Children

1.5   To Create and maintain safe and healthy settings that foster children’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical development and that respect their dignity and their contributions. 

My heart belongs to infants and after spending the last ten years working in the classroom I have learned that it is ALL about creating safe, healthy environments and fostering social and emotional development.  Without feeling safe, secure and that their needs will be met, infants will not reach out to the world around them causing their learning to be stagnate. 

Families

2.2  To develop relationships of mutual trust and create partnerships with the families we serve.  

 I like this ideal in particular because it points out not only the importance of creating a relationship but a partnership as well.  We need to work with the parents for the benefit of the child not against them.  This ideal helps remind me that while I have years of experience and wide knowledge base of the development of young children, I need to remember the importance of working with parents and using what they have to offer the children as well.

Colleagues

 A.1  To establish and maintain relationships of respect, trust, confidentiality, collaboration and cooperation with coworkers.

I think that this is foundational to a good program.  You need to be able to count on those you work with and for them to count on you.  Learning to respect, trust and cooperate with those you work with helps the program focus on what is best for the children and families and takes the focus off the teacher.  While it is important to recognize the hard work that teachers do, it is also important to create a sense of community and cooperation among the staff rather than a spirit of competition.  Unfortunately the spirit of competition is often engrained in each of us and if not kept in check can kill this ideal fast