Kindergarten, what's lacking? ( just some of them)

I’m back.

Alhamdulillah.

To continue my thoughts on being a kindergarten teacher, I first must make a disclaimer:

I am still young and I know nothing about an adult life. I am still new in the education field. I humbly believe that my writing will invite critics for seniors ( I welcome comments and critics). But please bare in mind, this is just my humble opinion and thoughts. It is not 100% correct and can be widely accepted by everybody. I am writing to express how grateful I feel about having the chance to be with the kids and listen to parents. Being able to sit around teachers and understand their thoughts. Being able to work under a system to understand the expectation people have for kids nowadays.

Okay,, now we shall continue.

Please do not get me wrong.. When I enter my workplace, I do have the intention to teach and guide my students to be better every day. However, my priority for the five-years folks is attitude and character. Yes, I will teach them on how to read, how to count and how to write. I believe, they need to learn, but somehow, I hate to push my students too hard.

So far, my students are having a hard time to focus in class, yet the management is expecting the students to be able to read individually every day. A few weeks ago, we had an examination week. Believe it or not, the five-years have exams- 5 subjects. And their exam questions are like standard 1( seven years old) exam questions.

Out of 15 kids in my class, only two of them were able to do it independently. While all others were struggling and I need to guide each one of them to make sure they can write on the paper. Five-years-old, I wonder do they really expect them to get 100 on the examination? Based on my observation, they don’t need an exam paper, or at least, they don’t need that level of the exam paper.

Am I only who think this way? For God sake, they are just 5-years old, just let them play. Learning is one thing, I have no objection about teaching the to do this and that, but I just can’t be strict and force them to read and write while I know they just really want to play with their friends. I let my students play when they want but actively participate when we have a class activity. 15 minutes of concentration in class is wonderful but two hours of listening and staring at me, I have no idea why we need to force them to do so.

Haha, I realized I am being very emotional when expressing these. I know this time, my writing is hard to follow. But I’ll try to explain why I am thinking this way.

Okay, this:

We, the teachers, have lesson plans and every week, we need to teach and introduce certain things to kids, I am okay with that, but every week, we need to introduce more new things.. Plus, in less than 3 hours a days, we need to recap, introduce new thing( like seriously something really new), and have each individual to read, one person at a time ( I have 15 kids in my class), two books (okay). We need to finish that every single day. I don’t know is it just me or what but, to be honest, that only is a tough job to do.

In less than 3 hours, I need to complete that and you now what’s missing?

1)Student’s curiosity

When I am introducing something new, the students will start asking questions and tell stories, ( imagine how slow students speaks sometimes, and how hard for me to understand what they really mean). Personally, I hate to tell them to keep quiet while I am teaching, I rather answer each of them and encourage them to speak. But do I have time for that? NO! And what happens when I entertain them? → my reading record is incomplete → Management will blame you ( tell you how bad you are at handling your class and time)

2) Student’s creativity

In their age, kids are supposed to develop creativity and us as teachers should encourage them to do so. However, when a teacher needs to rush things, I believe we won’t bother to let students show their creativity. We are being too strict on how things should be done ( because the principal and management already put things into places.) Being a teacher, I hate to force and push my students to do thing just in one way... Well, we know in life there are the different path to a destination. Come on, they are 5 years old, why do we need to be too firm on them?

3) Student’s self-esteem

I believe, in this day and age, most parents are busy with their job and hardly have time to be with their kids. Effective communication is becoming rare at home, sadly. I realize how bad children were being treated at home today. When they are excited to tell a story, the parent won’t listen. When they are asking the question, the parents are not eager to answer. How sad. But that’s the reality. Therefore, to me, why must we do the same at school? Why must we kill their self-confident when they are at school? Let them try to make their decision, don’t scare them, guide them. Don’t ask them to keep quiet and shut up, but rather entertain them up till a point where we know they need to now listen to us.

Unfortunately, we kill the important aspects in them that need to be developed. We are rushing thing on them and they are now stressed as a 5 years old. While in fact, what they are supposed to be doing is just play. Unless they are hurting or bothering their friends, being out of control, we need to train them. But seriously, why must we urge them to read and write and know everything at that age?

