Beyond educating children and accompanying families, in an economic and social context such as the one we are living in, the spirit of reflection, innovation and transformation has become indispensable for the survival and growth of any childcare service. The crisis has been the key factor that has led us to develop certain competencies and capabilities that, without it, we might not have developed.
In this path to reinvent ourselves, the ability to adapt to the needs of each moment, reflecting, innovating, seeking continuous improvement, transforming and expanding the service, plays an important role. It is not an easy task, since it entails acquiring new roles, taking risks and making a daily effort to learn to detect what is not working, what is working but perhaps it is not necessary to continue doing, what we do not do and what should be done .... In short, reinventing oneself means learning to value what we do, developing the capacity for constructive self-criticism, learning to give up and, above all, knowing how to take advantage of opportunities.
Reinventing oneself is the order of the day, and choosing to do so is what allows us to give added value to the service we provide, to offer an external visualization and to create expectations for the professionals behind us in order to generate new opportunities.
These opportunities, those that arise from a process of profound change and transformation, are often the ones that allow us to develop and acquire new roles. In this case, in the Municipal Nursery School Los Cascabeles (Manlleu) we went from educating children and accompanying their families, to become trainers of other professionals like us.
It has been a very enriching experience, which has led to a remarkable personal and professional growth: it has allowed the development of new skills, the acquisition of new social skills and new technical knowledge, and the satisfaction of achieving new challenges.
Is it the opportunities that lead to the transformation of people, or is it the capacity to reinvent oneself that generates opportunities? Surely the two paths go hand in hand.
Noe Vallejo. Educator Municipal Day Care Center Los Cascabeles (Manlleu)
