The Preschool and Me Part II

So Reggio Emilio, as I understand it, is basically: give children freedom and beautiful things and they will create things that will amaze us. It was mostly the freedom part that I was in line with. I didn't want to teach a particular "curriculum" to children - I thought that would be boring for me and boring to them. The way I described my philosophy was "say the kids are playing outside and there's a bug that they find that they're interested in. Well, we would spend the next day, week or month, however long they were interested, studying that bug or more bugs. We would see where things take us."

And so I got the job. At first I was a little lost, and still thinking in antiquated ways. When one child did something mean to another, I insisted the child who hurt the other apologize. But another teacher stopped me and explained that at this school, we asked the injured child what they would like the other person to do. In this case, it was give them a hug. That was often the requested response. "Interesting..." I thought.

Eventually, I brought eggs to the children for some sort of project that I had come up with, and their interest in them brought us to the Egg Project. For the next couple of months, we focused on eggs, their yolk and different aspects of them.

During the summer we spent each week doing different things, more curriculum based than the school year, oddly enough. That fall, with the new class, I brought in a map of California, just to show the kids. They honed in on Lassen Volcanic National Park, and the Volcano Project was born. On and off for the rest of the school year, we learned about volcanoes together. It was amazing. I cherish the experience.

But it wasn't just teaching that I miss. I miss learning things about that age group. There was one afternoon where the girl pictured above and I spent a long time just sitting in a chair together, her in my lap, watching the other kids ride around on the tricycles. I learned a lot that day about the importance of just having quiet time on occasion, just enjoying the company of another person without words, just nice and comforting with her on my lap, relaxed. She'd been going through kind of a tough time - her best friend's mother had been trying to break them up, since she thought the girl was kind of a bad influence. But it was nice. I hope wherever that girl is, she's doing well. She'd be ... ten by now.

I miss preschool teaching ... but that's not quite my career path at this point. It's not the most stable of jobs, it doesn't pay well, and it's thoroughly exhausting - which is the main reason why I left the profession. But it is rewarding to the soul.