ExcellenceAchieving

in early childhood

A publication of the Early Childhood Excellence NetworkSpring 2007

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Q&A Pam Boulton Director, UWM Children’s Center

“Sometimes it seems that your fi eld comes to you rather than you seeking it,” says Pam Boulton, director of the Children’s Center, located at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

This couldn’t be truer for Boulton, who has headed the UWM Children’s Center since its opening in 1971. Back then, she was a master’s student in urban affairs who needed a job that would fi t around her evening class schedule.

The university was just beginning the child care center and she was one of 12 students hired. With no one “in charge,” Boulton (who happened to work the most hours there) made sure everything was done: she ordered the milk, answered the phones and talked with families.

Her initiative did not go unnoticed. The Director of Student Activities for the university saw the extra work she was taking on, gave her a 25-cent per hour raise and put her in charge.

Changing her major to education, she says, the rest is history. Recently celebrating its 35th anniversary, the Children’s Center’s history is much richer thanks to Boulton’s dedication and all the work she’s put in over the years.

Achieving Excellence: How can directors elicit the best from their staff?Pam Boulton: Pay them a living wage, give them the tools they need to do the best job possible, expect them to be professional and treat them accordingly, and truly understand that they bring their whole selves to work—support themas living, growing, complex and committed human beings.

AE: What changes would you like to see in the fi eld? PB: I think the early childhood fi eld is changing signifi cantly. There is a convergence of a number of factors. Through research we are ever clearer that the early childhood years are absolutely key to success in school and success as adults. We have a greater understanding now than we have ever had about what excellence in early childhood programs looks like and what we can expect as outcomes for children both with and without that excellence.

We are seeing a call for attention to early childhood that is coming from sectors we haven’t heard from before—what I like to say is that fi nally “the suits” are saying what I have said all along! Economists, those looking at future workforce issues, educators in disciplines other than early childhood are

TAKE FIVE

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o by

Tim

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AchievingExcellence

in early childhood

PublisherTimothy M. Nolan, Ph.D.

EditorAlissa Nolan Boyle

aboyle@excellencecenters.org

© Timothy M. Nolan, Ph.D.

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regardless of parental income (although even that premise is under attack) but have not extended that understanding to very young children.

So, we are in an interesting time—we know more than ever about the need and about how to produce excellence, and we are still not willing to do what it takes with our resources. I obviously have a personal bias toward putting our resources where I feel they will do the most good—into excellent programs for young children and into the support of their families, thus ensuring that to the best of our ability, we will have competent adults able to work into the forseeablefuture.

AE: Describe your greatest challenge in your drive to achieve excellence. How did you overcome this?PB: My greatest challenge is, and continues to be, fi ghting against the assumption that we can not do what we believe is best because our customers (parents? society? employers? etc.) only want cheap care. It is my experience that parents especially want more than they are getting—they too, buy the expectation that what they really want can’t be had. Everyone struggles with this, but the level of acceptance of mediocre to poor programs is simply enervating.

AE: What brings you the greatest personal satisfaction in your efforts to achieve excellence in your work?PB: My greatest satisfaction comes fi rst from families who tell me that they understand and are delighted at what they get at the UWM Children’s Center. Secondly, my satisfaction comes from directors in my child care administration classes who “catch fi re” and get—absolutely get—that they have a responsibility and a possibility that goes far beyond where theyhave ever gone before—and they become committed to excellence themselves!

AE: What advice could you offer others looking to achieve excellence?PB: Learn it, understand it and go for it! Don’t be talked out of it because “we can’t afford it.” Work to make it not just acceptable, but unacceptable not to do it.

For more information on the UWM Children’s Center, located on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, call 414.229.5384 or visit www.uwm.edu/Dept/CCC/

all looking at ECE for answers. EC professionals are accountable for outcomes in ever more serious ways—note changes in NAEYC accreditation and Head Start standard administration.

There is a signifi cant move to make 4-year-old kindergarten almost universal, and many states are beginning to look at [expanding to] three year olds. EC professionals are being expected to move toward their educational colleagues in formal qualifi cations.

What is not happening in any signifi cant way is a realistic look at what it takes to produce excellence—and to make sure the resources are available to do so. We need to challenge the assumptions we have made about early childhood programs. For the most part, we expect child care providers to subsidize the system through foregone wages in order to make it affordable for all families. We pay for the very lowest income earners through the CCDBG or in some cases Head Start, but not at a level that can uniformly produce excellence in programs.

Those who are calling for quality early childhood programs as a way to ensure that all children have a shot at success as adults are unaware on a very fundamental level that our current system is severely lacking in quality and cannot produce what they expect without systematic and intentional change. As a society we are not engaged in a discussion of what is the best way to support very young children and their families.

Instead, we have expected all adults to be employed—many at low-wage jobs—and for child care to support adults’ work, rather than supporting children’s development. We have understood in the past that all children should be educated

“As a society we are not engaged

in a discussion of what is the

best way to support very young

children and their families.” —Pam Boulton, Director, UWM Children’s Center

What better way to celebrate Earth Day (April 22) than to spend some quality time refl ecting on our impact on the environment? An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore (in both book and DVD formats) provide a powerful package.

