What is leadership?
- Leadership stems from social influence, not authority or power
- Leadership requires others, and that implies they don’t need to be “direct reports”
- No mention of personality traits, attributes, or even a title; there are many styles, many paths, to effective leadership
What are some differences between leaders and managers?
Leaders:
• Innovate – develop new ideas and ways of working
• Focus on people
• Inspire trust
Managers:
• Administer what has been established
• Focus on systems and structures
• Rely on structure and control
What changes have been made to encourage leadership in ECE?
- Establish professionalism (College of ECE’s)
- Over second half of 1900’s significant increase in attention to early years in policy and government agendas
- Increasing focus on child care needs of the economy (two working parents) led to expansion of public and private centres and this raised concerns about quality of care
What is the Science of Early Childhood Development?
- Early daily live shapes pathways for a lifetime
- Genes set parameters for basic structure of developing brain but a child’s interactions create the neural circuits that build the brain
- Responsive adults is key to brain development
- The “premature” brain at birth is a double-edged sword: leaving children both vulnerable and full of potential and possibility
What are the three different images of the child?
- Children are active learners: Children are natural explorers
- Schoolification: Prepare children for success in school
- Pathologization: Children are problems that need to be fixed
What are some of the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of a Child?
- All actions concerning the child shall be in his or her best interests
- Children have the right to survive, develop and fulfill their human potential
- Children are protected by the state from any form of discrimination
What is difference between pedagogy and curriculum?
- Pedagogy: How learning takes place
* Curriculum: Content of learning
What are four Canadian curriculum models?
- Reggio Emilia
- Emergent Curriculum
- High Scope
- Montessori
What is policy?
- Statements of principles underlying governmental action
- They can be expressed at local, provincial or national levels
- Canada has maintained a focus on child development since late 1990s
What are the three different levels of government?
- Federal government: does not have direct responsibility for ECE programs
- Provincial: direct responsibility to develop provincial policies for ECE
- Local/Municipal: direct responsibility for municipalities (school boards)
What are the three federal policies for children and families?
- Child care tax deduction: up to max $7000/year
- Universal child care benefit: $100/month until 6years
- One year parental leave
What is the difference between a personal philosophy and a program philosophy?
Personal: how you believe children learn, impacted by personal views
Program: curriculum approaches, purpose of program
What are the three different child care settings that may impact philosophies?
- Not for profit
- Publicly operated
- Commerical
What are the three different philosophies of early learning?
- Maturationist: Children’s learning unfolds, emphasis on child readiness
- Constructivist: Children learn via cognitive disequilibrium and problem solving
- Behaviorist: Children acquire skills and knowledge through instruction and shaping
What are some myths of leadership?
- Leaders are born, not made
- Leadership is hierarchal
- You have to have charisma
- One standard way of leading
What are the six different leadership styles?
- Coercive: demands immediate compliance
- Authoritative: states the end but gives people the means
- Affiliative: revolves around people; values individuals, emotions and goals
- Democratic: forges consensus through participation
- Pacesetting: leader sets high standards and exemplifies what she expects to be done
- Coaching: helps group identify strengths and tie them to personal career goals
What are four roots of transformational leaders?
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Emotional literacy
- Celebrating accomplishments
What are some characteristics of authentic leaders?
- Confident
- Hopeful
- Optimistic
- Resilient
- Ethical
- Transparent
What are the five primary components of the relational model?
- Purposeful
- Inclusive
- Empowering
- Ethical
- Process oriented
What are some characteristics of Howard Gardner’s Intrapersonal intelligence?
- People are particularly determined and can work well with personal deadlines and goals
- They may sometime shy away from others and find it easier to work alone and quietly, but it is likely that they will be strong in one or two more intelligences
- If you are intrapersonal then you are really good at knowing how you are feeling and how you may react to certain situations in the near future
What are Stuart Shanker’s six levels of arousal?
- Flooded
- Hyperalert
- Calm, focused
- Hypoalert
- Drousy
- Asleep
What is the difference between self regulation and self control?
- Self regulation: energy expenditure to remain calm and focused, brain’s physiological process
- Self control: ability to inhibit impulses
What are the five steps of the reflective process?
- Prepare
- Understand
- Take time
- Maintain objectivity
- Be honest and non-defensive
What are some skills of critical thinkers?
- Rationality: relying on reason rather than emotion, look at all aspects of situation
- Self awareness: recognize own biases, prejudices, assumptions, motives
- Honesty: recognizing our own emotional impulses, selfish motives, self deception
- Open mindedness: consider variety of viewpoints, perspectives; remain open to alternatives; don’t be too quick to judge or reject ideas
- Discipline: avoid snap judgments, precise, comprehensive, meticulous, exhaustive, resist manipulation
- Judgment: recognize relevance of arguments, perspectives
