Adventures in ECE

Gotta love it when you get to work with people that don’t really pay attention.

One day, I had a new person working in my room. She was having a great time sitting at an activity table with a little girl…. and I was trying to keep track of the other 10.

I was sitting at the cutting table, where 2 kids were cutting with scissors.

Great activity, that… good for hand eye motor skills.

Not so good, when kids start pulling things off shelves and creating a rucus …and the other staff can’t be bothered to pay any attention at all.

I turned my head to break up a fight happening in the car centre and sure enough, one of the little darlings at the scissor table made use of the opportunity to cut her hair.

She managed to cut about an inch off a hunk in the back …..  which is somewhat less ambitious than I was when I was that age - I managed to chop my hair to the scalp a few days before I was to be the ringbearer in my aunt’s wedding.

I guess it could have been worse…. thank goodness the mom was cool with it!

 The concept of sharing can tend to be very black and white for 3 year olds…

Children are taught to share. If they want to use a toy that another child is using they ask to share. If a child comes to ask and use a toy that they are using, they should share. Now the grey area….child A has a toy that they just got off the shelf- child B now wants to use it-so child B goes and asks child A to share-child A says NO because they just got the toy off the shelf-child B goes to a teacher and says that child A is not sharing-teacher then steps in and makes child A share the toy—

Child A had the toy taken away unfairly under the pretence of sharing and then just takes the toy back from child B while using the phrase “you need to share” as a reason to take the toy back. As a teacher, who has witnessed the entire act-from child A getting the toy first, to them getting it back, I’m asking you who would you allow to play with the toy?

*Just for the record, I sided with child A–I explained to child B that they had to wait 5 minutes to play with the toy and told child A to explain to the teacher next time that they had just gotten the toy themselves.*

As a recent (okay it’s been a year or so, but whatever) graduate of Early Childhood Education (ECE) and as someone who is new to the workforce as an ECE, I have in the past few weeks, been privileged enough to encounter some highly interesting and somewhat hilarious (if not somewhat gross and unfortunate for me anyway) stories and events that take place at my job. I am planning to write about my place of employment, the kids who make my job what it is and other general things relating to ECE. I would try and promise not to include the details of some stories that may not be entirely stomach-worthy, but I won’t, cus really where’s the fun in that…and besides, without the gory details, you just won’t be able to get the full effect of what I deal with on basically a daily basis.