Wanna be a kindergarten teacher?
Of course you do! Kids are soooo cute and it’s basically just playing all day right?
Step this way my friend and I’ll introduce to the world of a EC professional.
Oh yes… That child. Yes, he is screaming and yes he does look in danger of bursting a blood vessel. Don’t worry he does that every day. You see, because of his age he is not yet securely attached to his mother and he believes that every time she leaves she will not come back. He thinks this may be the last time he ever sees her. So yes he’s screaming.
All he needs is for you to hold him while he screams, kicks and flails about in such a way you will get bruising or drop him
You’re cool with that right?
Shush now it’s mat time. Oh yay the kids favourite song is playing. No shirking you must do the actions every time no matter how many times the song gets played. Don’t worry by the end of today you’ll know it so well you won’t be able to not sing it.
Now joy of joys it’s free play time! This is the fun part. Except not for you.
You’ve got to concentrate on setting up thoughtfully planned out "learning experiences" that will get messed up and not go at all the way you thought
Then you will have to
clean up the mess as well as…
dealing with that conflict in the corner between two kids who cannot possibly share out the blocks,
convince the half naked girl in the sand pit to get back into her trousers,
mop up the dye someone’s spilled on the floor (and over themselves)
hang up 1,000 paintings and take 3 billion photos, all the while…
trying to have a meaningful combination with these hyper lisping manic small creatures because that’s how learning and assessments happen in kindergarten.
Somewhere in there you need to make time for these little wrigglers to eat
Of course this time will need to be monitored meticulously to make sure the kid with the deadly nut/dairy/egg/gluten/fish allergy doesn’t eat/touch/breathe in the vicinity of something that could/definitely will kill them.
On top of all this, you have to check they’re not eating too much/too little/ the person next to them’s lunch and that all the waste that possibly can be recycled/composted/fed to worms/turned into fantastic art is properly directed
Someone’s too hot! Someone’s too cold!
Someone’s painting the bathroom wall!
Finally when the end of the day comes and you’ve filed art work, written up assessments, researched lesson plans, replenished
resources and sorted out the requests for placements you still have to answer to all and sundry who question how you do your job and the various ways you’re going wrong.
This includes professional development lecturers, ministry people who’ve never done a day in a classroom, parents, university students and anybody with an internet connection who picked you as a sounding off target.
And you know what? Even after all of this you still come to work with a smile on your face. Why? Because kids are cute? No.
Because they say the darndest things? Well, partly but mostly because that boy screaming blue murder calmed down because of you and had a really enjoyable rest of the day. Those obnoxious songs that the kids sang over and over actually really helped them with their understanding of language and formation of words.
Today children learnt social skills, artistic skills, gross and fine motor skills, language, math and science.Even better they learnt that they have a place and that their voice matters.
That they will be listened to when they have something to say. That they will be held when they hurt, fed when they’re hungry and stimulated when they’re curious. They learn that their needs matter. They learn they are worthy of being loved.
So soldier on early childhood teacher. It’s not said nearly often enough butyour work matters a great deal.
