Professional Hopes and Goals

As most of you know, I am new to this group.  I had to take two classes off to have complete hip-replacement surgery.  Julie Rand is the only one I recognized from other classes.  Because the surgery, I have been out of participation in childhood advocacy.  Now, I am ready to get into my journey in childhood studies.  If you know of anyone needing to go through that surgery, just know that it is the most painful thing I have ever gone through.

I have an interview with a new pre-school next Tuesday.  I know that this is going to be a different school than I have worked in before. The preschool where I am interviewing at is located in the most prestigious area of town.  The last school I worked at was in the lower income district. 

I am eager to get back to teaching and being involved with children and their families.  I know that children are children; they have many of the same needs and wants.  They also can have very different needs and wants.  It will be interesting to see the diversity and social identities of the children that come to this school.  I do know that the curriculum and standards are Christian based.  

I also recognize that this could bring challenges as we have such a religiously diverse town.  Equity, social justice and diversity may look differently than what I have worked with before, but maybe not.  I am eager to find what is going to be the scenario. 

My dream is that children all over the world will have an opportunity for education, I know realistic that is a dream but I think that it can be done when we all join together to accomplish this.  When I was in Africa, I saw so many children without any opportunities of educations.  I had little boys sit on the roof of their homes so they could look over my 8 ft. fence and watch the children I was teaching.  I wanted so bad to invite them in and take them into my classroom.  The parents would not allow it. 

I want to thank all of my colleagues for their support and conversations.  I have learned much for each of you.  I appreciated the openness that all of you have shared.  I appreciate that we could have discussions and not necessarily agree but learn something new. 

Thank you to Dr. Ferrari for all her help and patience.

At this point in my life, I am not sure what my future holds but I do know that my two books will be published in the spring.  I want to write more, have some ideas that I want to be published. The things I have learned in this class give me some different ideas for addressing diversity and equity.   I do want to get back to work with children and families.