What Makes a Good Infant-Toddler Professional?

Sydney Gurewitz Clemens, Cindy McGaha Associate Professor of Child Development,
Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina
Published in Focus on Infants & Toddlers, Fall 2003, Vol.16, #1

A student seeking input for her action research paper recently posed a question on the REGGIO Listserv: What qualifications are essential for a good early childhood educator? One of the responses she received was the following from Sydney Gurewitz Clemens, an author and highly regarded consultant in early childhood education and supervision. The student and Sydney were both thinking of children ages 3 to 6, but you will probably agree that these qualities describe the expert infant-toddler professional as well. Here is Sydney's "wish list":

• Maturity sufficient not to take children's outbursts personally
• Integrity sufficient to want everything you do with children to have some reason and thought behind it
• Humor and optimism, for getting through troubles without being miserable about them
• Energy enough to go to the child who needs you rather than sending your voice
• The ability to prepare for the next event of the day while doing the present one
• Curiosity about the human condition, which leads you to want to know why children do what they do, and to help them appreciate their own competence
• An interest in the world and its inhabitants so you can relate to children's interests
• A sense of order, as it can support clarity in the children's work and in your own
• Respect for people of all sorts . . . a rich image of the child and the possibilities of the adult
• Concern for safety, based in experience.

Sydney adds, "This list is very like other lists of how to be a good human being, I think, and there is good reason for the similarity."