Centre for Community Services & Early Childhood

Even as a teenager, I enjoyed working with children. I grew up in a rural community, so I just walked to the neighbour and babysit the neighbour's children. I'm Linnet Reesor. I studied at George Brown College in the Early Childhood Education Program from 2004 to 2006. Before attending George Brown College, I went to school at Fanshawe College and took Business Administration. After the first year, I decided it wasn't the right path for me, and I really did enjoy working with children, so, that's where I decided to change my career path and attend George Brown College. I investigated different schools that had an Early Childhood Education Program, and George Brown was attractive to me. One, for its downtown location. And secondly, I really like the block placement that's unique to George Brown College. And the way it works is, you spend seven weeks in an academic block, and then you spend the next seven weeks in a childcare centre. And you can apply what you've learned in your academic to your experience in the childcare centres. The program's designed to provide you with different experiences and opportunities to work with different age groups and children with diverse abilities. I was able to work at two community centres, Waterpark Place - which is a lab school run by George Brown, as well as Sick Kids Hospital. In my second year of studying at George Brown, I heard that there was an opportunity to go to China and help plan curriculum at an international school there. So I applied and I was one of the two selected to go, which was an amazing experience. Just gaining that international knowledge of children from around the world. And it's amazing that now it's a huge part of the ECE Program at George Brown College. In addition to China, there's also a Jamaica project that students have the opportunity to go to Jamaica and implement curriculum there. Working for a George Brown lab school like I do here at Richmond Adelaide is great, 'cause not only do I affect the lives of the children here but also other children in the communities as early childhood educators come to our centres to absorb information, go to workshops, and take that information back to their community centres. One of the big things that surprised me when entering the field is how fast the field changes and how important those zero to five years are, and how the community is seeing this now. It's very gratifying to see George Brown respond to that and put an emphasis on that as part of their curriculum. They're actually shaping the field of Early Childhood Education. The most important thing that I took from the program is realizing that you take many different pathways in your future career. For example, working with children who've disabilities, doing international work, or working for the Toronto District School Board and the full day learning program. I'm confident that George Brown has given me the tools to succeed, and could do the same for anybody.