Sharing Web Resources- The Global Summit on Childhood

My search of the ACEI website this week took me to a video of the Global Summit on Childhood held in Washington DC in March of 2012.  The feature speaker was Christopher Clouder from the U.K. who spoke about his work traveling the world to study childhood.  He began his inspiring speech  by saying “I dreamed that life was joy.  And then I awoke and realized life was duty.   And then I went to work and low and behold I discovered that duty can be joy.  We have a duty to all of the children in the world.   We are very fortunate that we work with children and can experience this joy that children bring to the world.”  Clouder described the early educator’s relationship to children by saying  “children inform us, children inspire us” and that we as educators are in search of that” quality of childhood that has a joyousness to it.”  He also described how educators from around the world are brought together often to discuss problems…” When we work together, so often we see what is deficient, what could be better, what is not right, the injustices, the cruelity…but we should not let that  fact be a burden”  Instead he pointed to the fact that as early educators we need to work together to “find those roots of childhood joy”  and that is “what encourages us to go back to our individual struggles, the challenges we face in our daily world knowing that we are with others finding that childhood quality that lives within every human being throughout their lives.”

 

Clouder also spoke of working with young children by saying “When working with children we have to be respectful to the child, they are our teachers.”  He described teaching as a reciprocal process rather than a one way process of the teacher giving a child knowledge.  

 

Describing the future of childhood and of education, Clouder said “We have to find our paths as we go along…we are also always learning our way.  The childhood of us is not the childhood of today and the childhood of today is not the childhood of the future.”  

Clouder read a quote from a declaration that UNICEF put together about the future of the education system worldwide, basically coming to the conclusion that educational institutions of the future must  put more emphasis on children’s social and emotional capabilities.   It also stated that the importance of acquiring factual knowledge will decline significantly in favor of the ability to find access to and creatively utilize information.  

 

Although,  Clouder was not discussing the specific topics of accessibility, responsiveness and awareness his speech was an inspiring reminder to me of the reason that we as early care and education professionals work in this field.  Earlier this week in my discussion post I described ways in which early care and education professionals can be more responsive to the needs of children and families.  I included in my post the fact that child care workers should be paid better and that professional development and technical assistance should be available to programs seeking quality.  These are some of the things  that I have often seen as barriers to providing responsive care and education in child care.  However, most child care workers are not working in the field of early care and education to become rich.  Instead they work because of the joy of childhood that Clouder described in his speech.  I visited a program as part of my work this week and as I talked with the director, she spoke about her dedicated staff.  She said that even though her staff only make minimum wage ($7.25/hr) they have dedicated their lives to the families and the children.  The director told me of how her staff paid for their registration fees and spent a Saturday at a conference without being paid because they wanted to.  I realized that a responsive early childhood educator is more than someone who has a degree in early childhood and makes substantially more than minimum wage.  They have a passion for working with young children and they continue to learn and grow as part of the reciprocal relationship with the children and families.  Education alone does not make a great teacher.  Likewise, more pay does not make a teacher better.  It takes heart, dedication and a love for the joy of childhood.  Passion for working with young children is a quality that is priceless.

 

 Reference

Clouder, Christopher (2012) The Future of Childhood.  The Global Summit on Childhood Retreived from:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7r-idxHixo&feature=youtu.be