Wednesday 16th May 2018
I had been doing a lot of networking while I was doing my agency work and as much I loved doing it, the inconstancy with the hours was beginning to take it's toll on me. Although my wife had been working at a permanent centre, (incidentally, she also worked as an Educator) the constant floating from one place to the other was not working for me. On the upside though, I got to experience lots of different centres which in turn, allowed me to learn lots of different teaching styles. My teaching style is a combination of all of them plus my own unique addition.
My Wife suggested that I apply at the centre three doors down from our place. I wasn't to keen on the idea at first because it was just to close to home but then, the economics of the idea eventually hit home. If i worked closer to home, we only needed one car which meant only one car registration every year. Now the thought of saving $800 dollars a year plus servicing costs and petrol was a huge incentive for me to finally agree to bite the bullet and go and apply at the centre across the road three doors away from my front door.
I walked in on that first day ready for anything and introduced myself to the bubbliest person I had ever met in my life to date. Her enthusiasm was totally infectious and straight away she put me at easy. She asked me to come back for a trial day and with in a couple of hours, she made her mind up that she wanted me. My thinking at the time was if I could get 2-3 permanent days working at the centre, I would make up the rest with agency days which paid more (assuming i got the call to work). Little by little, the Director at my permanent centre wore me down and in the end had me agreeing to working 37.5hrs a week with her. Seriously, it was so hard to say no to this powerhouse of energy.
So there I was, working in a centre three doors away from my front door 5 days a week. I began in the toddlers room which was kind of at the back of the centre so we were pretty much left to our own devices. The room ran smoothly under the direction of our room leader and each Educator worked together as a team. I remember thinking in those early days that if there were any cracks in this centre, they were hiding them very well.
Its sadly a fact, in most centres there will always be a certain amount of the to many chief's theory. Problems sometime arise and need to be dealt with before they escalate into something a lot more worse. In this new centre, I hadn't seen anything like over inflated ego's being an issue. Every team member new what their role was and worked together as a team to achieve that goal.
The following year, it was decided I'd moved up to the Kinder Room and become the Assistant to the Kinder Teacher in the room. It was my preferred age group at the time to work with as I seem to relate to them in ways other Educators hadn't been able to. In a strange twist, the Kinder Teacher decided to leave and I was left to run the room pretty much. I mean, for appearance sakes they had a Diploma Qualified person step in from time to time and do the programming but it was essentially me running the days activities. It is worth remembering, at this time I was still only a Cert 3 and here I was trying to run a Kinder Program. It was decided during this time that I should consider studying my Diploma. I agreed that it was probably the time to do that as some were beginning to ask why is a Cert 3 running a Kinder room?
Thankfully, the parents were very patient with me and excepted some of my earlier mistakes because they looked beyond them and focused on how the children related to me. Some of those very parents are still friends with me today. One of them is actually one of my best friends. I had her two daughters in my room back then and all these years later I still get the chance to care for them even now that their two amazing 9 year old's who continue to bring so much joy to my life.
Eventually, we got a new Kinder Teacher and it was such a relief for me personally because she was amazing. I learnt so much from her and she gave me the confidence to go off the next year and run my own room, legitimately.
The room I took over was Junior Kinder which later became a Kinder 1 room. The children ranged from the age of three and a half to four. I had finally found my niche. This age group suited me so much because their wasn't the pressure of knowing that they were going to school the following year and I could concentrate on not only teaching the children literacy, numeracy, shapes and colours but i could also concentrate on lots of mini projects.
Becoming a room leader was like reaching the summit of Mt Everest for me. I was always told that I'd never amount to much in my life, even living beyond the age of 18 was going to be an achievement in my life. Yet here I was, working in a profession that I loved so much in charge of an amazingly beautiful room in an exceeding centre. The parent feedback continued to roll in and my reputation for doing things a little differently, began to spread. I remember being so proud of my first room that I'd spend most of my waking hours in it. I'd go in on the weekends to change things around, set up new experiences for the children or just to catch up on paperwork. The room was like my child, I was so very proud of it and I wanted to reflect that as much as I could.
It was getting that way, the following year that the parents didn't want to move their children up into the next room which was actually the Kinder 2 room for fear that they would miss something in my room. Halfway through that second year of running that Kinder 1 room, I had so many children that I had to be moved into a bigger room. I had children not wanting to move from my room and I had others waiting for spots to come into my room from the room below. The solution was to take over the old Toddler 1 room and make it a Kinder 1 room. The most exciting part about that was I was allowed to choose an assistant.
For the last six months of that year no one could take the smile off my face. My room was running amazing, I was recieving some mind blowing feedback and I got to work with another of my best friends.
Maida was an amazing Educator and more importantly, a beautiful human being. She would walk into the room every day and greet myself and the children with a smile that was a very welcomed addition to the room. As an assistant, well, we were more like equals in the room. I always knew if I couldn't be in the room for one reason or another, I knew the room was always in safe capable hands. My time working in our Kinder 1 room together with Maida, was probably the happiest I had ever been in my life to date.
It was also during this time, that I transitioned from the old me to the new me, but I will save that story for another blog.
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