Professionalism in Early Childhood Education

Dr. Stephanie Feeney is Professor Emerita of Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa where she directed early childhood teacher education programs for many years. She received her bachelor’s degree at UCLA, master’s degree at Harvard University, and doctorate at Claremont Graduate University. Her publications include Who Am I in the Lives of Children? (9th edition), Continuing Issues in Early Childhood Education (3rd edition), Early Childhood Education in the Pacific and Asia, Ethics and the Early Childhood Educator: Using the NAEYC Code of Ethics, Teaching the NAEYC Code of Ethics: A Resource Guide, a curriculum for young children, numerous articles, and four children’s books about Hawaii. ¿ Since the mid l980s Dr. Feeney has participated in work on professional ethics for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). She was co-author of the association’s Code of Ethical Conduct which was developed based on input from the field under the guidance of an Ethics Commission which she chaired. She has worked on two revisions of the Code, on the development of supplements to the Code for Adult Educators and Program Administrators, and she co-authors an ethics column in the journal Young Children. ¿ Dr. Feeney has lectured and taught throughout the United States and in China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.¿ She has served on the Governing Boards of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Association for Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE), and on committees relating to early care and education in Hawaii and nationally. ¿ Dr. Feeney may be contacted at feeney@hawaii.edu. ¿

Introduction

· How I came to write this book

· Why address this topic now?

· A note to college teachers and trainers

CHAPTER 1—What is a Profession?

· Origins of professions

· What do the terms mean?

· Criteria for determining if an occupation is a profession

· A continuum of professions

· How should professionals behave?

· Issues regarding professions

CHAPTER 2—Is Early Childhood Education a Profession?

· Historical influences on the field of ECE

· How does early childhood education meet the criteria for a profession?

· Where do we stand?

· Do we want to be a profession?

· Which way should we go from here?

CHAPTER 3—Personal attributes

· What should early childhood educators be like?

· What you bring into the world

· Who you are as a person

· Who you are as an educator

· Knowing yourself

· Final thoughts

CHAPTER 4—Knowledge and Skills

· Historical influences on knowledge and skills needed to teach young children

· The current landscape

· What should early childhood educators should know and be able to do?

· How do these things come together in practice?

· Final thoughts

CHAPTER 5—Professional Behavior

· Characteristics of professional conduct

· Doing what is right—ethics and advocacy

· Performing the job

· Final thoughts

CHAPTER 6—Aspiring to do your Best

· Looking backward

· Early childhood education as a “calling”

· A developmental perspective

· Basics and beyond

· Looking forward

APPENDICES

A—Self Assessments

B—Professional development plan

C—Recommended reading

D— NAEYC CODE OF ETHICAL CONDUCT