In the fast-paced and competitive landscape of today’s workplace, professional development is required for both organizational and personal growth and adaptation. Yet, despite its pivotal role in employee success, many tend to overlook or undervalue the significance of continuous learning and skill enhancement. Some professionals, having reached a certain level of competence in their field, erroneously believe that they have attained all the knowledge and skills required for their career. Others face the perpetual struggle with time constraints where the hustle and bustle of daily work responsibilities and personal commitments force the time needed for professional learning and growth to take a backseat. And still others allow the fear of change and stepping out of their comfort zones to minimize the importance of professional development.

This could not be farther from the truth inside of our JCC’s Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC), where our educators and administrators not only embrace new challenges and crave new skills, but they welcome the opportunity to venture into the unknown and to push the limits of innovation and creativity. This past Monday, I had the opportunity to spend time with our early childhood educators from both Squirrel Hill and South Hills as they engaged in a full day of professional development, and once again I walked away inspired by their commitment to and passion for continuous learning and improvement. Their activities and sessions together were designed to help this incredible group of professionals stay agile, resilient and relevant as the needs of the children and families they serve continues to evolve.

Take for example the Pecha Kucha (Japanese for “chit chat”) presentations that were part of the afternoon’s agenda, where two educators were tasked with sharing their experiences from a recent professional conference in a very crisp and structured format. Each of their presentations was comprised of 20 slides and each slide was displayed for EXACTLY 20 seconds. The format forced the educators to focus on the most important concepts they wanted to communicate. I actually felt like I was attending a professional TED talk! The short, dynamic presentations kept the audience engaged and prevented information overload and boredom. Beyond just the key takeaways from the conference around collage and self-portraits with loose parts and making space for aggressive play, the presentations themselves reinforced important skills for the educators to use in their classrooms and with their communication to families, including prioritizing and curating content to meet the needs of your audience and presenting clear and focused messages in a compelling manner.

Our Early Childhood Development Center understands that the repercussions of not affording our educators a regular cadence of rich and engaging professional development opportunities can be profound and far-reaching. A week of in-service training at the beginning of each school year and monthly in-service sessions throughout the rest of the year fosters a growth mindset and helps our educators to break free from the trap of complacency and embark on a journey of lifelong learning and growth. This relentless commitment to elevating the profession of early childhood educators has also been recognized by our national association. In partnership with the JCCA Sheva Center, we are once again hosting a cohort of 14 new directors from ECDCs around the nation next week for a 3-day immersive experience of learning from early childhood leadership, educators and one another. We look forward to sharing our perspective on inspired exploration inside of early childhood with these budding superstars as they set out on their professional journeys and build a foundation of curiosity and inquiry.

Wishing you and your families a Shabbat shalom,

Jason