This issue of JECTE (Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education) has endings and beginnings. This is my last editorial after serving as Editor of JECTE for the last eight years. To mark this juncture of the journal we have included reflections from several leaders in the field who were instrumental in the founding of NAECTE (National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators) and the journal. In reading these pieces, it was interesting to think about the evolution of the journal from a newsletter produced in a basement to its current status as a leading professional journal for the strong professional community of NAECTE and the field of early childhood education and teacher education.
The position of Editor is a position that I transitioned into from extremely competent and dedicated previous editors whose passion and effort supported the journal in its development and growth. Although colleagues may have shaken their heads and given me encouraging yet worrisome words as I took on this role, I have found being Editor exciting and invigorating. The work with the JECTE editorial board, communications with established authors and supporting emerging scholars as well as the publishing team at Taylor & Francis underscored the dedication and respect for the work in early childhood teacher education. I have also worked with outstanding graduate students at UNC Greensboro who served as Editorial Assistants and were critical in supporting the review and publishing process. The journal has continued to grow in both content and access during my tenure, and I have striven to have the journal topics and inclusion of manuscripts be responsive to issues and include emerging topics important in the field. I reread my first editorial for the journal which highlighted teacher education as being complex with both challenges and exciting potential and my goal of having the journal publish papers that addressed this complexity from multiple perspectives. I think we (contributing authors, editorial board, reviewers) have met this goal, although this work continues with new and continuing challenges being examined, explored, and described by dedicated early education researchers and professionals.
I am grateful to all the authors who entrusted their work to the journal and were gracious in receiving feedback and worked diligently to respond to comments and suggested revisions and edits. I am incredibly grateful to the JECTE editorial board with members who were readily available to review articles, respond to questions, and weigh in on potential revisions and changes to process and procedure. The collaboration with the NAECTE board has supported the success and recognition of the journal through communication, discussion, and cooperative work.
I welcome Dr. Judit Szente as the next Editor-in-Chief of JECTE. We have been working together over the past year and I am sure she will bring energy and innovative ideas to both maintain the quality of the journal and move it forward in the changing contexts. The work of an Editor is rewarding, and the challenges to the field and profession are great yet, I am confident that JECTE will continue to be a resource and repository of important work in the field of early childhood education.
Reflections on my time as Editor-in-Chief of JECTE
Christine Chaillé, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Department of Education, Portland State University, Portland, US
As JECTE moves to a fully digital format, it is a good time to look back on how the journal has evolved, and where it began. In the early 1970’s, I became involved in NAEYC, and began my career as an early childhood teacher educator. While I loved NAEYC – the conferences, journals, and position statements – I, along with a group of my professional colleagues, began discussing the need for something more focused on teacher education. At several conferences, we met in a hotel room – wonderful meetings that gave birth to the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators. Loosely affiliated with NAEYC, we decided early on to have a bulletin. If my memory is correct, Anne Dorsey volunteered to begin this in 1979, and I offered to help her. The bulletin was initially called the Association for Early Childhood Teacher Education Bulletin, and in 1980 re-named as the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators Bulletin. For ten years, the bulletin served as a place for announcements, interviews, profiles, and articles. Anne and I solicited much of the content, with input from the governing board, and edited it collaboratively. For many years I put together the product of our editing, creating the bulletin on our early word processing resources. I had it printed out at a local postal service, and mailed it (yes, snail mail) to each member. Our organizational goal was to create a peer-reviewed journal. By my term as President of NAECTE in 2003, the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education was well established, supporting our profession by focusing on the issues of teacher education. I am honored to have contributed to this legacy, and proud of the work that has gone into it.
Reflections on JECTE
Kathryn Castle
Professor Emerita
Teaching, Learning and Educational Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, US
JECTE has come a long way from a mailed newsletter (the Bulletin, 1979-89), to a peer reviewed in-house published journal (1990), to a commercially produced journal (1997) soon to be digital. The early journal was edited and produced by dedicated individual members with few funds and meager support from their universities. First editor, Anne Dorsey, produced the layout and journal in her basement! There were difficult times with funding and mailing issues. Moving to commercial publishers and paid assistance greatly helped in journal production but journal content has always been of the highest quality in its focus on research and issues in early childhood teacher education, NAECTE’s mission.
AECTE (the N was added in 1980) was born under strong leadership in 1977. My first job in this fledging organization was to put the By-Laws together- literally to staple them for distribution. My long history in NAECTE includes service as one of the first newsletter editors and later as a theme issue editor, one of the first Regional Reps, Treasurer, President, member of the Foundation, and member of the JECTE Editorial Board for many years. I produced the NAECTE Policy Manual (good to have but seldom read!). My favorite reflections on JECTE focus on the very talented people I admired, greatly respected, and worked beside. We worked hard and had fun. I am so grateful for the important role NAECTE and JECTE have played and continue to play in our professional lives. JECTE has always been a labor of love, hard work, and the highest level of professionalism.
