The Visionary Director, Second Edition
A Handbook for Dreaming, Organizing, and Improvising in Your Center
Published on 1. November 2009
336 pages
978-1-60554-097-9 (ISBN)
Description
An inspiring and practical guide to creating a larger vision in early child care, this popular professional development tool has been thoroughly revised and offers a concrete framework for organizing an early childhood center director's ideas and work. Updated and expanded, it reflects new requirements and initiatives for center directors and addresses topics including cultivating a vision, developing "systems thinking" for management roles, implementing principles and strategies for mentoring, building a learning community for adults and children, and bringing visions to life. The Visionary Director provides directors with information to perform their jobs with motivation and creativity.
All prices
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Margaret Carter
The Visionary Director
A Handbook for Dreaming, Organizing, and Improvising in Your Center
Book
11/2009
Redleaf Press
€80.60
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Persons
For more than 30 years, Margie Carter has worked in the early childhood field including positions as a preschool teacher, child care director, and college instructor. She and Deb Curtis have coauthored seven books, including Designs for Living and Learning. They speak to and consult with child care organizations across the U.S., Canada, and Australia. For more than 30 years, Deb Curtis has worked in the early childhood field, including positions as a Head Start education coordinator, preschool teacher, and college instructor. She and Margie Carter have coauthored seven books, including Designs for Living and Learning. They speak to and consult with child care organizations across the U.S., Canada, and Australia.
Content
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Foreword to the Second Edition by Paula Jorde Bloom
- Foreword to the First Edition by Marcy Whitebook
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- How Can Directors Become Leaders?
- Imagination and Activism Are Key
- The Director on Fire
- Using This Book
- Chapter 1: Guiding Your Program with a Vision
- Searching Your Heart for What's Important
- Imagining How It Could Be
- Fortifying Yourself with a Vision
- Rethinking What We Need
- Distinguishing a Mission from a Vision
- Cultivating a Vision
- Going Beyond Managing to Leading
- Looking for Models
- Principle
- Create a Process for Developing Your Vision
- Strategy
- Regularly share memories of favorite childhood experiences
- Represent childhood memories with found objects or art materials
- Use children's books to unearth childhood memories
- Use children's books regularly in staff meetings
- Get to know families' dreams
- Reinvent the idea of quilting bees
- Seek the children's ideas
- Put images and words together
- Develop a vision statement together
- Represent pieces of your vision with blocks
- Practice Assessing Yourself as a Visionary Leader
- Chapter 2: A Framework for Your Work
- Looking for Tips and Techniques
- Learning about Balance
- Taking Bright Ideas from the Business World
- Considering a Triangle Framework
- The Roles of Managing and Overseeing
- The Roles of Coaching and Mentoring
- The Roles of Building and Supporting Community
- Consider How Different Directors Respond
- The Scenario
- Rhonda's Approach
- Donovan's Approach
- Maria's Approach
- Analyzing the Three Approaches
- Using the Triangle Framework
- Building and Supporting Community
- Coaching and Mentoring
- Managing and Overseeing
- Practice Using the Triangle Framework
- Scenario 1: New Director Dilemma
- Scenario 2: Messing with Michael
- Practice Assessing Yourself
- Chapter 3: Your Role in Building and Supporting Community
- Creating an Environment That Nurtures Community
- Principle
- Make the Center Feel Like a Home
- Strategy
- Incorporate elements from home-design magazines
- Explore professional architecture and design resources
- Principle
- Give the Program the Feel of a Real Neighborhood
- Strategy
- Use homebase rooms and make time for children to roam
- Set up larger programs as villages
- Design space to resemble a neighborhood
- Use natural shapes and soft lighting
- Use the beginning and end of the day
- Principle
- Involve Parents and Staff in Considering the Space
- Strategy
- Assess how a space makes you feel
- Explore the environment as a child might
- Create "a place where I belong"
- Create the skeleton of a grant proposal or the inspiration for a work party
- Planning Your Community-Building Curriculum
- Principle
- Use Time Together to Strengthen Relationships
- Strategy
- View staff meetings as circle time
- Learn about listening
- Set ground rules, share feelings, and develop facilitation skills
- Use a fuss box
- Make tear-water tea
- Become storytellers
- Create visual stories of your life together
- Refocus parent newsletters
- Principle
- Grow Community-Building Curriculum from the Lives Around You
- Strategy
- Rethink daily routines
- Grow curriculum from family life
- Grow curriculum from teacher passions
- Find curriculum in your wider community
- Connect people to one another
- Working with Differences and Conflict
- Principle
- Acknowledge and Respect Differences
- Strategy
- Create a representation of a community
- Explore different values
- Name your assumptions
- Principle
- Explore and Mediate Conflicts
- Strategy
- Explore different communication styles
- Design a conflict resolution process
- Cultivating New Roles, Dispositions, and Skills
- Practice Assessing Yourself
- Chapter 4: Your Role of Mentoring and Coaching
- Coaching versus Managing Staff
- What Do Adult Learners Deserve?
