Envisioning the Best for Tomorrow

What Works!

Strengths-Based Approaches to Early Childhood Education

Panel #2: Envisioning the Best for Tomorrow
Building on the strengths identified by the first panel, what can we envision for the care and education of our youngest children in tomorrow's world? An opportunity to dream about the future as we would like to see it.
Practitioner:
		Robert Lynch Robert Lynch is a kindergarten teacher at Sacramento's Clayton B. Wire Elementary School. He has been a teacher for 23 years and over his career has taught kindergarten to 5th grade. Robert is Chair of the CTA Early Childhood Education (ECE) Committee and Vice President at his local union, Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA). He has been to the State Board of Education to discuss preschool and early childhood education issues advocating for children and teachers throughout the state. He is also a legislative advocate for the California Teachers Association and feels passionately that Teachers MUST have a voice in educational issues and that too often decisions are made by outside forces who may be distant from or have little connection to the reality of teaching every day in a classroom.
Policy Maker:
		Catherine Atkin Catherine Atkin is the President of Preschool California, a nonprofit advocacy organization working to increase access to high-quality preschool for all of California's children, starting with those who need it most. Ms. Atkin is an attorney with legal and policy expertise in the area of early care and education. Prior to joining Preschool California, Ms. Atkin was the Principal of a consulting firm specializing in strategic research, analysis and policy development and has more than a decade of professional legislative and advocacy experience on domestic policy issues. From 1998-2002 she was a Directing Attorney at Public Counsel Law Center in Los Angeles. Prior to that she was Minority Subcommittee Counsel for the Banking and Financial Services Committee of the United States House of Representatives where she focused on urban development and housing. She graduated from Stanford University and holds a law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley and master's degree in Urban Planning from UCLA.
Researcher:
		Alison Wishard Guerra Alison Wishard Guerra is an Assistant Professor in the Education Studies Program at the University of California, San Diego. She received her Ph.D. in Education from UCLA in 2005 with an emphasis in Psychological Studies in Education. Dr. Wishard Guerra's research focuses on culture and development in early childhood, with particular focus on social and language development among Latino children from low-income families. Her research looks specifically at how social relationships and interactions may serve as protective factors for later cognitive development among at-risk children. She studies within group variations related to immigration and acculturation experiences and their associations to children's developmental outcomes. Dr. Wishard Guerra is a member of the National Early Head Start Research Consortium where she continues an active line of research investigating longitudinal social and cognitive developmental outcomes. Within the consortium she is leading a team to investigate the links between stability and continuity in early child care experiences and developmental outcomes of 3000 children participating in the Early Head Start National Research Project from birth to three years old. Dr. Wishard Guerra was a member of the expanded research consortia that developed the California Preschool Learning Foundations on English-Language Development. Dr. Wishard Guerra has been contracted by WestEd to serve as an expert reviewer of English Language Development and Cultural Diversity in the development of Volumes 2 (Physical Development, Health, and Visual and Performing Arts) and 3 (Science, and History/Social Sciences) of the California Preschool Learning Foundations as well as Volume 2 (Physical Development, Health, and Visual and Performing Arts) of the California Preschool Curriculum Framework, all commissioned by the California Department of Education. Her current research at UCSD investigates the role of social pretend play in the development of oral language and school readiness among Mexican heritage children. In the Education Studies program she teaches courses on early childhood education, culture and developmental theory, quantitative research methodology, dissertation writing seminar, and research on curriculum design.
Moderator:
		Lindsey Godwin Lindsey Godwin is an Assistant Professor of Management in the College of Business, Morehead State University and received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, where she studied with the founders of Appreciative Inquiry. She has worked on AI projects with the UN, World Vision, Houston Schools, Weatherhead School of Management, and other organizations. In collaboration with David Cooperrider, the leading thought leader on Appreciative Inquiry (AI), she has been a partner in the development and facilitation of OvationNet, which provides online experiential workshops that focus on teaching the foundations of AI. She is currently a knowledge manager for the AI Commons and served as content manager for the 2007 International AI Conference in Orlando, FL and is the Co-Chair for the 2009 World Appreciative Inquiry Conference in Nepal.