Will you bring your vision to life?

Will you bring your vision to life? 

AFTERWARD-->  Learning about becoming a visionary director, in the Afterward

       section of the book, it shares many resources and various 

       programs and how each program is different. 

So will you bring your vision to life?

Knowing that there are programs out there bringing their vision to life, will you bring your vision to life?

There will be struggles and for me I just don’t know where to start, but will you bring your vision to life?

Considering the many resource and various program examples the book has shared, will you bring your vision to life?

There are so many ideas, one from bright beginnings program, another from men in early childhood education program, and many more amazing ideas that I want to incorporate into my vision, will I then bring my vision to life? 

Gaining a perspective of directing from the triangle framework, will you bring your vision to life? 

With ideas of what you want from the various scenarios within this book, will you bring your vision to life? 

I keep stumbling on this question WILL I BRING MY VISION TO LIFE?  I have gained such a great understanding for directing throughout this course, but I still feel

 -Incompetent                                         

-Scared of not satisfying                                                

-Afraid of failing                                                   

-Frightened of straying away from my vision

-Nervous                                                

-Blind, I don’t know what way to go and which

way to start

I want to bring my vision to life so badly, but I don’t have the funds, my brain is scattered, my thoughts are continuously flashing with ideas, I have mixed feelings, and I am just deathly afraid of failing and getting stuck in a rut. 

I want my own program.  I want to manage my own program.  I want to teach children.  I want to be in an open natural environment.  I want to help the children of Hawaii.  I want to have a classroom that opens to the playground.  I want to create relationships with people I will work with.  I want to be the fun director that supports my staff.  I want to hear different ideas.  I want to be that teacher that the children will remember their whole life.  I want a team that will work with me in creating my vision.  I don’t want to deal with finances.  I don’t want to deal with paperwork.  I don’t want to deal with assessments.  I just want to play. 

I plan on using ideas from programs that the Afterward chapter mentions.  I want to incorporate     

                        F- First impressions

                        A- Acquire family information

                        M- Meet in comfortable spaces

                        I- Interest families 

                        L- Learn about children’s learning

                        I- Involve families

                        E- Every day seek conversations

                        S- Show families they can be safe and secure with us. 

                                                - Hildebrandt Learning Centers

--> “Paying my staff an adequate pay including benefits.” –Old Firehouse School

--> “Placing the families and children at the center.” –London Bridge CC Services

“Love yourself.  Love your work.  Love Life.”  -United Way Bright Beginnings

“Looking for a few good men and women with the courage to work in Child Care.  Jadelynn’s Center believes gender balance is good for young children.  Interested?”

                        -Discovery Children’s Center

Though I am still on the road to completing a bachelor’s degree, I hope that I will keep my vision in mind.  I want to complete my bachelor’s degree and gain more experience within various childcares, so that I can have a more complete image of what my visionary center is.  In the end though I hope that my fears for creating my own center will become reality and that my visionary center can one day be as successful as I envision it.  

Roberto's Experience

Specific Blog 12

Bring your vision to life--> page 261

Roberto’s experience to me is my fear.  In wanting to build my own center, I always fall back onto this scenario, how am I possibly going to get through accommodating all of the standards and accreditation requirements as well as create my own way to handle my center.  To me I gained many inspirations from Roberto.  He knew from the start that he didn’t agree with what the center has been implementing.  Instead of falling back on the standards and requirements as a resource to what he should do, he fell back to he families, the people who he is working for.  He didn’t just change things with no intention and leaving out people.  Roberto simply took what he knew about children and he engaged families to see children in his view.  He knew what he was doing, and with everything he did he had something to back him up.  In all the challenges that Roberto faced, he fell back to his families, and their input and then he went to his staff.  He did things his way, but kept in mind what was required of him.  He definitely used his staff as partners to accomplish accreditation.              

            If I encountered any of these problems I think I would have to always refer back to my families and the community that I am serving.  Then I would turn to my staff since they are my right hand, my left hand, right leg, left leg, and my entire body. 

            I do want to finish my bachelors, and maybe even further to a masters or PhD.  I want to gain as much knowledge as possible, along with experience of other Early Childhood sites.  I would then want to try and open my own center.  I don’t know where I would get my funds, I don’t know how I am going to go through with it, and I don’t know how long until I will actually reach this goal.  But I do know that I want to help people understand children, I want to help engage people in their children’s life, and I want to be there for children who deserve a better. 