Reflections
Professor Emeritus
Portland State University
c Professor Emeritus Hofstra University
The NAECTE was born in 1977 out of a need for each childhood education professors to form a professional community, typically not represented in IHEs or in national organizations. The ECTE profession has been strengthened through collegiality, sharing research, and advocacy initiatives during conferences. Creation of the JECTE profoundly fleshed out the definition of a profession. Now, the Journal’s transition to on-line access might reach a broader audience to support the knowledge base that is so important for advocacy work.
My professional passion has been to support advocacy for high quality early childhood teacher education in order to serve high- quality early childhood education. During my tenure as a founding member of NAECTE and the Foundation, regional representative, vice-president for program, and president, we expanded dialogue and developed proposals to improve early childhood education and early childhood teacher education. We lobbied elected officials and collaborated with the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Education Departments. One of our significant position statements (1993), the result of years of heavy lifting, also was endorsed (2003) by ACCESS, AECI, NCCCC, and AACTE×. Key position principles include the following:
Early childhood teachers need a baccalaureate education and specialized professional preparation;
All states need an early childhood teacher certificate (birth-8 years) separate from elementary or secondary teacher certification;
Initial preparation of building principals and school district administrators includes study and experiences to initiate and support early childhood teachers and programs.
The position statement also includes research-based findings and recommendations within the profession with suggestions for dissemination to policy makers and resource people. In 2023, it is apparent that the full professionalization of early childhood education remains to be carried forward with the leadership of NAECTE along with the JECTE.
*The American Associate Degree Early Childhood Educators; Association for Childhood Education International National Association for the Education of Young Children for Campus Children’s Centers; and American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. NAEYC has a separate statement.
Reflections
Amos Hatcha and Susan M. Bennerb
a Elementary / Urban Multicultural Education, Knoxville, US
b Special Education, Knoxville, US
We served as JECTE co-editors for four years, ending in 2012. When we applied for the editorship, we proposed building on the solid foundation in place and moving the journal forward by increasing its visibility; improving the quality of published articles; broadening the diversity of perspectives represented on the editorial board, reviewer base, and published materials; focusing exclusively on early childhood teacher education; and moving to electronic means for accomplishing editorial processes. We worked hard during out tenure to meet the expectations we set for ourselves, and looking back, think our contributions have been sustained.
We were not the unanimous pick of the sitting editorial board at the time. Some board members were supportive and some were worried that we would go too far too fast. While there were some awkward moments in meetings and side-bars, the board members with whom we worked served as invaluable resources to us. Without question, the active members of the board were genuinely committed to its success. They helped us update the bylaws and establish a working rotation of board membership that assured continuity and balance while enabling new voices to contribute to the leadership of JECTE.
We took over a paper-based enterprise, receiving four boxes of folders holding manuscripts in various stages of the review/publication process. With the support and encouragement of Taylor and Francis, we transitioned to online submissions, reviews, and transmission to the publisher. We are proud to say that we were hands-on editors. We read every submission ourselves, selected and invited reviewers ourselves, made judgments and communicated review results ourselves, edited accepted manuscripts ourselves, put together issues and wrote editorials ourselves. JECTE has continued to move forward since our editorship and should thrive in its new format. Best wishes to NAECTE and JECTE! May they prosper in their important work.
Reflections on my time as Editor-in-Chief of JECTE
Patsy Cooper
Early Childhood Education at Queens College, Queens, US
In the farewell editorial I wrote for JECTE (36(4), I returned to where I started as editor, that is, to the essential mission of the journal. This is the need to continually renew the relationship between early childhood teacher education and effective classroom practice through the publication of high-quality research, bringing both illumination and change to the field in a timely fashion. Seven years out, I remain convinced of JECTE’s long-standing and unique role in accomplishing this goal. If possible, however, the stakes have become even higher for readers and NAECTE membership writ large. A confluence of recent social/political factors I could not have imagined in my tenure as editor has emerged to exert damaging control over teachers’ autonomy and classroom curricula (e.g., prohibitions against teaching critical race theory, book banning, and so on). Teacher educators and, ultimately, their students must be prepared to meet these challenges at every turn. This brings us back to the production, interrogation, and application of a deep and trusted knowledge base as a crucial tool in doing so. For this, I am grateful to the visionary editors of JECTE who proceeded me and Karen La Paro who followed me, all of whom have contributed to my own understanding of meaningful and impactful early childhood teacher education during their editorship. I have no doubt Judit Szente will have a like impact on us all.