training

Training is not a big thing in the early childhood education world. It's sad really. We're supposed to be seen as professionals and yet administration doesn't take the time to do any training. At the first center I worked at, there was no training given to the staff at all. The state required that the staff have twenty hours of training a year, but they never did any. There were training's the state did that you could go to. These were done in the evening after work and for a fee. The center that I worked for though would not reimburse you if you went. It was money that came directly out of your pocket. Maybe it's just me but a business should pay for the training of their employees and in the corporate world they do.

At the second center I worked for they understood this. They did a training/staff meeting every month. We stayed late one night a month for a couple of hours and the administration trained us on a variety of things. At this center we were also paid to be there, so staff showed up. Feeding us dinner helped too. This center understood they were a business and needed to pay for their employees training. You could tell such a difference in the staff between the two centers. The staff that were trained were professionals and the problems at the first center didn't exist at the second. We talked about the problems and found solutions to them and there was a camaraderie among the staff and it helped us work together.  

No one knows everything about a job, there is always things to learn even if it then means taking it to the next level and being promoted-which is another thing that doesn't happen in early childhood education like it does in the corporate world. A person should always be learning new things and training employees does this. It also helps administration know which employees to take to the next level. Training is important in any business and in the early childhood education business if training doesn't occur it simply becomes babysitting.