As many would guess education is likely the main thing that someone who hires an early childhood professional looks at. This along with someones work background are very important parts to hiring an early childhood professional. Although these are very important, there are many other very important things that are looked for when hiring an early childhood professional.

In the article “12 Characteristics of Effective Early Childhood Teacher”, on NAEYC.org, Laura J. Colker talks about what makes a good early childhood educator. The 12 characteristics that she talks about are: passion, perserverence, willingness to take risks, pragmatism, patience, flexibility, respect, creativity, authenticity, love of learning, high energy, and sense of humor. Passion is very important when wanting to be an early childhood educator, possibly more so than anyother profession. While it is important to love what you are doing an any job, so that you want to keep doing and excelling at a job, it is very important with early childhood educating since you are working with young impressionable children, and helping to shape their learning path and outlook on life. If you don 't love working with the young children it will come across to everyone around and be very discouraging to the young children your are teaching.

A love for learning is also very important when being an early childood professional. New information and strategies are constantly being developed. In order to be able to