Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/how-experienced-directors-have-increased-their-skills/5012190/
The November 1996 issue of Child Care Information Exchange, dedicated to "exceptional directors," celebrated "North America's 50 Most Experienced Center Directors." The individuals listed had directed centers for a total of 1,424 years! What a wealth of experience this group possessed.We decided to tap into their expertise to inform our work on the Director Credential movement which was starting to gain momentum at that point. Our task at the time was to assess the best mechanisms for helping directors improve upon their skills. States developing director credential systems needed to know where to invest their energy in helping develop directors.
So we decided to ask this distinguished group of experienced directors how they developed the skills that enabled them to have such long and successful careers. We assumed that if we asked these directors what training experiences had the most impact on shaping their skills, we would be able to isolate a few key training approaches that really make a difference.
We were wrong. What we discovered was that these directors survived and thrived by taking their training wherever and whenever they could find it.
In the survey, we presented the directors with a list of 15 training opportunities ranging from a Ph.D. in ...