Time Well Spent

Wow! I can't believe that I am at the end of this journey. So much in life has changed since I started this program almost two years ago! Crazy to think of all the events that have happened in my life in the last two years, and somehow I managed to stick with this program and complete it. I have moved twice, gained a niece, got engaged and married, took on a new teaching position, and took up coaching basketball. Even when life got super chaotic and I so wanted to take a break or give up on this program, I kept trucking through. When people thought I was completely crazy for taking on so much, especially this past fall/winter with teaching, coaching, planning a wedding, and trying to complete my masters, I still found urge to get through this!

Throughout this program I have learned so much about the early childhood field that I have never known before. I have been teaching high school students for the past 6 years, so this was completely different from me. I learned the importance of early childhood education has in a child and how it influences their future in so many ways. I learned that we need to be advocating and supporting early childhood education because it is such a vital part of a child's development. Finally I learned that if we want change to happen in our society, we need to start teaching our children, and we need to start making changes because children learn by modeling (Berger, 2012). If we are modeling good behaviors then that's what the children will learn (Berger, 2012).

My long-term goal for myself is to become a supporter and an advocate for early childhood education.  I want people to realize that early childhood education plays such an important role in our children's future, and the way standards are ever changing in our country, the need for early childhood education is even more important. Early childhood education teaches our children so much and prepares them for the future in so many ways. Although I plan on teaching Family and Consumer Sciences, I know the knowledge I learned from this program will be a great tool in my child development class, and in my personal life as my husband and I look to start a family.

In farewell, I want to give you all a BIG HUGE THANK YOU! I never expected to learn so much from other people. At first when I thought I was going to have to rely on other people for this program, I was really unsure if I was going to like it. Man was I proven wrong! I feel like even though we never met in person, I feel like I got to know some of you on a personal level, and got to see glimpse of your lives and learn from that, so thank you for that! To my wonderful professors throughout this journey, thank you for all the support and feedback throughout, for pushing me along and to bring out the best of the work, It wasn't always easy with such a busy schedule, but I knowing you wanted us to succeed was my motivation to get through it. I wouldn't have made it through this program and this crazy thing called life without all of you, so THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART! I wish you all the best, and hope you accomplish all your dreams!


Reference:
Berger, K.S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers