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HOW TO SUPPORT AND ATTRACT EARLY – CAREER EDUCATORS
download a copy of this memo from the DKG International membership committee

Do you recall your first day as a professional educator? Do you remember the excitement and apprehension you felt upon entering your classroom or office? Your thoughts were swimming with your "vision" of turning your classroom or office into an outstanding learning environment! And the feeling of being overwhelmed surrounded you as you reviewed the "list of must do." Was there someone there ready to "roll up their sleeves" and assist and support you or did you go it alone??? DKG is encouraging all members to support and assist those "Early – Career Educators" who are in our various local educational settings and build lasting DKG membership.

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUPPORTING EARLY-CAREER EDUCATORS

• Acquaint yourselves with local educational settings in your area.
• Visit these educational settings and introduce yourselves to administration and staff as possible. Share Delta Kappa Gamma's mission &vision statements and our goals in assisting early-career educators.
• Share the wide variety of possibilities DKG has in assisting these early-career educators not only at the opening of the school year but in their actual settings, working with the early-career educators throughout the year.
• Communicate frequently and be open and positive.
  • Discuss various possibilities of how your chapter members can become involved with school openings by presenting workshops, speaking, providing snacks at breaks, etc. etc.. In all occasions, have Society brochures, etc. readily available for everyone.
• Support of early – career educators will provide your chapter and DKG opportunities to become recognized in educational settings where there was no prior visibility.
• Assess your membership to determine their professional area of expertise and prepare short workshops, videos, etc. on identified topics such as time-management skills, discipline techniques, technology, creating bulletin boards, dealing with parents, "hot educational topics" implemented within these local districts, as well as other specific areas identified and emphasized in local non-traditional settings, etc.
• Invite early-career educators to chapter meetings so they may see who we are and what we do and what we offer our members.
• Invite early-career educators to be guest speakers relating their particular area of educational interest and its influence on education in general.
• Write a letter of congratulations to early-career educators for recent accomplishments and include the Society Membership Brochure with local contact information.
• Invite potential members to lunch/dinner or a special event and be ready to share what DKG can do for them as well as sharing what it has done and continues to do for you!.
• Organize and host a "Professional Development Day" for all potential educators, traditional / non-traditional, in your area and beyond and have Society literature available for participants.
• And the list goes on and on!

Let us all engage ourselves in the challenge of determining unique ways to support and attract early-career educators to the fruition of accomplishing our goal with many "early-career educators" becoming members who will further enhance our "Pride in the Big Picture."

Websites of Interest...

• www.21stcenturyskills.org: Support for fusing the 3 R’s with the 4 C’s (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation) in curriculum and professional development.
  
• www.facingthefuture.org: Provides curriculum materials for critical thinking, global perspective, and informed action.
  
• www.soliya.net: Soliya is a pioneering non-profit organization using new technologies to facilitate dialogue between students from diverse backgrounds across the globe.
  
• www.gapminder.org. Provides statistics on global issues useful for math, science, business and social studies projects.

Educator Edge

Links to Society and Chapter Related Sites

• Delta Kappa Gamma Society International
• Alpha Zeta State