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MY GOSH, what fun we had being presenters at the Minnesota Association of Family and Early Educators Conference this week!
We are left with several thoughts about the field and the people who serve in it...
Thought #1: We serve alongside amazing, collaborative humans! We presented 4 sessions, all on different topics, and we were so fortunate to be able to interact quite a bit in our sessions with participants via the beautiful Zoom chat box (seriously, whoever invented that functionality of Zoom deserves a special coffee right now!) The generosity of resource sharing in that chat box was AWESOME. The encouragement, the ideas, the wisdom was phenomenal.
Thought #2: Our field (Family & Early Education, Parent Education) is needed now more than ever. People are isolated, parents are lonely, depressed, and put so much pressure on themselves to be perfect. They need to connect, feel support, be encouraged, and have their struggles normalized. There is such deep power in that.
Thought #3: As educators, you don't need to do it all and you don't need to do it perfectly. Our session participants were so generous in sharing their strengths and challenges. We serve in a field where people WANT to be able to do more to serve families. However, each of us has to find the balance of what we can do, while still honoring ourselves, our families, and our other commitments. Any investment you can make in families is a good one! It may feel small, but the impact can be large!
We leave this experience feeling so blessed to serve alongside all of those in the field. We've grown and we've learned.
We've taken away new ideas and thoughts that will become a part of who we are as teachers and leaders.
We are somehow exhausted and invigorated.
We are thankful for this experience.
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