So our local daycare center (where Sweet Pea goes to PreK, having been at the same center since she was seven weeks old) needed a couple of extra hands last week. Since I needed a couple of extra dollars, I agreed, then found out I would be working in the two-year-old room.
"The two's" is the hardest room in any daycare center. Besides the potty training, two-year-olds have the emotions of a four-year-old without the vocabulary skills to back them up. They can't express themselves, they have virtually no short-term memory and their attention spans are almost non-existent. Their brains are still developing those things. Anyone who works in childcare should understand that.
The center owner asked me to evaluate a couple of the children and the room as a whole while I was there. Unfortunately, one of the boys they wanted me to evaluate was only there on Wednesday, so I only had one day with him. The director wants to have him assessed, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing wrong with him that coming home with me for a couple of weeks wouldn't fix. He clearly has no loving, consistent discipline. One little boy may have serious emotional problems and another one mental problems. The rest are just your average two-year-olds, and therein lies the problem.
You see, the teachers at the center are more interested in gossiping with each other than interacting with the children. Their expectations are also WAY out of whack. The teacher who was there for two days (her last two days, which may have impacted her behavior) expected the kids to sit at the tables for 15 minutes while she changed diapers and then yelled at them when they started to move around and argue. Are you KIDDING ME? When you need the kids to sit at the table while you change diapers/fix lunch plates/set out nap mats, you put a couple of large table toys on each table. Or maybe some manipulatives or something. They CANNOT sit patiently. They are TWO.
The solution with the two-year-old room is this: you need three teachers for twenty students instead of the state mandated ratio of one teacher for ten students. One teacher should be the "utility player", the one who oversees diaper changing and potty schedules and fixes lunch plates, while the other two actually engage with the children. Lead songs, read books. The other teachers were amazed that I could get 15 out of 20 kids sitting down and paying attention to me for as long as they did. They also didn't understand why I didn't go out of my mind singing "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee" four times in a row. (Hint: Kids like repetition!)
The problem, as always, isn't the kids... it's the grown-ups.
And the viruses.
Because this weekend I have some kind of wicked stomach flu, with the nausea and the runs and the spiky hallucinatory fevers and you'd think I'd enjoy that more, right?
Dude--if you ever want to open your own daycare--lets talk. I think you would rock.
Posted by: Steve | May 29, 2007 at 11:20 PM
:::::laughing hysterically:::::
Posted by: Stacy | May 30, 2007 at 06:34 PM