- The Golden Rule Revisited: Treat Adults as You Want Them to Treat Children
- Principle
- Give Thoughtful Attention to the Environment
- Strategy
- Plan a nurturing environment for the adults
- Provide time and resources
- Principle
- View Teachers as Competent Thinkers and Learners
- Strategy
- Reflect on a teacher
- Expand your focus for coaching
- Compare your view with their view
- Principle
- Emphasize Dispositions as Much as Skills and Knowledge
- Strategy
- Identify how dispositions look in practice
- Discover with dots
- Principle
- Know Your Adult Learners
- Strategy
- Play True Confessions in Four Corners
- Principle
- Provide Choices for Different Needs and Interests
- Strategy
- Think of something you have learned as an adult
- Train with multiple intelligences in mind
- Uncover and cultivate passions
- Principle
- Promote Collaboration and Mentoring
- Strategy
- Practice active listening, informally and formally
- Set up a peer-coaching system
- Build collaborative and mentoring relationships
- Principle
- Cultivate Observation as a Skill and an Art
- Strategy
- Learn to observe in many ways
- Become a community of observers
- Principle
- Create a Culture of Curiosity, Research, and Storytelling
- Strategy
- Cultivate deep listening
- Use a Thinking Lens for reflection
- Launch a research project
- Principle
- Approach Coaching with Inquiry
- Strategy
- Develop questions to guide your own observations
- Practice responding to Cassandra
- Use questions to promote inquiry
- Practice with stories
- Adopting the Mind-Set of a Coach
- Practice Assessing Your Approach
- Chapter 5: Your Role of Managing and Overseeing
- Managing to Make Your Vision a Reality
- Cultivating the Organizational Culture You Want
- Formulating Long-Range Goals to Support Your Vision
- Principle
- Create a Continuous Cycle of Evaluating and Planning
- Strategy
- Conduct regular program evaluations
- Develop a clear understanding of the planning process
- Take time to plan the planning process
- Principle
- Refuse to Adopt a Scarcity Mentality
- Strategy
- Move your budget toward the full cost of care
- Invest in your staff
- Be generous with your nickels and dimes
- Involve others in expanding your nickels and dimes
- Adopt a business mind-set when big funds are needed
- Creating the Experience of Community with Your Systems
- Principle
- Use Relationships and Continuity of Care to Guide Your Decisions
- Strategy
- Design rooms that work for infants and toddlers
- Expand the age group for preschool rooms
- Have teachers loop with the children
- Principle
- Involve Staff and Families in Active Exploration of Standards
- Strategy
- Form task groups
- Create games to enliven discussions of standards
- Principle
- Seek to Counter Inequities of Power and Privilege
- Strategy
- Seek feedback from all stakeholders in your community
- Expand your approach to communication
- Make diversity and antibias work part of your orientations
- Formulate personnel policies and systems to encourage diversity among staff
- Designing Systems to Provide Time for Reflection and Problem Solving
- Principle
- Use Child Assessment Systems That Enlist Teachers' Excitement
- Strategy
- Design forms that encourage curiosity and delight
- Use Learning Stories as an approach to assessment
- Provide time for collaborative discussion among teachers
- Principle
- Involve Staff in All Phases of Evaluating Their Job Performance
- Strategy
- Supplement checklists with observational narratives
- Plan the cycle of supervision and evaluation
- Experiment with different forms
- Acknowledge the power differential in the evaluation process
- Principle
- Plan Training to Reflect Your Vision of a Learning Community
- Strategy
- Develop individualized training plans
- Expand your approach to program-wide training
- Provide many ways for achieving training goals
- Acknowledge and celebrate progress toward your training goals
- Principle
- View Time as a Building Block
- Strategy
- Use colored dots for analyzing how time is spent in your program
- Reclaim time on behalf of your vision
- Principle
- Design Meetings around Community Building and Staff Development
- Strategy
- Devote staff meetings to enhancing teacher development
- Choose a focus for your professional development for the school year
- Reallocate your professional development dollars for a mentor teacher
- Making Good Use of Your Power and Influence
- Practice Assessing Your Organizational Climate
- Chapter 6: Bringing Your Vision to Life
- Put Relationships Center Stage
- Principle
- Focus on People, Not Paper
- Innovative Practice
