The leadership experience of a daycare center director a self reflection

النوع : Mémoire

The purpose of this project is to review the leadership experience of a director of a daycare center in Lebanon. This experience will be put in the form of a ca se study that describes and attempts to understand some of the various challenge s and issues which we faced by the director while running her childcare center. Through the narration of authentic stories, this reflective reporting (Gall, G all & Borg, 2005) also aims at gaining insight into the leadership style of the director. Data sources used are the director's personal reflection on past experiences, memos sent to teachers and parents, video films as well as old photographs. A review of the literature reveals three studies done on preschool education in Lebanon. In 1971, Mroueh surveyed the prevailing conditions related to education al programs in eight nursery schools. In 1996 Abu Nasr compared the cognitive development of bilingual and monolingual children. A more recent research explored the new preschool curriculum (1997) looking into its objectives and emerging issues (Bachour, Hoteit, Mukallid & Sleem, 2002). Preschool however involves students between age three and six whereas daycare education as will be covered in this study relates to children under the age of three. Hence the gap in research on this stage needs to be filled. Furthermore the administrative side of early childhood education has not yet been explored in Lebanon. After all childcare centers are mini organizations and their administration does involve some form of leadership. The conceptual framework in this study will be based on the "Reframing Leadership" theory (Bolman & Deal, 1997) and on the "Situational Leadership" model (Hersey, 1984). Conclusions can be of practical use for both current and aspirant directors.