Licensure

Graduate Admissions & Advising Scenarios

Scenario III: An Early Childhood Teacher Faces a Choice

Albert Williams has an undergraduate degree from Salem State College in early childhood education. He applies his initial teaching license in early childhood education to his work as a Head Start teacher in a nearby city. Albert comes back to Salem State to the Graduate School, looking for a master’s degree program that will prepare him for a professional license. He isn’t sure if he wants to stay at Head Start and perhaps work toward an administrative position, or move to a teaching position in a public school. He makes an appointment to meet with the coordinator of the early childhood program.

Depending on Albert’s career path, the coordinator tells him, he has two choices. He is welcome to continue on in the early childhood program at SSC, completing the M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education – Professional license track, which will broaden his knowledge of issues and practices in early childhood education and child care. This program will prepare him for professional licensure, which he will eventually need should he decide to work long-term within a public school setting. The coursework in the program will also expose him to early childhood issues and practices in community settings and child care agencies, including strategies for working with families and acting as a leader and an advocate in governmental arenas. Albert finds out, however, that should he decide to work as a public school early childhood teacher, to secure a professional license he has the option of completing a master’s degree in any subject area covered by the early childhood curriculum. He can, for example, complete a Master of Arts degree in English or History or Mathematics or one of the science, or an M.Ed. in Reading; all of those subject areas are part of the early childhood curriculum. Albert’s second major as an undergraduate at SSC was history, in which he earned a 3.0 grade point average; therefore, he meets the graduate school’s admissions requirement of an undergraduate major in a field appropriate to the degree of M.A. in History. Does he want to establish himself as an early childhood expert prepared to work in a school or a community or government agency? Perhaps he could even use the M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education degree to teach a course in a local community college’s early childhood program, something he has thought about in the past. Or does he want to continue his interest in history, perhaps applying what he learns in master’s degree program in History program to interesting curriculum development projects?

Albert goes home to think it over. Meanwhile, he takes the Graduate Record Examination, which he can use to apply to either program. Following the program coordinator’s advice, he visits an early childhood class in one of the college’s lab schools to see how curriculum and instruction may have changed since his time in the undergraduate program. He visits an early childhood resource center created by the Commonwealth. He contacts a staff member of the state’s new Early Education and Care Office, someone his Head Start director knows. He has a long conversation with his director about potential career paths. He considers the fact that the state is moving toward upgrading the licensing requirements for early childhood workers in general, that there is a need for well-credentialed supervisors and that more and more public schools are including pre-school classrooms. He decides that his first love is working for or on behalf of young children, and that he can indulge his love of history by taking history electives within his graduate program and continuing to take history courses and workshops as a lifelong learner. Albert completes his application to the M.Ed. program in Early Childhood, is accepted into the program, and meets again with the program coordinator, this time to plot out his program of study. He will include a history elective, do a research paper on the history of early childhood education for one education course and focus his action research project on helping young children understand and enjoy history.