Event 3: NAEYC Conference

I attended the NAEYC Conference in Washington, D.C. a few weeks ago. NAEYC stands for the National Association for the Education of Young Children. It was an opportunity I won from my workplace after I entered my essay in a contest. I feel like I often say "this changed my life!" but I can honestly say, these 5 days were nothing short of amazing and truly did, change my mind set in many ways- about education, about children, about classrooms, about my ability to travel, about myself, and my independence (big city, little girl...I mastered it!)

I attended almost ten workshops, where I learned topics from integrating students, inspiring your staff and organization and management of classrooms.

I attended one workshop about trauma- and how trauma can affect youth in many, many ways. There are so many forms of trauma- physical, mental, emotional, abuse, etc. The presenter talked about when you are an educator or working with youth, and not knowing initially that a child has suffered some type of trauma. We have a type of instant reaction to their behaviors, lack of drive, lack of emotion, and so on and and we may grow easily frustrated and angry with the child- whether we like to admit to that or not. It sometimes takes a parent meeting, a phone call to home, or a progress report negatively reflecting on a child to get that parent, guardian or even the child to open about what it is that makes them- them.

She (the presenter) mentioned that if we treated all children right from the get-go as if they have all gone through something (because who are we to judge what that something actually is?) then there will be less frustration on our adult end, a quicker connection between youth to the adult, and an all around better opportunity for them to grow, learn, and become wonderful amazing members of this society. It is us who are responsible for setting the scene for those youth under us. 



Here's some photos from my trip....


An amazing sunset while sight seeing the awe-inspiring national monuments of DC.

Danielle and I at the huuuuge NAEYC sign.

Left to right: Danielle (my former boss! and now fellow director who also won the trip), Tracy Cheney (early education extraordinaire and the VP of Dr. Day Care who presented at the conference), Kate Banks (supervising administrator for all Dr. Day Care sites who also presented at the conference) and myself enjoying down time on our final night in DC!

If you didn't post it on social media, did it really happen?!

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