If you went to work today, thank an early childhood educator! I want to make this sentence into bumper stickers, billboards, commercials, tweets that go viral, songs, and more to get the word out about the importance of the early childhood workforce for our communities. Professionals who work with young children allow our communities to prosper because of the solutions and supports offered to working parents. As a working mother, I am grateful to professionals who have poured their love and expertise into serving my child and our family. Their work allows me to go to work. Our community depends on early childhood educators and professionals. The Early Childhood (EC) workforce is the foundation for a prosperous community.

Yet, at the moment, the EC workforce is struggling with many challenges (e.g., pay, respect, adequate healthcare, their own childcare needs, food insecurity, and many more). Who can help us solve the EC workforce challenges? Maybe students can. Yesterday my university held a competition for students to come up with innovative solutions to problems. We had 137 students participate in the event. It was so cool to observe students use their creativity to solve issues that we all face. It reminded me of a game I play with children called, “How Many?” Did you ever play the “How Many” game? The game goes like this by asking the question, “How many ways can you get to _____?”

We play this game with my little one and she loves using mental math to answer the question. Our little one likes to say, for example, how can you get to 10 and then answer her own question by saying 5 plus 5 is a way to get to 10. Then, 7 plus 3 is 10. And… 2 plus 8 is 10. And… 14 minus 4 is 10. And so on. There are many ways to get to ten!

Maybe we can have community-wide brainstorming sessions where we play a version of the “How Many” game. How many ways can we get to better pay for our EC workforce? How many ways can we get to better resources for our EC workforce? How many ways can we get to better ______ for our EC workforce? Our neighborhoods can determine solutions to problems unique to our community. Honoring the people who serve children and families with better pay, conditions, and respect is needed. Innovations and creativity in solving childcare and teacher shortages are encouraged at this time. Our communities must unite to generate and try solutions that can make our neighborhoods stronger for all of us. How many ways can we thank our EC workforce?