Week 4 EDUC 6990: More Job Opportunities ...

In the second week’s assignment, I had already looked at large international associations for job opportunities and so for this assignment, I decided to look at American Federal or National Associations. The first place I looked was at the National Association for the Education of Young Children because the reputable association is attractive to me for various reasons. On their website however, when I finally found their job listings, on http://www.naeyc.org/about/jobs/overview, I realized that not many positions involve work with children directly, or with educators directly. Although I am a fan of the NAEYC’s ethos and their efforts in influencing early childhood on a national scale, I feel that I would want to work with them in a capacity that utilizes my experience and qualifications.

Digging into my passions, I recognized that I always wanted to work with children that are underprivileged and for that reason I had researched UNICEF for the previous assignment. So in applying this passion to the USA, I went onto the website of the US department of health and human services, and under the Administration for Children and Families, I found the Head Start program’s job listings. My home state is Florida, and I found a director position there which was very attractive to me. Under that listing, their preferred qualification was a Master’s degree in Early Childhood which I hope to soon have, and hence I would qualify to apply. This listing was found on http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/hs/careers?state=FL . After working for ten years with children of affluent families, and tackling issues of the new world, I feel that working with families that need support of the financial kind, would be a new challenge for me and a huge learning opportunity.

The third organization that I explored was Zero to Three, and they describe themselves as “a national, nonprofit organization that provides parents, professionals and policymakers the knowledge and know-how to nurture early development” (Zerotothree, 2015). This resonates with me and so I explored their job opportunities on the link http://careercenter.zerotothree.org/jobs/ where there are numerous jobs listed. For opportunities with Zero to Three, I only found a few but one of them was interesting and could be very challenging for me, where the organization is looking for a senior program manager for a program called Text4baby. This is a text message service that parents sign up for and they then receive texts several times a week informing them of what to expect for their baby’s development, according to the birth date. It is in fact a very practical way of reaching out to parents, with the knowledge they need as they raise their baby.

Beyond these three US based organizations, my passion remains to work with global children’s organizations that can make a large impact on children’s lives. My international experience and my languages could be beneficial in addition to my qualifications and experiences, for organizations such as UNICEF, World Health Organization, World Food Programme (WFP) and so on.

If I continue to grow my career in early childhood, I would someday like to explore the academic aspect of educating the educators, and hence impacting children’s lives. I feel that a university position would be very interesting to me and most certainly a challenge that is different from mentoring employees in the work setting.

References:

ZERO TO THREE: National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, 2015. Our Mission. Retrieved from http://www.zerotothree.org/