Focus
Secret Agents of Change:
Are ECEs Undercover Revolutionaries?
Lynne Reside, Trina Devine, and Sylvie Fersch
Left to right: Leann Maveety, Janine Thiessen, Lynne Reside, Sylvie Fersch, and Leola McMillan.
W
hen you decided to become
an early childhood educator, what thought processes
led you to this decision? Did you
like the idea that you could have a
certificate or a diploma in a fairly
short time and be working? Did you
think “I like children, I am playful,
I am patient, I am creative—I can
do this”? Did you have a mentor
or friend who was in the field or
thought you were just so good
with children and would be perfect at this? Did you fall into it by
accident or by default because you
were not sure what you wanted to
do with your life? Did you want
to become a kindergarten teacher
but just couldn’t afford the expense
of four to five years of university
education?
Or did you think “I am a revolutionary who wants to change the
world, and there is no better way
to have an impact on social justice
and equality than to work in the
early care and learning sector”? We
have been in the early years field
for quite a few years, and none of
us have come across anyone who
thought this before they filled out
their application to enrol! And yet,
we believe this is exactly what we
are doing.
In our community of Vernon in the
early 1990s, there was no ECEBC
branch, there was a very limited
number of non-profit child care
centres, and most families had very
limited options for quality child
care, particularly if their child had
extra support needs. For early childhood educators, there were limited
professional development opportunities, and the school district did
not give much consideration to the
early years. Lynne was a mother
of young children working as an
8 The Early Childhood Educator Winter 2017
ECE in family child care, Shawna
Poitras-Miller was starting a career
in the ECE sector, and Trina was
still a teenager. None of us had yet
met each other.
Lynne had recently moved to the
community and was not able to find
either a job or a child care centre
for her children that met her needs.
She joined a child care providers’
network made up mostly of family
child care providers who offered
friendship, support, and programming ideas but had little interest
in advocating for and promoting
better options for both families and
early childhood educators in our
community. Through this network,
she met other like-minded people
who thought that having a branch
in our community would help ECEs
give higher quality care, better compensation, and increase community awareness of the importance
of the early years. A branch was
established in 1994. By the simple
act of people coming together and
forming this branch, opportunities
opened up to increase our ability
to strengthen our sector. People
attended meetings who had not
previously done so, more professional development opportunities
emerged, and more people attended
the ECEBC conference and saw
their role as part of a larger movement toward high-quality early care
and learning.
When a popular child care centre
in the community closed, some of
these ECEs got together and started
a steering committee to create a
non-profit child care centre. Over
20 years later, that child care centre
is an important part of our community. It grew to provide quality
child care and jobs for many people
in the community, and eventually
the steering committee purchased
the school in which they ran the
child care centre. Over the years,
our children were born and grew
and we participated in quiet and
not-so-quiet acts of advocacy and
social justice. This included writing letters, holding workshops
and forums, fundraising for playgrounds, collecting food for the
food bank, and raising awareness
about children’s rights—all while
providing quality child care for
children. Our program included an
introduction to giving back to their
community and learning about
social justice, whether it was visiting senior centres, collecting items
for infants and toddlers, organizing
stroller brigades, or just continuing
to ensure that the people who care
for children are supported, well
trained, and inspired to do their
best. Our jobs changed and our
family responsibilities increased,
but at the core we continued to be
advocates for young children.
When ECEBC offered leadershiptraining opportunities, we thought
that sounded interesting. Through
our years of just doing our jobs,
we knew that young children are
often undervalued in our society.
We decided to engage community
leaders in the process of developing a children’s charter to remind
them to value children’s rights
when making decisions about the
community. This led to more collaboration with community leaders
over the years and an initiative to
help the community be designated
as a child and youth-friendly community. We are long-term members
of the early years planning table
and bring the unique perspective
and deep understanding of healthy
early childhood development to the
table. Along with other long-term
ECEBC branch executives, we continue to advocate in multiple ways
for change in the early years. Every
member of the branch has made a
difference in the community with
their contribution and has been
changed by participating in the
networking and learning that the
branch provides.
We all continue to work in the early
years sector in different capacities.
We would not describe ourselves as
revolutionaries, but we are. We have
impacted thousands of children
and families who benefited from
our commitment to our field, from
our ongoing learning and growth
in the early years sector, and from
their increased understanding of
the critically important early years.
We have impacted our colleagues
by modelling the importance of
membership in their professional
association, lifelong learning, and
Every child that
crosses our path
has the potential to
be the next Gandhi
or Mother Teresa.
advocacy. We have been mentors,
and we have helped the community to become a place where
children are less vulnerable, where
the community works together, and
where many sectors have gradually
come to understand the window
of opportunity we are presented
with when we get it right for young
children.
The old saying “The hand that rocks
the cradle rules the world” could
not be truer in today’s society where
we see so much disrespect, conflict,
pain, racism, sexism, environmental
degradation, and family trauma.
ECEs have the opportunity to influence children’s growing brains in
a way that can change the world.
Every child that crosses our path
has the potential to be the next
Gandhi or Mother Teresa. We can
raise awareness about children’s
rights, and we can teach and model
to children kindness, mindfulness,
compassion, social justice, equality, self-regulation, and emotional
intelligence to create a better world.
The time is now! That is how we are
revolutionaries; that is how we are
secret agents of change.
Lynne Reside, Trina Devine and
Shawna Poitras-Miller were members
of ECEBC’s Leadership Initiative (the
third cohort). Lynne, Trina, and Sylvie
Fersch (the authors of this article) are
all long-term members of the North
Okanagan Branch of ECEBC.
The Early Childhood Educator Winter 2017 9