Monday, May 23, 2011

WORDS OF INSPIRATION AND MOTIVATION FROM THE FIELD OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Sources of inspiration and motivation which strike a cord within each of us come from various sources when we least expect them as well as during our educational jouney.  I have listed five such quotes that really started me thinking.

"The most important thing is to enjoy
your children, to love them, be fair and
just with them.  If you do that they're
pretty likely to come out all right."

                                                                    ~ Abigail Eliot

“…the new idea – was program.  I had visited
many day nurseries in Boston as a social worker.
I can remember them even now:  dull green
walls, no light colors, nothing pretty – spotlessly
 clean places, with rows of white-faced listless
 little children sitting, doing nothing.  In the new
 nursery school, the children were active, alive, choosing.”

                                                                     ~Abigail Eliot

Our ability to incorporate the cultural strengths and the
distinctive ways that families, specifically fathers, contribute to
educational accomplishments of their preschool children is
severely constrained by major gaps and inadequacy in our
research literature.  Before early childhood programs can tap
these fathers’ or families’ potential to enhance children’s
development, research needs to define father and family
involvement more precisely and to examine the culturally rich
dimensions of children’s early care and education experiences.”

                                                                            ~ Aisha Ray, Ph.D.

“…I think I had a built in passion that it was important to make a
real contribution to the world and to fix all the injustices that existed
in the world and I wanted to do that through teaching.”

                                                                                ~ Louise Derman Sparks

“It’s not all about you, you have to take your ego
out of it and think about what is best for this child.”

                                                                                             ~ Renatta M. Cooper

8 comments:

  1. It was good to hear that you had a good relationship with your mom's friend and the positive role he played in your life. That is not always the case in situations like that. Very good to hear a positive story.

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  2. I chose the same quote by Louise Derman Sparks. What I liked most about that quote was that it was true when she first started teaching and it still remains true to her today. In the teaching field, sometimes it's difficult to retain that same passion over the course of several years. She's a great example for educators.

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  3. Great quote! I think that it can be hard sometimes to keep that passion. I know that I had teachers that did not enjoy teaching anymore and it showed! -Sarah Holtz

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  4. I think the first post is very inspiring. I do agree that if you instill love and patience inyour children, they will turn out alright because they will instill that same love and patience in others. Love is slow to anger.

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  5. We share inspiration in Louise Derman-Sparks quote about her passion for Early childhood and what motivates her. I thought it was very good because to some degree we all want to make a difference through teaching, whether teaching young children or teaching adults that will teach young children. Either way it is a contribution to the Early childhood field.

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  6. Of all the quote's you posted my favorite is the last one by Renatta Cooper...."It's not all about you, you have to take your ego out of it and think about what's best for the child". This is so true, and it is sometimes hard for people that work with young children to do. No matter what, you must always do what is best for the child, not what is best for yourself!!!

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  7. Hello,

    It was great reading your post. Your mom's friend sounds like she was amazing. It was great to see that some people do treat other children as their own. She seems like a wonderful woman.

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  8. I really like the format you used to place your resources on your page. Good job. I like how you broke it into sections, then added the space for personal recommendations. I especially like the children's books that you recommended. They look like they would be helpful to children and their families.

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