Professional and Personal Development for Teachers, Caregivers and Parents
Completing the LifeWays® Early Childhood Certification Program can open new opportunities for you – both professional and personal—in the fields of early childhood, parent education and after-school care. Our one-year, part-time curriculum includes over 200 onsite hours, with independent study and personal mentoring between sessions. It can prepare you to open or transform your own in-home program, classroom or early childhood center. Many parents also enroll for inspiration in the Living Arts.
Our students graduate with a renewed sense of purpose and joie de vivre in their daily lives. Strengthened by an amazing view of the developing human being, a lifted experience of personal growth, guidance in establishing successful programs, and a sense of being grounded in practical, artistic, and nurturing skills, they tell us over and over again that this training was a life-changing experience for them.
The curriculum is divided into four categories – Human Growth and Development; Child, Family and Community; Program Curriculum; and Living Arts – and includes, among other things, classes on the following:
- In-depth child development from birth to six, with an introduction to other ages and phases of life through biographical studies based on the insights of Rudolf Steiner
- Introduction to numerous developmental theorists such as Vygotsky, Piaget, Bowlby, Dewey, Erikson, Froebel, Pikler and others.
- A variety of handwork skills
- Puppetry and storytelling
- Painting
- Music and speech training
- Introduction to gardening and cooking
- Movement and posture exercises
- Working with the Living Arts (domestic activity, nurturing care, social awareness and creative arts)
- Practical skills for inspired living
- Celebrations and festivals
- Nurturing skills for infants, toddlers and throughout all of early childhood
- Exercises for personal development, inner practice, and adult relationships, including a class on diversity
- Home health care practices to support healthy children and adults
- Tools of the Trade – introductory classes on the nuts and bolts of establishing child care centers and home programs, as well as parent-child and parent-infant programs.