Early Childcare

I have been working as a day to day substitute (relief) early childcare (preschool) teacher for a little over three weeks now.  It has become a very suitable replacement to working at Leuven, I've never looked back.  Basically the job begins, or rather has an 80% chance of beginning, each weekday morning at 7:45ish when I (maybe, here's where the 80% kicks in) get a call from Megan or Emma about a gig that day at such-and-such early childcare.  Unless I have a compelling reason to turn down the job, I take it and am off for 7-8 hours of fun with tiny humans.  

Fluid oozing, toy throwing, tag playing, block stacking, nap taking, nappy pooping, pick-me-up arms giving, little 0-4 year olds.  I'm sure you're familiar.

All in all, it's a fun job.  I get to see kids learn so much, though not in the way my secondary teaching background has made me used to.  These kids aren't learning academics, they're learning how to roll over and crawl, how to use their arms and legs to run and jump, how to make noises with their mouths, how to speaking english, how to make jokes (exploring the seemingly endless supply of humor within the topic of poop and pee--i remember doing that), and how to deal with inconvenient feelings like sadness, jealously, and anger.  They are little learning machines, and are indiscriminate, so I have to be careful.  I can't pick Emily up every time she looks up at me with those adorable little eyes and reaches her hands up high, for she is already learning that she can expect all the attention she wants with this little maneuver.  I shouldn't sit little 0 year old Zoe up on her bottom whenever she cries.  She needs to learn to roll over and crawl, to use those arms, or she might end up like Todd the bum-shuffler, whose hips are turned out at a worrisome angle from scooting around on his butt all day.  

Some of these kids have clearly learned that crying results in all the attention they want.  They have also learned that if they want to play tag with someone who doesn't want to play tag, grabbing a toy out of the abstainer's hand and running away with it will get them something almost as good.  Some of them have unfortunately been taught that screaming and whining will result in a suspension of consequences, and it falls to us at the center to try and re-teach no hitting 101 to some misguided 4 year olds.  

I get to see some pretty monumental moments in a human's history at the centers.  Like when Quinn negotiated his first ever whole spoonful of yoghurt into his mouth, or when Dov learned how to connect two Lego train cars together--the potential for an indefinitely long toy!  Or when I came back to Early Years Tory Street for the second day a week, and found out that a little boy who can't even speak intelligible language yet missed me.  I learned how little you have to do sometimes to matter a great deal in one persons life.