Eva Marks grew up in California and began her career in the cosmetics industry.
It was her husband’s job that brought her to Massachusetts, and it was one of her three children’s teachers who asked her if she wanted to be a substitute teacher.
“I started substituting. I liked it,” Marks says, “and they offered me a permanent position as a teacher.”
“It was fun to be around children and creating curriculum, just being a part of children’s aha moments, providing them with access to materials and watching them make discoveries.”
That fun was contagious enough to compel Marks’ middle child to also become an early educator.
Over the course of 20 years, Marks became a lead teacher, then a director, and today she’s the operations manager for Horizons for Homeless Children in Boston, which serves 211 children in 22 classrooms. Marks’ job is to manage compliance with state regulations, maintaining records and managing teacher orientation and training.
She’s also a member of Strategies for Children’s Advocacy Network.
“I’ve always wanted to advocate, for children, for quality care,” Marks says. “I’ve had experiences in good and bad centers, and I believe that it’s not about throwing copies of worksheets in front of children. It’s about teaching them through experiences. That idea really came home for me when I had the privilege of teaching in a certified Montessori school.
“Now it’s mental health and making sure that children get equal access to care. Inclusivity is really important to me.”
During her career, Marks has always seen children with behavioral challenges, but behavior has become more of an issue during the pandemic.
“We isolated children and put them in front of screens. I think we put the fear of Covid in them. The early education structure was gone. And we’re seeing how the lack of mental health professionals to help guide children and teachers is a cause of children’s challenging behavior.”
Marks’ Advocacy Network project is to compile mental health resources for early educators. She hopes to address professional burnout so that educators are better equipped to focus on children’s mental health needs.
“My long-term, dream goal is to set up a program where educators could leave for 15 to 20 minutes during their lunch break and consult with a mental health professional, so they can share their feelings without holding back with someone who is not their boss. Currently, programs don’t have enough staff for that to happen.”
“I also want resources for self care, places that teachers can go — it could be a website or a flier that’s sent to directors — so that teachers can learn where to go for support.”
As an Advocacy Network member, Marks has also appreciated “learning the ins and outs, getting exposed to elected officials, and listening to what people have to express on The 9:30 Call.”
She was impressed by Massachusetts Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler and corresponded with him about her concerns about teachers’ mental health. Instead of sending a generic thank you letter, Tutwiler responded to the issues she raised.
There’s more work to do.
“We need to rebuild the reputation of the education field,” Marks says. “We were the heroes for a while during the pandemic, but we’ve been beaten down. Now we need to make this field more desirable, not just through education, but with a campaign that focuses on the positive things we do in early education and public education.
“We need to make people realize that early educators need to be paid more, to be honest about the fact that they are underpaid. I always joke with my family that I’m the lowest paid individual with a college degree.”
What else should policymakers and parents understand about early education?
“Children learn through play, not worksheets. It’s about learning social skills. It’s about social-emotional learning and being able to regulate behavior. That’s the most important thing. It’s great for children to be able to write their name, but that’s not the priority.
“If children can’t socially and emotionally regulate themselves all the other skills aren’t going to matter because they’ll constantly struggle with regulation. We need to work on that first. We do that through play. And then everything else comes.”
Play also helps build strong child-teacher relationships, letting children take the lead or helping them learn to take turns or learn what tone to use to communicate productively.
“That’s quality care, providing children with good examples, and letting children explore their interests.”
“Unfortunately, we live in a culture where sometimes parents do compete with each other over their children’s skills. Competition can be good, but comparing children and making them compete in their development is not good.”
Ask Marks about the future of early education, and she points to the need for more early educators and more work that’s done by teams.
“As a team, we can build a community, and early educators can work with public schools to make sure that we are teaching skills so that public school teachers don’t have to. We should all be working together.”