Why is it important to have purpose in early childhood development? This was the question I asked myself. What is the relevance? Why is it important? I’m a student at Lake Washington Institute of Technology, where I am studying the pedagogy of early childhood education and development. Not only in the experiences I’ve been through in this study and that of practical childcare experience, I have seen the benefits of having a purpose to motivate and cultivate our young children.

The age group that I am dealing with is 3 years old. In the general public’s eyes their response usually is, surprise, “how do you guide purpose and structure in such a chaotic group?” Undoubtedly my reply is it’s not about how, it’s about why. I like to see children’s growth as a continual cycle of change. As they begin something new and understand how to belong to their community, they become active in their learning and go beyond the current understanding. The cycle of begin, belonging, becoming, and going beyond, represents the purpose and plans that we can use to help guide our children and the community as teachers.

When I look about, I see four areas that, without structure and purpose, do not help the child grow. The most important is community because from diversity, health and wellness and educational preparedness have a place to thrive. From the words of Hillary Clinton’s book “It takes a Village” the reference to “it takes a village to raise a child” refers to a community and how to create a grow cycle for their future.

Through my education as a student I have deeply studied these four areas. My goal is to reach out to the community to address the growth of our young children, their diversity, for the lifelong pursuit of wellness and to be able to academically reach their goals through educational preparedness.

The curiosity of the child provides us a wonderful platform to answer embarrassing questions. Everything to a child is different and that’s what fascinates them. They are just learning about the world around them and are driven to ask “why?” Why does that person look different? What does Christmas celebrate? And one of my favorites, just “why?” As a community, we can help answer those questions about diversity by providing rich cultural examples that are targeted towards developing young children. Conscientious purpose and planning teachers and communities can work together to help our children grow by beginning their understanding of diversity.

As we look at ways that children can begin, we also see the transition to their belonging in our community. As teachers, we must closely look at the words that were said by Martin Luther King Jr.: “Education without morals is like a ship without a compass, nearly wandering nowhere.” As a community, we need to make sure there is somewhere for children to go and belong. For an early childhood education, that path is through the elementary system. Being able to provide children with the skills necessary to be successful mean granting them the ability to belong to a common goal of lifelong learning. I ask that we all think about what we can do to help the child belong.

At the foundation of a healthy lifestyle is wellness and nutrition. Without a plan to provide children with healthy lifestyle habits and routines, we do not help them succeed and become successful. Successful people are healthy both the mind and body. As a community we can provide enrichment by creating a setting where children can experience healthy activities and diverse foods that provide a well-proportioned and balanced diet. In our community there is a rich offering at farmers markets of organic foods that we can show our children is real, not processed, and is within our own community.

By providing a purpose to drive early childhood education in our community, everyone can help the child take the next steps to go beyond. It’s very important that we have a plan to make sure the growth cycle for every child does not stop. Through our community, we can provide opportunities at each step in their journey to have structure and support for them to have the road map for future success.

“Education is the investment our generation makes in the future.” Mitt Romney stated this when he was discussing his bottom-up platform for early childhood education. We are the “our,” and as a community, we can all invest into our future by supporting early childhood development.

Dorcus Noble, Kirkland