I honor John Dewey’s quote as a consistent reminder of the critical role and responsibilities of an educator/leader. The mission, vision, and core values we bring forth identify the roles we play to children, families, staff, and communities. I have embraced education and leadership as a cohesive entity. My ideology encompasses an approach that is collaborative in nature, open, adaptable, and ethical to the needs of children and adults. It is about embracing my morality and guiding principles that give way to the strength and courage to take risks. I believe leaders are advocates, the voice, and the conveyers of social justice to ensure the values and vision of early childhood education are honest and rich. It is through the theories of many past and present leaders such as John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Loris Malaguzzi, Vivian Paley, Rita Pearson, Elena Aguilar, Maurice Sykes, and many more that I’ve come to understand the relationship between honoring children, education, and leadership. Their philosophies of appreciating the organic mind of children, and the authenticity of teaching and learning captured the democracy of education. I learned that the values and visions of early childhood education should be honest and authentic. The ethical justifications for truth and value are essential in building agency towards a developmentally appropriate educational system. The support for children’s growth beyond the existence and empowerment of the adult is to build their capacity to teach with purity. 

Educators teach in the hope of inspiring children to think critically and providing resources to build on their thinking skills and challenging them to reach beyond their potential. Leaders should provide the same moral intent for their staff. Leaders have the strength to empower staff to teach with compassion, integrity, and morality. Leadership can encourage teachers to take risks, challenge, be active participants in children’s learning, and reflect on their teaching practices. It is the responsibility of the leader to rejuvenate teaching practices, instead of affirming stagnation. Leaders must encourage educators to become motivated thinkers to shift beyond what exists and change or challenge what is unjust. It is the integrity of teaching that prevails. “Change is the cognitive, affective, interpersonal, or intrapersonal capacities that enable us to better manage the complexities of learning, teaching, leading, and living” (Drago-Severson, 2009). It is our capacities that guide our values to who we aspire to be.

My vision for education is an interconnectedness between educators, families, communities, and society that cohesively work together to foster children’s learning experiences. It is this partnership of a “social community”, as Dewey identified, that works together with common lines, spirit, and aims (Dewey, 1900, p.14). A community that speaks a universal language of learning, growing, and respecting education to its truest form. A school’s core principle is the aspiration and moral values to support human capacities and provide success to all individuals. It is to provide curriculum opportunities, good educational materials, and plentiful information resources that support learning at home and at school (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p.28).

My core values for education embrace humility, collaboration, compassion, and connection. I have come to define a leader as one who guides with intent, morality, and efficacy. Leaders provide children an equal opportunity to learn authentically, and comprehend the value of children’s development, thinking, and interactions. I’ve learned the important values a leader can impact on policy, culture, and the social realms of early childhood education. It is time for all children to have an equal opportunity to be free from inequalities, standardization, and unethical practices and experience the true nature of teaching and learning.

References

Dewey, J. (1900). The School and Society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

Drago-Severson, E. (2009) Leading Adult Learning: Supporting adult development in our schools.    New York: SAGE 

Mooney, C.G. (2013) Theories of Childhood: An Introduction to Dewey, Montessori, Erikson, Piaget, and Vygotsky. Redleaf Press