Meet the Teacher
About Ms. Natasha
I have always been the type of person to pursue learning and growth. As a result, my experiences in teaching have been wide and rich. I had learned and experienced more in my first five years as an ECE than many ECEs have experienced their entire careers, because I was never afraid to make a change, take on a challenge, or try something new. Over the years, I have cultivated a personal teaching philosophy that is growing and changing with my ever evolving understanding of childhood and child development. I believe in the statement that children learn through play, and I believe that play is the work of the child. I also believe that there is a quality aspect to play and that the adult and the environment have a significant impact on that quality.
I have spent years working with children, families, teachers, and childcare programs trying to find ways to best support the learning and development of each and every child. As with any endeavor, there were always constraints. Some were understandable, cultural and religious considerations for example. Others were harder to accept, deep seeded inequities in educational systems and inadequately trained educators for example. Throughout my career, what I witnessed in ECE classrooms rarely lined up with what I was being taught as best practice. Actions, on the part of educators, administrators, and programs, rarely aligned with statements. Practices rarely aligned with marketed philosophies.
For years I worked to address these discrepancies. Maybe if I set a good example for my co-workers. Maybe if I shared my resources with my colleagues. Maybe if I brought up my concerns to my supervisors. Even though I knew I was doing good work, it always felt like I was moving two steps forward and one step back. Maybe it will always feel like that, but right now I want to share what I know and what I have experienced with anyone who wants to learn. I want to help improve the quality of care and education for young children. Whether that is at home with a parent or caregiver, or at daycare or preschool with a teacher. The early years are so important and so fundamental. Children should never be an afterthought, because, as cliche as it may sound, children are the future, and what a child experiences in their first five years will impact the rest of their life.