be careful, because sometimes adults can become too intrusive and the play just stops."

David Elkind on the Power of Play

In his fascinating book, The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children, David Elkind argues that "Play is being silenced." According to Elkind, important, unstructured play is too often replaced in modern times by organized activities, academics, or passive leisure activities such as watching television and playing video games. With clarity and insight, Elkind calls for society to bring back long recesses, encourage imagination, and let children develop their minds at a natural pace.

Difficult Supervisory Conversations

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

As a supervisor you may find it necessary to have conversations with employees who are not performing well. While we don\'t like the name of the book, Bad Apples: How to Manage Difficult Employees, Encourage Good Ones to Stay, and Boost Productivity (Avon, MA: Adams Business, 2009), we did find the advice it offered on conducting such a conversation to be helpful:

Avoid confrontation. A discussion between a manager and employee should never become a confrontation pitting one person against the other. There is nothing in the dynamic that will improve the situation.
Don\'t be afraid of silence. If you feel like things are escalating or becoming confusing, take a deep breath and a moment to gather your thoughts.
Keep your annoyance to yourself. Sometimes it can be useful to let someone know how much they have annoyed you or made your life difficult, but in most situations it just muddies the waters. Treat the employee with respect and the conversation will be much smoother.
Give your employee room to speak. Refusing to let your employee offer an explanation will cause resentment, so allow him some time to account for his behavior.

The Art of Leadership

Exchange\'s all-time bestseller, The Art of Leadership: Managing Early Childhood Organizations, serves as an invaluable guidebook for early childhood managers and textbook for early childhood instructors. The comprehensive guide, now available in both print and CD versions, includes contributions from the leading experts in the field on the following management areas...

Leadership

Advocacy

Getting organized

Legal issues

Financial management

Fundraising

Personnel policies

Recruiting and selecting staff

Supervising and developing staff

Evaluating your program

Shaping your curriculum

Working with parents

Marketing your program

Community outreach

Brainwriting

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

"Group free-for-alls can stifle creativity," observes Peter Heslin of Southern Methodist University in Psychology Today (February 2010). Instead of conventional brainstorming, he recommends a technique called "brainwriting" to generate creative ideas:

Write — Everyone sits at a table with different color pen and a piece of paper. Each person writes an idea and passes their paper to the right.
React — Read the ideas on the page you receive, then add your own ideas, perhaps feeding off the others.
Review — When a page has about five ideas on it, retire it to the center of the table. When all pages are done, everyone starts considering all the ideas.
Select — Everyone makes a list of their favorite ideas, and the most popular are recorded.

Add Creativity to Your Training

Now you can add pizzazz to your staff training by subscribing to Videatives Streaming Service giving you access to over 160 video clips of real-life scenes in real classrooms.

By using Videatives Streaming Service, you can make general principles of child development and early education come to life — turn ordinary moments into rich learning experiences. Students and staff members will learn to "see what children know," not by studying text, but through observing and assessing real incidents in real early childhood settings.

The Dialogue of Supervision

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

In my dusted off note cards I found this interesting observation by Harry Levinson in his book, The Exceptional Executive: A Psychological Conception (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968): [Note: Try to ignore fact he always refers to supervisors as men]

"...the relationship between a supervisor and his subordinates is a dialogue. The superior speaks with his every action. Every policy, every project, every failure or achievement is a phrase in that dialogue. When he speaks or fails to speak, how he acts or fails to act, he reveals what he thinks of himself and how he regards his subordinates. Those who respond to his leadership, though often verbally silent, nevertheless reply in kind whether they produce or fail to do so, whether they develop symptoms of emotional distress, whether they stay or go.

A Tool Kit for Managers

Exchange has packaged six of its practical management resources into a single “Manager’s Tool Kit” and is offering the entire set at a 33% discount — separately these resources would cost $175, but we are offering the entire Manager’s Tool Kit for only $112. Resources in the kit include:

The Art of Leadership: Managing Early Childhood Organizations

Managing Money: A Center Director’s Guidebook

Beginnings Workshops Book #8 - Professionalism

250 Management Success Stories from Child Care Directors

Developing Capable, Creative Teachers CD Book

Leading People in Early Childhood Settings CD Book

Experience the World of ECE

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Join 1000 early childhood professionals from 60 nations at the 2011 World Forum on Early Care and Education in Honolulu, Hawaii, in May 2011 for the experience of your lifetime. The program for this event will be developed by the World Forum community, which includes anyone who is interested in getting involved in this process. Topics such as the following will be addressed...

Connecting children with nature
Leadership in early childhood
Multi-cultural education
Curriculum models
Teacher education
Men in early childhood
Informal settings
Workforce development
AIDS and young children
Immigration and young children
Peace education
Play
Preserving indigenous culture
Children with special needs
Children without homes

Don\'t Be Left Out!

The 2009 World Forum in Belfast sold out 3 months in advance. Based on the incredible early response it is likely that the 2011 World Forum will sell out much, much sooner. If you are eager to attend this event, you need to put your name on the "2011 Reservation List" today. Once you are on this list, you will be given an opportunity to register for the 2011 World Forum two weeks before the registration process goes live on the World Forum web site. It is quite possible that the 2011 World Forum will sell out during this two week advance notice period, so sign up on the Reservation List and be prepared to act quickly when you receive your advance notice.

