I've Got an Issue: Early Childhood Teacher Bashers

School for little kids is just like a glorified babysitting program. What an easy job for the teacher: you just give them a juice box and watch them take a nap. Anyone can do that…

Offended? I am. The first few years of a child’s life are when they learn some of the most basic and valuable lessons of their life. Think about it, that’s when you spoke your first words, learned to read, how to count and the concept of right versus wrong. These lessons were not innate. Someone had to bring them through the process of learning these essential notions that you use for your entire life. Though many of us do not remember school in our early years, what you learned is definitely still with you, I promise. If you’re reading this you’re living proof; you obviously have learned how to read. And I bet it was when you were very young and hardly even remember. We so easily take for granted our early years. Just because many of us do not remember all that happened during that time, does not mean that those years are any less worthy. To me these years are some of the most difficult to teach because as a teacher, you are so often and easily forgotten by the child. But it is the knowledge that you have taught that child something that will stick with them forever, whether they remember you or not is not important. The knowledge gained through what they probably consider playing is a lifelong skill that they will have acquired. Much of the way a child learns seems like play to adults. And it should, stacking colored blocks on top of one another only to bulldoze them over is not rocket science. But to a child, he is learning to carefully steady his clumsy hand while placing a block on top of another block, choosing the right color to fit his pattern, creating a brilliant construction that he envisions in his mind. He is putting into reality what he imagines in his head. How can he make it bigger and better without it falling? His problem solving skills are being refined by each block. Can he add another block to this side without having this pile fall? No, he must first build up this other side. Then once he has finished, he steps back with great satisfaction, and gathers others to see his work. Then switching from his fine motor skills used to create his block building, to his gross motor skills, he destroys it all. Body awareness, strength, power, it’s all being unknowingly discovered. As a teacher, you can’t get frustrated that he did not build it more perfectly or when destroying it the blocks made a mess of the room. Think of all that hard work that child put into his masterpiece, and what fun he had destroying it. All the while, developing and growing. So, see? To every child’s play there is much more at work. As an early childhood teacher you observe children in their play, guiding them to learn more through a fun activity. Every activity becomes a learning opportunity. It takes patience, persistence, love and so much more. It takes a special gift, a love to watch a child grow and succeed, even at an early age. Think you can do it? Try it. I dare you.