Personal Narrative: Early Childhood Education

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to teach young children. I knew I wanted to teach preschool when I dropped my cousins off at their school. It looked so fun and

Ever since I was younger I have always tried staying away from reading. The only person in my family that likes to read is my mom; however, she does not read often. Once she picks up a book, she cannot put it down. My dad on the other hand, never picks up a book. He and I are one in the same; we do not like reading because we have a hard time comprehending what we read. My brother also does not like to read. He does not like reading because he has a learning disability. My mom always had an extremely tough time getting him to read. Overall, my literacy experiences at home are few and far between.

When I was just 4 years old I went to Funtastik Preschool and Daycare. I went there for an entire year. It was a very fun school. Usually in the mornings I would get dropped off with all the other kids and all the kids would get to play inside with toys. Then we would have breakfast. After breakfast we went outside and played on the playground. After the playground we went inside to have a nap. Most of the time after a nap we would go and watch a movie on the carpet. Then we would go outside once again. At the end of the day we would go back on the carpet and watch another movie and wait for our parents to arrive to pick us up.

I have been a preschool teacher, teaching mixed age children from 18 months to 5 years, for over 10 years. I started as a work study employee, while attending the Community College of Philadelphia in 2006, to a part-time teaching assistant while attending Temple University in 2010. This led me to a lead-teacher position after graduation and then to a program coordinator. I have developed effective working relationships with children in the past years. This position has helped me improve my teamwork and interpersonal skills by cooperating with other teachers in planning teaching materials according to the Reggio Emilia approach and by sharing teaching resources. I decided that working with children, understanding and assisting in their education,

My whole life I felt love, but never like the love I experienced three years when I walked in the Lawrence County Developmental Center. The LCDC is the special needs program for the student of East Lawrence and I was chosen to be an aide my sophomore year. Most of the kids could not speak, if they could speak they still had problems communicating. I felt like I had walked into a totally different world, and that made me want to spend every free moment in the LCDC. My three years with those kids taught me the most incredible lesson: your life is what you make it.

My experiences working with children officially began in 2012 when I started working for One of A Kind Progressive Early Education. I worked with children of all ages, primarily toddlers and preschoolers. While working at One of A Kind, I assisted the lead teachers as much as possible. I helped develop daily routines of activities, lesson plans, nap, and toilet-training times that seemed most effective for the students. I worked with parents during pick up and drop off times to make sure they were happy with the schedule and care their child was receiving. I was in charge of maintaining a safe environment for the students at One of A Kind.

In my earliest years, I can recall one of our projects with my 1st grade teacher. It was very memorable for me, because we went all out for it. The project like most of us in that class remember was to write a story. The story was Flat Stanley. I was mostly ahead of my game in my early years. Then, there came my 5th grade year, The teacher i had in that class always got on me, for not paying attention. I almost got held back that year because i couldn’t focus. That year onward, was a struggle for me.

As the famous Eleanor Roosevelt Once said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” This is very true to my story. When I was little I thought that I would always go to my charter school, LCCS until I graduated to high school. I never thought that I would change schools, that thought never entered my mind until I heard about the Advanced Enrichment Program. Then all my visions of what it would be like to stay at LCCS were thrown out the window and I transferred all my effort into preparing to take the test to get in. This the story of how I tried my best to get in, even though I thought I couldn’t do it.

It was hour four. I glanced at the tiny digital clock on the dusty, outdated, desktop computer. “Five minutes left in free play!” I yelled over the jumbled sound of Mario Kart, xylophones and freeze dance. The daycare had almost a club atmosphere at this point as muffled dance music blasted through the speakers; the only partition between the high-energy fitness center and us was a thin wall of glass, littered with sticky handprints. There were currently thirty children ranging from ages 3 to 12 and it was up to me my coworker to watch all of them, do payments and update the roster. She was busy with the infants, leaving me to take care of everything else. Much like a general getting ready for war, I prepared myself. Sometimes, the room would have up to 40 kids in it at once, so I had to be an authoritarian. I knew I had it in me; I had practice using my voice working at the preschool.

When I was in elementary school I would spend most of the summer setting stuffed animals up on my bed to teach them all the math problems I had learned the previous year in school. In middle school my friends would come over and I'd teach them how to do cool tricks on the trampoline or how to draw bubble letters. Once I was in high school, I had more opportunities to work with children and I took them without hesitation. Since teaching is something I enjoy doing in my freetime I know it's something I would love to do as a career.

Sitting in the timeout chair is my first recollection of nursery school. The stench of the bathroom was unbearable. Missed shots at the toilet and rank soap overwhelmed you as soon as the doors opened.

When I first think of education making an impact on my life, my immediately goes to the teacher that inspired me to pursue the field of education: Mr. Quesenberry. The truth is, I never expected to enjoy his 8th grade Civics class. Though I had many wonderful social studies teachers before 8th grade, each year history was always one of my least favorite subjects, and I expected Civics to be the same. Before I took his class, I thought that the government was just a bunch of old rich guys who made laws and ran the country, and I didn’t have the slightest idea about the many complicated issues that the United States was facing or about what I could do to get involved and fight for my values.

Preschool was really cool I made a few friends I remembered their faces but not too many memories. One thing that stood out was when I had to get my mouth washed out with soap it was the worst thing ever I can still the taste of the soap as I type this, yuck. Cleaned my mouth up literally and figuratively. I can remember graduation from preschool I was super excited but I think my mother was much more excited than I. She was so happy and smiling so big I can tell she was proud of me to this day she has that same feeling as I accomplish things in my life now.

Today was a hard day for me. I wasn’t feeling well when I got up this morning, but I push through and I’m glad that I did. There is one baby in the infant classroom that want go to anyone except for me; which make me feel good in a kind away. Mrs. Wright keep on trying to work with her, but she’s very slow to warm up to people. It will just have to take time for her to adjust to the teachers. Maybe next week once I’m not in the classroom she will start to warm up to them. I know for me at times it was hard hearing her cry for me, but I couldn’t do anything because I was attending to the other babies in the classroom. It was a challenge for me, but I got over it and learn how to multitask. I couldn’t go to planning with the teachers today

Emilie Buchwald once said, “Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” This quote means to me that children learn reading from their parents. People read every day-- from newspapers, blogs, or Facebook posts, to traffic signs. Most people read for escape, entertainment, and instruction. As I consider my reading experiences, I realize they represent the journey I have traveled, leading me to my current academic path.