Sarah's Experience

Specific Blog 11

Bring your vision to life--> page 253

I live in the country, but I work in the city.  The children where I live are totally different compared to children that I work with.  They are different in the sense of how the environment impacts them.  We are so lucky to live on an island where the ocean and the mountains are so closely attainable.  But the city children seem to not view the island as children in the country do.  To country children, the ocean and the mountain is so easily accessible, it’s their back yard, they know the ins and outs of the mountain and the ocean, and they know how to use the mountain and the ocean as resources.  City children, I have noticed, enjoys the beach, playing in the ocean, running around in the mountains, but they don’t necessarily focus on what the ocean and the mountain has to offer, and they don’t necessarily go deeper into the ocean and the mountains.  I know of children who have grown kalo in lo’i patches, I know of children who have gone fishing with nets, and I know of children who have participated in offering the ocean and the mountain life by planting, caring, and cleaning the environment.  There was this one time at the school that I work at where we had a camp as a dramatic play scene.  But I noticed that the children were not exposed to that type of scenery.  They didn’t know what to do with the props, they didn’t know what to do at a camp, and they didn’t know much about the outdoors.  Recently we were blessed with a mala (a dry land taro patch), taken care by another program, which was near our school. The children were exposed to planting in a new way, but they didn’t actually experience connecting with the land, learning the process, and connecting the experience to them. 

            I liked the idea that Sarah included the families in her plan to draw closer to the natural world.  In doing this families seemed like they were active participants in seeing and connecting with the natural world, which gave meaning to the children.  I liked the idea that Sarah used her staff and her center’s environment as a template to draw families into seeing the environment around them.  I think going on fields trips around island is a practical idea, but actually connecting to island by seeing where the children live, since the children at my center don’t live in the same area.  I would like to include my families in the process of how they care for the land, since my families consist of different cultures. 

            Sarah’s experience was very interesting to me, but I feel that families in Hawaii see the natural environment differently from families on the mainland.  They enjoy the natural environment, but they may not necessarily draw a connection or use the natural environment as a resource.  I would like to do activities in the natural environment, like fishing, walking with no shoes, or even collecting mountain fruits.  I think families notice the natural environment, but using and caring for the environment is what I feel the families in Hawaii need to grow a sense for.                      

Michelle's Experience

Specific Blog assignment 10

Bring your vision to life--> page 244

            Michelle tries to invest in her staff instead of always having to let them go.  She notices that her quality with her staff is greater when she invests time, money, training, and reflection.  Not only does Michelle adjust her budget so that her staff may benefit from it, but she also adjusts her orientation habits, training techniques, and staff roles.  In doing this Michelle doesn’t rely on herself to manage her center, but she spreads out her responsibility to her staff, which she trusts.

            Having to rethink different possibilities so that I don’t get stuck in the same routine that isn’t making my vision move forward is something I would like to work on.  Noticing that I need to change, and taking action is another thing I would like to work on.  I would like to work on expanding my horizons to other possibilities so that I can come up with what can or can’t work for me.  I feel that I work great with other staff, and I hope that I can build upon my relationships with the staff at my center. 

            Many aspects of Michelle’s vision appealed to me.  I liked how she noticed that her staff could be invested in.  I liked how she spread her responsibilities out to her staff so that she wasn’t flustered with all the duties of managing.  I liked how she had her staff reflect using the Thinking Lens, and how her staff thought in a particular way instead of a bias and one-sided way. 

            I could imagine myself investing in my staff.  I like Michelle’s idea when she included her staff in the hiring process.  I would want to debrief with my staff to see who they can see themselves working or not working with.  I enjoyed the fact of how Michelle conducted meetings with her staff, but to add I would want to have informal meetings with my staff.  I would want to invest in staff bonding.  Especially in my won center there is sometimes a divide in the staff, and bringing my staff together is something that I would want to work on.          

Lettie's Experience

Specific blog assignment 9

Bring your vision to life--> page 237

            Lettie noticed what she didn’t want to do, which was to pour piles of papers onto parents, her staff, and herself.  She also had a clear thought about what she wanted to do, which was build relationships.  In all that she did she made sure that she did not want paperwork and that she wanted to build relationships.  I felt like she knew that relationships were important and therefore she built upon the foundation of the triangle.  I noticed that even though Lettie did have important paper work to fill out, she didn’t just throw the paperwork at the parents and expected a deadline.  In all of her examples, Lettie looked over what was required and then she did her own little twist on expressing the requirements rather then the parents and staff having to fill out form after form.  She used her managing side of the triangle as a foundation to what she implements in her classroom as well as to the families.  From the coaching side of the triangle, Lettie coached everyone as a group.  Not only did she coach her staff, but she coached the families as well. 

            I think orientation would be a stage that I would like to revamp.  I would like to also include the families not only in meeting, but also into the classroom not during center hours.  I would like to include the families from the start, the “We are waiting for you,” book is an amazing idea that includes families right from the inquiring stage.  I would like to include families on the learning of all the children not only their own child. 

            Lettie included everyone in the center, from center philosophies, to classroom meetings, and to solving situations.  She was inclusive in all of the examples, and she tried her hardest to allow everyone to have a say into decisions that were to be made in the center. 

I would want to strengthen my relationships with my parents, so that we can develop meetings that include everyone.  I want to have informal times with the parents, in the part of the story when they said that they invite parents into the classroom and they leave pictures, I thought that was an informal way of including families into the classroom.  I want to practice talking to groups and not offend anyone’s perspective.  I want to spend time with my parents and my staff so that I can feel comfortable having meetings with them.  I want strengthen including everyone not only in conflict resolution but also with my vision.