As a favour to a friend I decided to fill in for a kindergarten job. So while I was talked through the basics of teaching children, it seemed easy enough. My job was to teach them English and I was assigned the youngest class of the lot. I figured I love children, so how difficult could it get? I just had to sing and teach them a few basic English words. That can’t be hard.
Anyway, I was shown around and given my teaching material and told to go ahead and teach. And I’m like “I’m not sure what you teach kindergarten”. So they‘re like “oh don’t worry, just do some action songs and play with them”. That sounded like fun till I entered the class. I could hear a whole lot of wailing and I was so hoping it was not my class but I had no such luck. So here I am handed a class of three year olds wailing their heart out and all I wanted to do was run the other way. And I was left thinking how do I teach them anything when they are all just crying.
I guess it didn’t help that I was brown skinned. I can’t blame them. They have probably not seen anyone darker than pale yellow! So the minute they saw me they wailed extra hard! And that did not buy me any brownie (no pun intended) points with the caretakers of that class.
If looks could kill, trust me between the caretakers and the children I sure would have been dead! I mean here they were trying to calm the kids down but the minute I walked anywhere near them they all just pointed fingers at me and cried. Yeah, I was the new female Gargamel in town! It was jus nine thirty and I was already looking forward to the end of the day. What made it even more difficult was the fact that I could not speak a word of Chinese. So how on God’s earth am I supposed to calm them? They didn’t like the way I looked and i couldn’t even soothe them in a language they understand. I understood helplessness to the fullest extent then! And the caretakers assigned to my class did not speak a word of English either. So there was no way of knowing if what I was doing was right or wrong.
My second class was slightly better, they were older children. So they were not wailing! I had a guide to take me through my first day and she taught me a song in the class and then I was expected to immediately memorize that and teach it to the kids. I just turned around and said “but I just heard you recite that to me like ten minutes back. I don’t even remember the words”. Not just teach, sing. Sing! Hmmm, nobody said nursery rhymes had to be melodious! And she turns around and says but don’t you know ‘one lil, two lil, three lil Indians’. (As an aside you could almost hear me say you bet I know a lot more than three Indians.) But I managed to keep a straight face. The last I was in a kindergarten was twenty-five years back! And for better or worse I was taught Jack and Jill went up the hill and twinkle twinkle little star.
There is a break at eleven. It’s lunch time for the children. And I watched the caretakers give them their lunch while the others were putting out their beds. I too just wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep. So after putting the children to bed, we went to have lunch during which I was taught a few more games for my afternoon classes.
I hate it when someone forces me to wake up, so imagine twenty, three year olds forced to wake up. Each one of them was crying for their mom! I could totally get it. I myself would have thrown a hissy fit. My sympathies were with them but how do you make them stop crying? I was at a total loss. This was definitely not my area of expertise. But give them some yoghurt and distract them and they were good to go.
While I am writing this bit, I need to mention my princess. She was the only one who gave me a chance. She watched me for a long time before she made her move. She had this air about her, a bit snooty, very well mannered. She sure was the boss in this class. As soon as she sized me up and decided it was better to be on my side the others felt slightly more comfortable. She would always stand right beside me no matter what and if I did not pay her any attention then she would demand it. And her genetics were brilliant! She was so adorable, cute and gorgeous. Now I know why teachers back in school had pets. She had me floored. I was also allowed to give them English names. I had decided on Diana, yep after Princess Diana!
Of course I felt sorry for some of the children. They should not have been there from 9 -5. They were too young. But what knocked my breath off was how everything was catered to their needs. Their toilets and wash basins hardly came up to my knee! I was so fascinated! You can’t blame me. I’ve never been inside a kindergarten in like two decades. Back in the day, it was not so cool!
So here are a few of my insights
1. Kindergarten is a very expensive affair and so parents here are opting to have only one child even though that law has opened up enough to allow two single-child parents to have a second baby.
2. The kids here have six people to spoil them silly and when they grow up they have six people to take care of.
3. Most kids are picked up by their grand-parents/ aayis (ayahs) and they practise the 9-5 work week already and they are only three years old!
4. They charge heavily claiming to be international schools who teach English but they have people from places like Albania teaching them. I mean the guy who hired me could hardly string one coherent sentence in English and he was teaching!
That said, I have heard some pretty scary tales of kindergartens where parents have been so mad at a teacher because one of the kids cut off a bit of hair of their child and the parent did not even realize until two days later. And when they did, they deemed it fit enough to throw hot water on the teacher’s face! There was also this parent who sent an unapproved driver to pick up the child from kindergarten and the teacher refused to send the child with that person. Later the parent came and went on an abusing spree till the teacher apologised! This in a country where kindergartens across were prone to killings last year.
But all said and done teaching was not my cup of tea, never was, but it’s always good to experiment new ways of spending your time in a whole new city. Gives me some perspective. Anyway the one person who had the most amount of fun in all this was my husband. He could not wipe the smirk off his face while I was practising
‘Teddy bear, teddy bear turn around
Teddy bear, teddy bear touch the ground...’