- Invest in initial encounters
- Host community-building orientations
- Principle
- Make Communication Meaningful
- Innovative Practice
- Invite families to participate in communication systems
- Use interactive technology to enhance communication
- Principle
- Bring and Keep People Together
- Innovative Practice
- Institute continuity of care
- Plan family meetings to build relationships
- Hold group family conferences
- Principle
- Invite Meaningful Contributions to Solve Problems
- Innovative Practice
- Enlist excitement to build an infant/toddler playground
- Invite the village to raise the children
- Build Reflective Practices
- Principle
- Invest in Your Teachers Right from the Start
- Innovative Practice
- Interview candidates in small groups
- Create systems for reflection in your orientation process
- Principle
- Reconceptualize Professional Development as a Daily Experience
- Innovative Practice
- Develop teachers as thinkers, not technicians
- Design clear accountability systems
- Provide side-by-side mentoring
- Strengthen Connections to and Care for the Natural World
- Principle
- Use Meaningful Experiences to Build Shared Values
- Innovative Practice
- Create a field guide for the center grounds
- Plan family field trips to explore the local natural environment
- Principle
- Call for a Curriculum That Focuses on the Natural World
- Innovative Practice
- Launch a program-wide science and nature study
- Become a designated wildlife habitat
- Principle
- Use Family Interests and Expertise to Grow Your Vision
- Innovative Practice
- Form a family club with a mascot
- Learn about farms and gardens
- Principle
- Keep Thinking Bigger
- Innovative Practice
- Design an outdoor classroom
- Raise funds in ways that reinforce your vision
- Reach out to the community to grow your vision
- Take Charge of Standards, Outcomes, and Assessments
- Principle
- View Standards and Rating Systems as Tools, Not Rules
- Innovative Practice
- Expand the definition of desirable outcomes
- Form work teams for different accreditation focus areas
- Principle
- Develop Systems to Hold Yourself Accountable to Your Values
- Innovative Practice
- Untiming the curriculum
- Design your own forms and checklists
- Principle
- Expand Your Thinking about Assessment
- Innovative Practice
- Find resources and inspiration outside your borders
- Remember to Nourish Yourself as You Nourish Your Vision
- Afterword
- Larger Institutional Quality Improvement Efforts
- McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership
- Aim4Excellence
- Pennsylvania Keystone STARS Quality Rating System
- Alliance for Early Childhood Finance
- Examples of Administrative Restructuring
- Sound Child Care Solutions: A Consortium of Centers, Better Together
- London Bridge Child Care Services Inc.
- Chicago Commons Child Development Program
- Hilltop Children's Center
- Staff Recruitment, Stability, and Retention
- Men in Early Childhood Education
- Old Firehouse School Staff Stability Plan
- Promising Approaches to Professional and Leadership Development
- United Way Bright Beginnings (UWBB): Cohort Model for Professional Development
- Harvest Resources Associates: Resources for Early Childhood Professional Development
- Hildebrandt Learning Centers: Reinventing Our Organization and Our Approaches to Professional Development
- Community Collaborations to Address Inequity and Disempowerment
- Francis Institute: Plaza de Niños una Asociación de la Comunidad/Francis Institute: Plaza de Niños Community Partnership
- Tucson Children's Project: The Hopes & Dreams Project and the Wall Project
- Appendixes
- Appendix 1 Assessing Systems
- Appendix 2 Ten Dimensions of Organizational Climate Assessment Tool
- Appendix 3 Model Work Standards Assessment Tool
- Appendix 4 Program Administration Scale (PAS)
- Appendix 5 Teacher and Director Evaluation Materials
- Appendix 6 Sample Licenser Self-Evaluation Tool
- Appendix 7 Strategic Planning Form
- Appendix 8 Calculating the Full Cost of Quality Care
- Appendix 9 Continuity of Care: Barriers and Solutions
- Appendix 10 Conference Attendance Planning Form
- Appendix 11 Observation Form for Visiting Other Programs
- Appendix 12 Conflict Resolution Samples
- Appendix 13 Writing Learning Stories
- Appendix 14 A Thinking Lens for Reflection and Inquiry
- Appendix 15 Use the Thinking Lens to Analyze and Write Learning Stories
- References
- Resources
- Print Resources for Growing a Vision
- Print Resources for Building and Supporting Community
- Print Resources for Coaching and Mentoring
- Print Resources for Managing and Overseeing
- Web Resources
- About the Author
