Daily Life of a Teacher - Day One

ChristinaMarie
May 1, 2018
3 min read

Welcome to the Daily Life of a Teacher! Join me as I hold nothing back, except for what I cannot legally talk about, and give you an inside view of just what it is like to be a Preschool Teacher.

Let’s start today’s blog with some truth. Monday’s suck when you work with children. They have spent all weekend with their parents and have forgotten everything you have ever taught them. And this does not only apply to their lessons, but also to their behaviors. Your classroom rules have gone out the window, their respect for you has gone out the window, and they just assume they can get away with everything. Basically, you have to start over from square one.

On the plus side, as far as Mondays go, today was not completely terrible. The worst that happened did not involve the children, but management.

Anyone who has ever worked in any kind of childcare field will know just how hard it is to get anything from management. And today in particular was impossible for me. The Links to Learning curriculum involves sending home a folder with each child at the end of every month giving the parents an overview of what their student learned over the month and what they will be learning during the next month, as well as some examples of either art work or activities that they did over the month. So, today being the last day of the month I was supposed to be able to send my children’s folders home with them… Emphasis on supposed. I had everything ready… But when it came time for me to get my needed pictures for the folders and my activity descriptors… Let’s just say I had to let the parents know that they would be able to pick up their student’s folders tomorrow.

And just to make things better, each classroom has a certain teacher to student ratio based upon the age of the children. And my class is a double ratio class. Meaning that two teachers are needed because of the number of children I have on roll. My assistant teacher has been filling in in another classroom due to our low staffing issues - a lot of teachers quit - so I have been having to bump my students to another classroom in order to keep me within a one teacher ratio. And they ended up promoting one of my students to the class above mine… And then ended up promoting three new children into my classroom. So, that did not help one bit when it comes to my ratio issues. There is nothing more stressful to a teacher than sudden changes to your classroom roster and not being told until the last minute. It feels unprofessional, and it makes you look unprofessional to the parents. And we Preschool teachers are especially treated unprofessionally since a lot of people don’t consider us to be “real” teachers, just glorified babysitters. Which, as I stated in my intro to this series, could not be farther from the truth. Although, to end on a positive note, I will say one particular person who is new to our management team instantly when I asked if they knew when I could expect my needed items told me they would find out and got back to me very quickly with everything that I needed. I know if I need anything done, this is the person to go to.

So, my advice to all my fellow teachers out there, stay strong everyone, remember that no matter what your day throws your way you are a trained and qualified professional and no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Treat yourself like the professional you are.

And my advice to all of you in early childhood education management, communicate with your teachers, they will greatly appreciate it. Even if you truly had to make a last minute decision, tell them the moment you made that decision. It is a lot less stressful when you honestly come to us and let us know why you had to make that decision. Honesty and communication go a long way.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the first day of my new series. Come back tomorrow for more!