Early Childhood Educator’s Career – What to Consider?
As the understanding of life is increasing, new careers are emerging which is a golden opportunity for careerists to seek positions where there is not much of competition and bright prospects are awaiting. One of the latest fields of this sort is Early Childhood Education or ECE. As per the National Association for the Education of Young Children, anything before the age of 8 years is early childhood education. Today you can make a career in this field to get well-paid jobs. You might wonder about what to teach children at such a young age. Let’s see how it is done.
What does the Job of Early Childhood Education Contain?
Actually there are various paths that can be taken in early childhood education.
Pre-school (Montessori): At the pre-school age, children are as young as 2 years. The job of the ECE is to prepare them for their kindergarten school with social, academic and behavioral skills. While a day care is different from a Montessori school, several day care facilities too look for ECE teacher. The job of ECE is to help children learn the very basic things, like identifying alphabets, numbers etc and other things.
Kindergarten: This is the place where the child’s formal education starts in an official setting of a school, private, public or parochial. Here they learn basics of more subjects, like language, math, science and social studies. Along with this they also learn how to interact with peers, etiquettes in and out of classroom, etc. In all these activities, ECE can help them grow.
Others: Apart from being a teacher, there are many career opportunities available for ECEs. Community centers, summer camps, hospitals, non-profit organizations, group homes, health and welfare organizations, youth services, religious organizations and even manufacturing firms need ECEs.
U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics have found that more and more people are being aware of the importance of early childhood education, resulting in growing enrollments in pre-school and KG programs. Growth in enrollments consequently creates greater demand for teachers.
Moreover, more and more educational organizations are trying to achieve smaller student to teacher ratios. This too is increasing the need of more teachers. All in all, the field of ECE is estimated to grow by at least 25% in next some years. Of course, this will vary as per the area in which you live.
What to Consider before Choosing this Career?
You should analyze yourself and your qualities regarding whether this is the right job for you. This job needs a great patience as it concerns children. You should love children. Different children think in different ways. You should able to understand and keep up with this fact and should be able to communicate with them accordingly. A passion for teaching is also a prerequisite for this job. Remember that education is not a field that ends when you call it a day. Teachers have to spend time in preparing lessons, developing projects or grading classrooms after their job hours, which you should take into consideration and if you are okay with that, only then you should choose this career.
Specializations
The field of ECE too has specializations like early intervention, preschool, special education, child and family services, primary grades, and early education and care.
Click here to see the best online colleges for early childhood education at CoursesGuide.org. At this website, you will get full information about the career of ECE and various positions available. So, keep in touch with it if you want to enter the career of Early Childhood Educator.
