How did I become a child care business owner? Back in 2004, while I was still a primary school teacher, I silently decided that I would resign. Not because I do not like teaching. But because I felt that I was not adding enough value to them as their teacher. In other words, I felt my teaching sucked. I had to do something about myself. It was not surprising to me, as my Degree was in Bachelor of Business and I only did a 1-year Post-Graduate Diploma in Education (Primary) and voila! I'm a officially a primary school teacher! It felt great in the first year, in fact, I was really happy being a teacher - my childhood ambition came true! Being able to teach, impart knowledge and "mould lives", according to the MOE slogan is something I am proud of! However, in my 4th year, and that was in 2004, when I was teaching Primary 2, and there was one special rights child in my class - who was diagnosed with ADHD. He kicked my butt everyday and each day was like WAR. I did not know what to do, I was not adequately trained to teach special rights children during my 1 year PGDE course. All the other children in the class suffered because of my inability to deal with one child. Being plagued with a deep sense of guilt of just "passing each day hoping everything would be fine" instead of "making a difference in the lives of children by helping them to learn", I decided to call it quits. I knew I was not in a right state of mind to carry on teaching. In other words, I am battling depression.
However, with a deep sense of purpose in me, still wanting to make a difference, dreaming of owning a school, and in fact, being influenced by my husband (after he read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki) to desire having one's own business - voila - I decided to own a child care business and through a child care franchise seminar, I took a leap of faith and decided to purchase the franchise of Cambridge Child Development Centre under the Informatics Group for a period of 5 years. And when you set your heart out to do something, the universe supports you - a rare opportunity came knocking on my door asking me to consider taking over their own centre at Novena. Hence, I became the new operator of CambridgeCDC @ Novena. Apparently it is not profit-making and later it became well-known that the entire Informatics got into accounting troubles and the Cambridge child care segment was sold off to another franchisee as a reverse take-over of the entire group. Today, Yale Holdings International is the franchisor of Cambridge Child Development Centre.
What I have is pure passion. Without any actual experience of running a business, let alone a childcare centre, it soon became an uphill task of trying to turn around an unprofitable business. Within a year, all the capital investment had almost gone down the drain with no sign of the business turning around. It was really challenging and depressing as I recall how the company's bank balance dwindled to less than $20,000. I can only rely on FAITH and of course, taking up lots of personal development courses to learn how I could revive my business, learning from my mistakes, doing lots of marketing, having a tight control on budget and costs, and unlimited amount of COURAGE, PERSEVERANCE, OPTIMISM, TRUST, PASSION... finally in 2008, all the efforts paid off.. all in all, it took about 4 years for the business to be turned around finally. This is the 5th year, it has been really good so far, but complacency needs to be kept in check. I still go to work everyday, hopefully not work IN the business, but ON the business. Keeping staff morale high is one my key goals as well.
Passion is what drives the business, but having specialized knowledge, practical experience working with young children, observing the code of ethics in early childhood is how I would define a "professional" in this field. Hence, having a degree in Bachelor of Business and PGDE is definitely not enough to proclaim myself a professional in early childhood even though I may be business owner of a child care centre. Rather, the undertaking of a Diploma in Early Childhood Care & Education (both Teaching & Leadership) is the first step of being a professional. I thus took up Diploma in Early Childhood Care & Education - Teaching (DPT) at RTRC-Asia from 2006 to 2008. From the course, I learnt about theories of early childhood, child development, infant & toddler care & development, developmentally appropriate practices, safety, health & nutrition, environmental design, curriculum planning, special needs education, play and integrated curriculum, music & art etc. I am very glad that I mustered the courage to take the course, as I had gained a deeper understanding and awareness of the basics and fundamental theories in early childhood education, and teaching strategies for early childhood educators. My teaching practicum also allowed me first hand experience of designing a stimulating yet nurturing learning environment for the group of Nursery 2 children under my care. It was the most grueling yet satisfying period of my years of being a child care business owner, as the N2 children always had the power to press my "hot button" and allowed me to see myself in a different perspectives. From them, I learnt that I've still got a long way to go in terms of patience, listening, understanding each and every one of their interests and needs, true caring... I call them my "spiritual masters". Until today, I still get my frequent "prescription" from my "spiritual masters".
Having obtained my DPT at RTRC-Asia in July 2008, I decided to pursue my next Diploma in ECCE in Leadership (DPL) with Etonhouse Education Centre in December 2008. 2 reasons: The DPL course would be extended to 1.5 years instead of 1 year from 2009 onwards. Etonhouse is well-known in Singapore to be one of the most expensive early childhood providers and I want to find out why and learn from them. Hence, it is the best time and place to do the DPL course. Five months into the course, I've done modules like Action Research, Assessment & Evaluation, Financial Management, Planning for Learning and now, Current Trends.. I must say their philosophy is very different from what I understand from RTRC-Asia and it is very perturbing for me as my own philosophies of early childhood education is being challenged.. Still there is lots of learning everytime I go to class and I still look forward to doing my assignments even though it is a love-hate relationship..
I feel extremely blessed and happy that I am in this profession of early childhood education in touching lives and everyday is filled with love and happiness! I am working towards being a true professional by "walking the talk", by being able to advocate for rights of children, advocating for play, for quality care etc.. our children deserves so much more! Join me in this journey of advocacy for early childhood education now!
