Exploring Roles in the ECE community

One of the first things that popped up when I was looking for organizations was the Oklahoma department of human services (DHS). It has several guiding principals such as "all children are active learners. They explore and experiment with concepts in the world through play and hands on activities." It also goes into a lot of family stuff and growing through stages. In the opening statement of the overview it stated, "early childhood programs should be appropriate for the age, developmental level, and special needs of each child" (OKDHS). Then it goes into all the standards required in their early childhood programs. These are appropriate for children ages 3 through 5. One reason why I really love this website and organization is because they are based on play. When I go to our local head start organization I see many things that I do not like, but the incorporation of play is amazing! I believe I could go to any local DHS agency and they would give me a lot of data on how important play is and how to be developmentally appropriate for Children ages 3-5!
The next organization I found was the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). They have a section for topics and under that you can find developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) and also a tab for Play! It shows several topics on what research says about play. It has tons of research topics. Under the DAP tab it has DAP with preschoolers, in which it talks
About how they thrive when they are able to pretend play and experience new activities. This will be a great resource for topics and research in the area of play and developmentally appropriate practice. There are also local organizations in this called Early Childhood Associations of Oklahoma.
This association has a couple Openings, one for board members and another for council. This job would require me to ensure the equity, integrity, and accountability of it's accreditation system serving programs for young children. The responsibilities include approving policies, monitor and provide feedback on operations of NAEYC, oversee accreditation decision, recommend cooperative relationships with other systems that would advance the mission and review all proposed revisions to the NAEYC accreditation criteria for approval by governing board. I think for this job I would need to do a lot if research on the NAEYC's goal and position statements and exactly what they are looking for.

The next local organization i would look at is the early childhood program at northeastern state university (NSU). NSU has one of the best teacher prep programs in the state. I remember my early childhood class focusing quite a bit on play, we studied developmental appropriate practice and also student directed vs teacher directed learning. We learned many different ways to teach things using play. The Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Northeastern State University focuses on preparing highly qualified teachers in the areas of early childhood, elementary, special education as well as reading specialists and library media specialists (master's-level programs). I beleive they would refer me to early childhood instructors who Would help me find the developmentally appropriate way to teach 4-5 year olds. I also believe this would will me prepare for the future job I really want as a college teacher teaching early childhood to those that want to go into the field of early childhood! There were no job openings at NSU for early childhood. 
One job opportunity I did find was at a local community college, Northwest Arkansas Community College. They have an early childhood teacher opening. I feel the only thing I would need for this job would be to have some observations in a college professors classroom. There is a lot of information I would need to gain before I began a job like this! I think I have the experience of already being in an early childhood classroom and that should be a requirement of any college early childhood teachers class. 
Another job opportunity id love to have is to open my own early childhood center. I would need to observe and talk to someone that opened their own center to find out how they did it and what all it consists of.


                                                  References
Early Childhood Association of Oklahoma. Retrieved from: http://www.ecaok.org/
National Association for the Education of Young Children. Retrieved from: http://www.naeyc.org/