Living with a Preschool Teacher
This article is written by Anna Gonzalez’s (Maple classroom) high school daughter and is dedicated to all committed and passionate preschool teachers everywhere!
In comparison to coming home from work and being on long, constant phone calls, my mother comes home to plan what I refer to as “meaningful arts and crafts”. Preschool teachers are constantly trying to find a way to make learning as fun and effective as possible, and being in the midst of it, you realize just how passionate about their jobs they are.
To live in harmony with the hectic schedules of preschool teachers, you must be prepared for the following things:
1) Going on a walk and then coming home with handfuls of pine cones and rocks because they believe it will be useful for future projects they plan
2) Going to the craft store more often than the grocery store
3) If they aren’t planning lessons months in advance, they are answering or sending emails to and from parents
4) Having to help them cut out countless animals, shapes, and letters out of construction paper
5) Being asked to try out an activity they plan to do with their students to see if it makes sense (and trying not to take offense because they are seemingly comparing your intelligence to that of a preschooler)
6) Having an excessive amount of paint, glue, and paper in your household
7) You’ll get nursery rhymes stuck in your head from time to time (don’t try to fight the urge to sing them, you won’t win)
8) You’ll become a pro at tracing and cutting things
9) Pompoms everywhere? Even if you don’t remember buying them, they manage to appear everywhere.
10) Beware, when PS teachers get home, their patience after working with kids all day won’t be very high. So, help them out as much as you can and be patient!
During your childhood, there’s never a dull moment around the preschool teacher (my mother in my case); there is always something new to talk about or to do. Arts and crafts and science experiments are almost always going on. If you live with a preschool teacher, you can probably recite the recipe for play-dough in your sleep. In all honesty, they are the most creative people I’ve ever met—there is no doubt in my mind that being a teacher is not something everyone can do. The amount of passion they have for their job is astronomical.
