Inspirational Quotes

Dr. Marcy Whitebook has been an inspiration to me as an advocate of the issues in early childhood. Here are a couple of quotes I found to share:

 “Given the financial crisis in higher education, the ability of early care and education teacher preparation programs to seriously improve in quality will require an investment in faculty and other supports, such as have been made in nursing and special education, if these programs will be able to do their part in advancing a national commitment to quality early learning.” ~ Marcy Whitebook, Ph.D.

Whitebook, M. Moving toward a More Robust Research Agenda: A Response to Hyson et al. Volume 11 Number 1. Retrieved from: http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v11n1/response-hyson3.html

“I raise these issues not to invalidate our current leadership but rather to argue for creating a more diverse and

representative acknowledged leadership in the early childhood field (I know that my own status in the early

childhood field is in many ways directly proportional to my distance from the actual work of caring for children. And yet, I believe, the degree to which I am effective as a leader is directly linked to my own experience working in the classroom and my connection to those who currently are teachers and providers.)” ~Marcy Whitebook, Ph.D.

Whitebook, Marcy. Who's Missing at the Table? Leadership Opportunities and Barriers for Teachers and Providers. Retrieved from: http://www.ccw.org/storage/ccworkforce/documents/publications/whosmissing.pdf

“Each of us must come to care about everyone else's children. We must recognize that the welfare of our children is intimately linked to the welfare of all other people's children. After all, when one of our children needs life-saving surgery, someone else's child will perform it. If one of our children is harmed by violence, someone else's child will be responsible for the violent act. The good life for our own children can be secured only if a good life is also secured for all other people's children." ~Lilian Katz

“It’s my turn to be able to help create opportunities for parents and their children to have those opportunities presented to them also; and helping them learn about the resources for their children to be able to go to school; that there’s more to life than what’s just in the neighborhood, that they [parents] realize that children can do more than that....

I thought, “This is what it’s all about. This is what drives me to do what I’m doing.” It was on a Saturday, and I’m like well, I could be doing other things, but this time, I need to go. I need to see how it’s going.”

Raymond Hernandez MS Ed

Executive Director

School of Early Childhood Education

University of Southern California

Mr. Hernandez speaks about his intrinsic motivation to keep doing what drives him to keep going when he has better things to do. Mr. Hernandez was very inspirational to me. I sometimes feel that my current job isn’t worth ditching plans for paperwork and IEP’s. I hope that when I start teaching early childhood as the lead teacher, I will really find a job where I don’t mind putting my job first.