Just like one of the parents said to me:

I won’t push my son too hard because even if he scores excellently in his test, he won’t get anywhere either. Even if he is the best student here in terms of academic, nothing will change but he will look back and realize how stressful his childhood was. I am not hoping him to be genius, but just as good human being with moral values. I hate to see my so one day as someone smart academically but have no respect for others. I send him here to build his character because when he grow up, I won’t be able to shape him then. But knowledge, he will still have time for that.

That being said, I appreciate my experience at my workplace, but I am confident that I won't be teaching there for too long.. Sooner or later, I will change my direction.

23 Years-Old Kindergarten Teacher's Thoughts and Observation

 Alhamdulillah, at 23, I’ve gotten the chance to be in a kindergarten. Teaching kids the essentials skills and knowledge they need in life.

I once dream about being a kindergarten teacher because to me, I really want to be an important figure to shape the future generation. My childhood experience wasn’t perfect, but it is okay, I learned to move on. However, i won’t just let it go without making any effort to make other’s childhood better than mine.

When i got the job, I was so excited, and I am still now. Almost a month working with the children made me feel important. My job wasn’t easy. I admit, I almost quit for some reasons, but as for now, I am still there.

You know what, I love working with the kids but unfortunately, I discovered that I am not the best at being a kindergarten teacher ( at least not as the perfect teacher they want me to be). One of my training session was to observe how the senior teacher handle the children and manage her class. Believe me, she made it seems so easy to teach little kids.

I was very motivated when I came back from the training and very inspired to handle my class properly. However, I do realize that with my character and my personality, I won’t be able to be like the senior teacher. She has a very loud voice, makes it easy to grab the attention of the littles. I don’t have that. And when I want to shout, I have this horrible feeling of afraid, and scared that I might make my students shy away from me.

Yes, the students in my class need a firm teacher to discipline them. But I have no idea why it is so hard for be to be one. I don’t have the heart to look at their face and stay mad at them. Yes, I am there to make sure they are able to listen to teachers and behave in class, but I just can’t look at their innocent faces and raise my voice at them.

Especially when I handled the ‘parents and teachers meet’. I heard the stories from parents, about how they raise their kids and how their kids behave at home. I have this one parent came to me and directly ask me:

“So teacher, what advice do you want to give me?”

Oh wow, I have been a teacher for not even a month and seriously, I am not even married. Well, at first I thought he was trying to provoke, but seriously he was sincerely asking for suggestions. He mentioned that he feels guilty to his child for not spending enough time with him for giving more attention to his younger siblings, and for working days and nights and not having the chance to look after him, his child.

He told me that he was once raising his voice at his child at home because he can't stand his boy’s attitude. Yet, the boy innocently said,” Dad, please do not raise your voice at me, just now, at school, the teacher already mad at me for peeing in my pants. Why must you scold me too, now, at home?”

Honestly, I was touched, and can’t help but feel guilty that I unintentionally mad at him for peeing in the class. I didn’t really scold him, but maybe because I was surprised with the incident, so I asked him, “why didn’t you wear the diapers?”, but I believe, since he was already feeling very bad about himself plus I asked him that way, made him very feel very guilty, he took my expression very seriously.

Back to the parent’s question, I believe he knows how problematic his child is at school and how other students dislike his son’s behavior. Furthermore, almost every teacher think that they need to be more firm in order to discipline him. But now I understand that what the boy really need is attention and affection. The father told me, please not to be very firm with his child because at home, really the boy don’t have all the love he needs as a five-years-old boy.

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And I have another student, a problematic student who hard to sit and listen in class. Always running around and make noise while I am teaching. When I give him a book and work to do, he never finish. In addition, he will scribble the book or even tear the page. During the parent’s teachers meet, you have no idea how nervous I was to meet his parent and how do I tell his mom that her son is still unable to read and write. It turns out that his mom knows it and came to me and tell me,” The truth is, I never have time for my child”.  Well, I was shocked that she didn’t even blame me for her son’s disability, yet blame herself for that.

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I learned that parents have different expectations for each of their children. At that moment, I blame the school system for trying to push the teachers to make sure each students are at the same pace and they must finish the book according to its target timeline.

To be honest, I highly respect parents who appreciate and respect their kid’s pace in the learning process. I respect parents who sincerely admit their flaws and don’t put the blame entirely on teachers or their kids.

• I’m not sure where am I going with this writing, I’m so sorry, but I need a sleep now… InsyaAllah will have a continuing post on this. Regardless, hope there is(are) something to ponder upon from this.