Thank goodness I’m not a preschool teacher!
Bam! Clatter! Crash! Waaaa! I turned around and saw a two year old (I know now that his name is Khamla) shoving his snack over the table, the floor becoming a mess of Nutella sticks. The sound of Khamla crying while I kneeled down, trying to scrape the nutella off the floor, three other kids toddling off somewhere and one drooling on the floor. Just how did I end up here, babysitting two-year-olds?!
I spent the entire first six years of my life in Vientiane, Laos, and went to a Montessori school called AIMS. Then, I moved to the US when I was six and hadn’t gotten a chance to visit Vientiane again. So, when I relocated to Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, I had a chance to visit Laos again because it was very close, just a 3.5 hour flight. During the summer, when I was 12, we connected with the principal at AIMS and my parents asked her if I could assist the teachers there. And so that is how I ended up teaching the preschool students at my former school.
I started off with the nursery school class, which were mostly two to three year olds. Most of the time they would be adorable angels and were the sweetest, cutest kids ever. But other times they were rowdy and wild, running around with milk dribbling out of their mouths. They would also cry like an ambulance siren, except it doesn’t pass until you give the child what it wants.
One time a kid spilled rice all over the floor while doing an activity where they had to scoop rice into a bowl. I was trying to clean it up with a broom, but a student, who was next to me, rushed to get another broom and accidentally spread the rice all over the room with a swoosh!
Driven by curiosity, the kids would wander around the room, trying one activity for five seconds before moving on to the next. They would always want to color and read with me. Only the first two days did I get to work with them, and although they could be annoying at times, overall they were the sweetest children, always trying their best to help me. But the following days would be quite different.
On the third day at the school, I was assigned to the preschool class which consisted of four to six year olds. There were almost twenty of them, and it was incredibly difficult in the first 2 days with them, because the kids didn’t trust me at all. They didn’t do anything when I asked, like to wash hands before eating or cleaning up for circle time. They just stubbornly said, “No!”. But, I refused to give up and spend the next two weeks being pushed around by kids ten years younger than me!
I remember one student in the class who just couldn’t sit still for more than a minute, and then he’d wander off somewhere else, maybe climbing chairs or tables, or hiding behind the crevice of a couch. He was the kid that the teacher asked me to watch particularly. Whenever he wandered off somewhere, I was to bring him back to his work, and help him with it. Sounds easy? As if!
He could not sit down and work on something for more than ten seconds before jumping up and down, staring at the ceiling and talking to who knows what. I grabbed his wrist, and firmly told him, “This is work time, Somphone. Go back to your work.” But he wouldn’t budge, so I would pull him back to his work, or if it didn’t work, pick him up and carry him. But whenever I did that, he would start wailing, and because I didn’t want him to disturb the class, I put him down gently, trying to coax him into going back to his work. But the minute I put him down he stops crying, and I realize that he was not crying, just whining very convincingly.
Inside I was sighing, drained of my energy even though it was just morning. How am I ever going to get him back to work? But then, the savior appeared, Teacher Joy. She gently picked him up, took him to his work, and got him to focus! In her hands, Somphone never whined or cried, and would follow her words.
It was here when I first realized how difficult the job of preschool teachers were, and that I could never imagine myself becoming one. They are incredibly patient and kind, and know when to scold, and when to not.
On the first few days, I wracked my brain. How could I win the kids’ trust? What special thing did I have that Teacher Joy didn’t have? It was my extensive knowledge on number counting and TikTok trends. Whenever the boys would start singing trending songs on social media, or chatting about the new roblox update, I would join them, and try to relate to them. Also, whenever the kids would do a difficult activity, like arranging the numbers from 1–100 or finding the missing alphabet letter, I would help them learn.
Even though I could not imitate Teacher Joy and suddenly become a mature, patient adult, I became someone like an older sister they could relate to and depend on.
So by the end of the 2 weeks, I was “Teacher Aki”.
If there was one thing I learned from this experience, it would be how hard the job of preschool teacher is. If you are too strict, they will rebel and become devils, but if you are too sweet, they won’t get any work done. Just making sure they won’t misbehave and hurt themselves is a tough task, but making sure the kids learn something in the time they are in school is a big burden, and I felt it pressures teachers to become stricter. The hard part is achieving the balance between strict and sweet, and to become strict or sweet when the situation calls for it.
Looking back, on the first day of helping out at the school, I felt I was only a burden to the other teachers because I didn’t know where anything was, and I couldn’t help the kids. But on the last day, I felt proud of myself, because I had managed to become sort of a real teacher, helping the kids and teachers in any way. I never thought I would ever miss these devilishly rambunctious kids, not after only 2 weeks with them, but I actually felt sad to leave them. On the last day, I felt I had aged 10 years. I am even more patient than I was before, and I learned how to care. Oh! I also learned, thank goodness I am not a preschool teacher.
