Article Link: http://stage.exchangepress.com/article/a-manner-of-speaking/5012904/
When I first began visiting child care programs, I arrived with a certain amount of arrogance. I had studied about, worked in, and paid for child care, so I had some ideas about what makes a quality program.I felt then, as I know now, that children deserve the best we can offer, but over time I've come to realize that best can play itself out in many different and unexpected ways.
In the early days, I looked at programs with my eyes - I focused on the environment and the equipment, the setting, I noticed little things that were wrong, and appreciated things that looked unusual or especially interesting or inviting.
I was often right and just as often wrong in my judgments about the quality of programs based on what I observed. It took me a while to understand that it isn't the things that determine program quality. It's the people.
Now I arrive at a center eager to learn, less interested in sorting observations into right and wrong, and much more focused on listening and observing people than in looking at things.
Children deserve the best. And in a perfect world, they would have it - the best of everything. But in ...