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As Apprenticeships expand in Early Childhood Education, New Hampshire is Among the States Training the Field’s Future Leaders
This article was originally featured by EdSurge.
A typical career trajectory in early care and education might follow a path like this: start as an assistant teacher in a classroom, eventually gain the experience to move up to lead teacher, and if you’re ambitious and able, one day become the assistant director, director or even owner of a program.
On paper, it seems reasonable. Each role, over time, equips the educator to step into the next one, right? Not necessarily. While the primary responsibilities of a classroom teacher involve educating and caring for young children, that work often shifts dramatically at the next level — the leadership level — to managing staff and operating a small business.
“You train to be an early childhood educator,” notes Anne Banks, apprenticeship programs manager for the Community College System of New Hampshire, which oversees three apprenticeship pathways in early childhood education. “Just because you know how to work with children doesn’t mean you know how to run a business to work with children.”
This creates an enormous gulf between the classroom-level roles in early childhood education and the leadership ones. It’s often so daunting that many educators don’t bother to move up. And for those who do, many find themselves ill-prepared; some will leave, creating “this churn, this constant turnover of directors,” explains Jen Legere, the owner and director of A Place to Grow, a franchise of early learning programs, and architect of the new director-level apprenticeship program for early childhood educators in New Hampshire.
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