Your alarm rings, you look at the time and it’s exactly 6:00am. You rub your eyes, do a couple of light stretches beside your bed and proceed to take a shower. You get out of the shower and try to persuade yourself to put in a little bit more effort in what you’re going to wear to work today.
But after giving it much thought, you decided to go with your worn-out hoodie and leggings. You think to yourself, “might as well wear something that will endure the snot and tears later” and you’re ready to start the day.
Really? Not quite. Your day doesn’t start until you’re standing in front of the school gate, greeting parents and welcoming their kids to school
As you make your way to school, you pass by your usual Nasi Lemak stall and decide to get one for yourself. You are feeling quite hungry that morning from skipping dinner yesterday. You remembered how exhausted you were the day before.
A new kid has just enrolled into your classroom and as usual, the parent leaves, the child gets separation anxiety, starts throwing fits and tantrums in the classroom and you have to endure all of it – the crying, screaming, pushing, kicking because you’re a preschool teacher.
You arrive at school just on time, 7:30am. The gate opens and you greet the security guard. What do you see? Your new student has come early today. You take a deep breath and tell yourself, “I can do this.”
Luckily the new kid behaved pretty okay today. None of the crying or screaming that you witnessed yesterday. He was happily playing and getting along with his new friends. You do your duty as today’s greeter and stand at the school gate, smiling and wishing everyone a “Good Morning!”. At 8:30am, the gate closes and your class is about to start.
The first lesson of every day is circle time. You go through the torn books in your classroom library to see which one can still be used for storytelling. You chose “Three Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf”, a classic. Although you’re pretty sure that you’ve read the story to the kids 1100 times, they still find it enjoyable and love it whenever you start huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf does.
Circle time over, time for snack time. You serve the kids biscuits and milk, while they are quietly eating, you decide to…Oh no, one kid has spilled milk all over the floor and soaked her school uniform too. You call the school aunty to clean up the mess, look for an extra uniform in the principal’s office, and get back on track.
After snack time, it’s time to teach the second lesson of the day which is going to be Science. Today’s lesson is on farm and wild animals which isn’t so bad. Kids generally love learning about animals so you don’t feel so stressed about it.
You take out your lesson plan, go through it one more time before beginning the lesson. For the introduction of the lesson, you decided to use animal models and the children are immediately captivated. They were fully engaged and happily naming each animal, making its movements and mimicking its noises. You decided to sing ‘Old Macdonald Had a Farm’ with the kids, an all-time favourite.
By the end of the lesson, you felt as if you had managed to achieve all the learning intentions which is a blessing for it only happens once in a blue moon.
For your final lesson, you take your kids out to the school playground for some fun before the end of the schooling day. After repeating the playground with the kids, you let them out and it was like, all hell breaks loose.
Kids love the playground. You love the playground. You enjoy seeing the children interact with each other and just having fun for half an hour or so. It was a windy day and it actually felt calming to be outdoors….Oh no, one kid has fallen and scabbed his knee. You rush to carry him to the school nurse and ask your assistant to look over the others while you’re inside. It was just a small scab, the nurse cleaned it, put some antiseptic cream and placed a bandaid on his knee, he is good to go.
Time to go home! You stand by the gate again to send each child home and say goodbye. The new kid’s mom asked how he was doing and you told her he seemed fine and was socializing very well. His mom smiled and looked super pleased upon hearing that. That felt good, especially after the dad of the kid with the scabbed knee scoffed you off for “not watching out for his child”.
After the daily sanitizing of the classroom and preparing lessons for tomorrow’s class, your working hours end at 5:30am and you make your way home.
As soon as you arrived home, you immediately took a shower and got ready for bed by 9:30pm. As the back of your head meets the pillow, you realised something…the Nasi Lemak that you bought this morning, is still nicely tucked in your handbag.
As a new dad, I really appreciate the hardworking teachers who are always there for busy parents! Thank you so much for your effort in caring for each child. It also reminds me of this article I read just yesterday about what schools do to keep the kinddy and my baby’s school environment clean https://www.thechildrenshouse.com.my/how-keep-child-healthy-preschool/
Thank you again teacher :”)