Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

Our local Boys and Girls Club interest me. Being an educator I feel like I can make a contribution working within a community of members with a common passion, goal and positive outcome. The Boys and Girls Club is designed to provide extra guidance for underprivileged children around the community.  The facility promotes health, education and social skills to all their children. The Club is managed by a full-time Executive Director, assisted by full-time career professionals, part-time assistants and program staff and volunteers.  Their goal is to make a positive impact on young lives by building self-esteem, also encourage the development of values and life skills.  The Club is a non-profit organization basically ran by volunteers.

It was fate how I became part of the next two new communities of practice.  I knew in the back of my mind I wanted to become more involved in professional organizations and not just be a member.  

CEC Council for Exceptional Children is my first organization.  This is my first year teaching Pre-k intervention and a friend of mine is the chapter representative for my community. We are at different locations but this week we had a FTE meeting so we were able to reconnect. We began talking and I will be helping along with other CEC members to help organize an Art Showing for our Special needs students in our community. I have talked with others and we share a common goal and purpose.

The next organization in which I will be collaborating with is our local GAE.  The organization provided us lunch one day this week and I had an opportunity to put a name and face together. As Sally and I talked I found we shared a common interest: one being learning to write grants. She has emailed me and we are getting together with others and forming a workshop that will benefit many of our educators in the Pre-k program.

I’m blessed to have skills and knowledge that I can share with others while learning from them.  My time and teaching skills would be my contribution to the community of practice.  I will not make any money directly from any of these communities of practice, but just sharing learning experiences, ideas, a common goal, and an outcome is exciting for me.

Collaboration is a mutually beneficial and well defined relationship entered into by two or more organizations to achieve results they are more likely to achieve together than alone (Winer & Ray, 1994).

Winer, M., & Ray, K. (1994). Collaboration handbook: Creating, sustaining, and enjoying the journey. St. Paul, MN: Fieldstone Alliance.