It’s diffi cult to believe that a 90-minute PowerPoint presentation would be captivating enough to win over its audience, much less win an Academy Award. But Gore, with his obvious passion for the subject, easily does just that.

This is a man who clearly knows what he’s talking about. He has been a lifelong student of the environment, making it a point to travel to the far reaches of the globe and documenting every trip himself.

The book is an effective companion to the documentary fi lm of the same name. At 325 pages, it is not the least bit dense. Loaded with photographs, charts and fi gures, it breaks down a potentially diffi cult subject and makes for a surprisingly easy read.

The text includes much of the same information presented in the documentary, but takes it one step further, often including more background or information than a 90-minute PowerPoint presentation can cover effectively.

Particularly welcome is the fi nal section, which includes practical (and easy!) suggestions for the everyman (and kid) to incorporate into his or her daily life. Putting these tips to use, according to Gore, will reduce your “carbon footprint”—or your individual impact on the Earth and its resources. Not only can these steps result in a healthier planet, but can also potentially improve your own life…saving you money, improving your health and more.

Gore’s goal of alerting the public to this very real global threat is both ambitious and necessary. His Academy-award winning documentary (which easily pierced the mainstream movie-watching crowd) along with his easily accessible text, combine to make a powerful statement to the average American: This is what we’ve done to the planet and this is what we can start to do now to remedy our actions.

Check them out today:An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming & What We Can Do About It by Al GoreRodale: 2006. ISBN: 1-59486-567-1. $21.95.

An Inconvenient Truth (DVD)Full-screen. $29.99.

BUILDING BLOCKS

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I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

—E.B. White, author

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Book and fi lm reviews

Off the Shelf:

An Inconvenient Truth

Additional Resources:Books:- It’s Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living by Crissy Trask. Gibbs Smith: 2006. ISBN: 158685772X. $12.95.- You Can Prevent Global Warming (and Save Money!) by Jeffrey Langholz and Kelly Turner. Andrews McNeel: 2003. ISBN: 0740733273. $10.95.- Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things by John C. Ryan and Alan Thien Durning. Northwest Environment: 1997. ISBN: 1886093040. $14.95.

TV/Films:“Living With Ed”—reality series starring actor/environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. Airs on HGTV.

Websites:- climatecrisis.net: An Inconvenient Truth companion- earthday.gov: U.S. government portal- nwf.org: National Wildlife Federation - emagazine.com: E/The Environmental Magazine

Magazines: - “Global Warming: 51 Things We Can Do”Time: April 02, 2007 or visit Time.com

Spring is upon us, and it is a natural time for us to renew our commitment to the importance of the work we do with young children and families. Just as nature renews itself at this time of year, as dormant grasses turn green and young animals emerge at the beginning of their lives, this can also be a time of new blooms and possibilities for us.

For those of us who are a part of Head Start or work with those who are, this is a time of new possibilities. We have survived our most challenging “winter.” Had the White House plan worked, Head Start as we’ve known it over these last 40+ years would have been put out of business. The target for

the hand off to No Child Left Behind and an orchestrated state dissolution of Head Start was October 1, 2004. That date has come and gone. Republicans and Democrats in both houses of Congress have come together to develop a reauthorization of Head Start. They again believe in us and our incredible potential.

For those of us who provide services to young children and families in other settings, there has never been so much attention being paid to the earliest years of life. Economists are discovering that investing in high quality early childhood programs is the “best investment that can be made.” Those who would cure the faltering and failing world of education look to us for hope and embrace our potential.

We Have a Future…Now What Will We Do With It?As we approach the next several years, we face many possibilities among the challenges. I won’t review the challenges, since they are so evident to you. What are some of the possibilities? The “face” of early childhood will be changing as new staff members are hired and developed to meet the increasing new education standards for both teachers and family services staff. We must seize this opportunity to deepen our ability to deliver on the promise that so many see in our work! As the 77 million baby-boomers leave and the 38 million “Generation Xers” replace them, we can capture their excitement and energy to revitalize our fi eld! We can strive to attract and develop the leaders we need to move our profession forward! Managers “do things right,” which is necessary in the new era of accountability. Leaders “do the right things.” We will develop many people capable of identifying and drawing people’s attention to doing these “right things.” We will develop ways of measuring our work. As we have experienced those outside our profession attempting to create measures for us, we found them lacking. We can take this responsibility back…and through the use of outcome measures we can solidify our ability to deliver on the potential so many see in us! We can model excellence, demand it of ourselves, help parents demand it of everyone who works with their children and advocate for it with decision makers.

We can deliver on the potential that so many see in us. There is no other profession where there is such a gap between that which we know to be best practices and that which is delivered each day. Together, we will learn to dramatically close that gap! The possibilities are incredible!

In pursuit of excellence,Tim

ON EXCELLENCETIMOTHY M. NOLAN, PH.D.

Early Childhood Excellence Network www.ExcellenceCenters.org Achieving Excellence 5

ON EXCELLENCETIMOTHY M. NOLAN, PH.D.

A Time of Renewal

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