Be Sad and Succeed

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

"People in a bad mood have better judgment and pay more attention to details." This surprising claim is reported in Scientific American Mind (March 2010). The magazine reviewed a series of studies in which researchers induced a good or bad mood in volunteers:

"Each study found that people in a bad mood performed tasks better than those in a good mood. Grumpy people paid closer attention to details, showed less gullibility, were less prone to errors of judgment and formed higher-quality persuasive arguments than their happy counterparts. One study even supports the notion that those who show signs of either fear, anger, disgust or sadness -- the four basic negative emotions -- achieve stronger eyewitness recall while virtually eliminating the effects of misinformation."

Exchange CEUs on Sale

Receive CEUs for reading Exchange articles! Now you can meet your continuing education requirements from your home computer in your spare time! The process is simple, takes place entirely online, and best of all, is extremely affordable. Exchange is proud to offer you this unique opportunity in partnership with University of Wisconsin-Stout. And, this week only, you can take advantage of a 20% discount on any of the following tests of Exchange articles:

For Teachers

Outdoor Play Environments
Food and Nutrition Challenges
Literacy in the Early Years
Serving Children with Special Needs
Managing Challenging Behaviors
Math in the Early Years
Brain Research Implications for Early Childhood
Involving Parents in Your Program
Observation and Assessment
Reggio Emilia Learning Experiences
Making Play Work
Social and Emotional Development

For Directors

Staff Recruitment and Selection
Staff Challenges
Leadership in Early Childhood
Supervising Early Childhood Staff
Training Early Childhood Staff
Evaluating Early Childhood Programs
ECE Leadership Issues #1
Marketing Child Care Services
Managing Money
Maintaining a Safe Environment
Physical Environment and Room Arrangement
Organization Management
Observation
Teamwork
Communication

Fundraising Events

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

In Exchange\'s new book, Not Just Small Change: Fund Development for Early Childhood Programs, Roberta Bergman talks about the advantage of events over other forms of fundraising...

"[Events provide the] opportunity to increase your program’s visibility, especially if it is a ‘signature event’ — a one-of-a-kind occasion to which your name is attached, year after year. All of the publicity will feature your name and, in many cases, something about your work. Further, some people who know little or nothing about your agency will participate in the event, not because it benefits your organization, but because they are interested in the event itself: they play golf or they enjoy 5K runs, they’ve been invited to ‘fill a table’ at a luncheon or dinner, or they want to hear the speaker who will be appearing. Once they attend, you have the chance to ‘hook’ them . . .to inform them (in an interesting way) about your services and to make sure they enjoy the event, so they’ll come back next time."

New Fundraising Resource

Not Small Change: Fund Development for Early Childhood Programs is a fundraising guide written specifically for early childhood programs by a veteran early childhood funddraiser, Roberta Bergman. The practical resource provides advice on...

Whom Can We Ask (and Keep Asking) for Money?
Building the Donor Base
Developing Relationships with You Donors
Events — Yours and Theirs
Direct Mail
Online Donations
Grant: Writing
Writing Foundation Proposals: Dear Mr. Gates
Preparing Government Grant Application
Breaking New Ground: The Capital Campaign

Cuddling Babies

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Human beings have a "left-side cradling bias. According to Psychology Today (January 2010)....

"Most of us hold infants so their heads nestle in our left elbows. Positioned this way, babies\' facial expressions are processed first by the caregiver\'s emotional right brain, allowing for faster communication of the babies\' needs and stronger bonding."

Being with Babies: Understanding and Responding to the Infants in Your Care

Exchange is proud of its book, Being with Babies, is a great resource for both beginning and experienced caregivers. Each chapter describes an issue that caregivers face daily, offers scenarios that illustrate the challenge, suggests solutions caregivers can use to address the issue, and concludes with a review of key points. Being with Babies teaches caregivers how to handle everyday challenges while learning about developmental stages. This hands-on resource is perfect for caregivers of children 6 weeks to 18 months old, as well as for staff development and resource libraries. Chapters include information on:

Developing relationships with babies
Using observation to understand babies
Communicating with babies
Selecting appropriate toys
Setting up safe and effective learning environments for babies

Bilingual Brains

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

"People who speak two languages can process certain words faster than others." This is the conclusion of a study reported in Scientific American Mind (January 2010).

The study\'s researchers observed that children who know two languages more easily solve problems that involve misleading clues. Knowledge of a second language — even one learned in adolescence — affects how people read in their native tongue. The findings suggest that after learning a second language, people never look at words the same way again.

Exchange CEUs on Sale

Outdoor Play Environments
Food and Nutrition Challenges
Literacy in the Early Years
Serving Children with Special Needs
Managing Challenging Behaviors
Math in the Early Years
Brain Research Implications for Early Childhood
Involving Parents in Your Program
Observation and Assessment
Reggio Emilia Learning Experiences
Making Play Work
Social and Emotional Development

For Directors

Staff Recruitment and Selection
Staff Challenges
Leadership in Early Childhood
Supervising Early Childhood Staff
Training Early Childhood Staff
Evaluating Early Childhood Programs
ECE Leadership Issues #1
Marketing Child Care Services
Managing Money
Maintaining a Safe Environment
Physical Environment and Room Arrangement
Organization Management
Observation
Teamwork
Communication

Preschool Enrollment

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

In their 2010 annual edition of "Quality Counts", Education Week (January 14, 2010) reported on the percent of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in preschools. Here are the 12 highest and lowest enrollment states: