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  • Tales of a Teacher

    So, I haven't made any posts here mostly because I haven't been working for a while - I went back to school and then we moved so I didn't get to finish. But a conversation I was having last week reminded me about some stories from the distant past.

    I'm a teacher. I've taught mainly preschool, and I also briefly taught drama at an elementary school. When I had my first child, I went back to work at a nearby preschool (Torture Time) because they offered my daughter a space in their infant room. I was the Pre-K teacher. They'd been open for maybe a month when I started. Here's some of the high points of my 11-month tenure:

    - Supplies? What supplies?
    Because ... yeah. I had no supplies in my room. None. Fortunately, I had a lot of stuff from my previous teaching position, so I brought in books and toys and dress-up clothes, but I had to go buy art supplies myself. Except, the next day when I came in and opened my supply cabinet, the paint was all gone. A quick tour of the building revealed my paint sitting in the 2-year-old room.

    Me: Um, excuse me, you guys have all my paint.
    Toddler Teacher: Oh, I thought that was for everyone.
    Me: No, that's mine. I bought it myself. With my money.
    TT: Oh. Well can we use it?
    Me: ... I need it for today's lesson.

    After that I started locking my supplies up or taking them home.

    -Good thing we weren't on fire?
    I'd been working for about 2 weeks when some kid pulled the fire alarm. We'd not only never had a fire drill, I'd never even had a briefing on the evacuation policy. So the alarm goes off really really loud and there's flashing lights and some of my kids start to cry it's scared them so much. But I am a professional and know how to handle a fire alarm! I round my class up, take them out the side door to the yard, and line them up along the back fence. I'm the first class out of the building, and I have my roll sheet and all my students.

    So what does the director say when she comes out? "You're supposed to line your class up over THERE!"

    Yeah. You're welcome.

    -Just go ahead and lie to the parents, they won't know.
    This last bit is the part that drove me to quit.

    First of all, the school had a "secure" front door. You had to swipe an ID card in order to get in. In theory, this made the school all hi-tech and safe. In practice, parents just held the door open for whoever was behind them. Or, if there was nobody else, you could just knock and look sad and someone at the desk would buzz you in. But every time parents went on a tour, they'd sell the security scan door as the very latest in safety. Think of the children!

    Speaking of tours, I can't tell you how many times the director would come through my room and point out how great our ratio was. Ratio = the number of students per teacher in a classroom. My class had 12 students per teacher (at this point I had a co-teacher and 24 kids in our room). The director would talk this up; how great our low ratio was!

    Except. 12 students/1 teacher for that age group is the maximum ratio allowed by law. It's not GOOD, it's the bare minimum. And in practice, some teacher always called in sick, so the floaters that were supposed to give us breaks were always in a classroom. Nearly every day I had to send kids to another room because my co-teacher was sick and we were over ratio.

    So I was already getting tired of the consistent misrepresentation the parents were getting. And I was sometimes asked to back this up, meaning I was basically told to lie to potential parents. The straw that broke me though, was one morning when a mom says to me:

    Mom: So, can I hang out in your class a little this morning?
    Me: Sure! I always love to have parents --
    Mom ...because there's a cop in the parking lot and I lost my license with my last DUI.
    Me: Uh. O...kay.

    I must have had a look on my face, because she excused herself a few minutes later during circle time. So as soon as I had the chance, I went to see the director.

    Me: Hey, so ... Jimmy's mother told me that she's driving without a license due to DUI. Just so I'm clear, I cannot let her pick him up knowing this information, right?
    Director: (looks me dead in the eye) I did not hear her say that, and neither did you. (I swear to god. This is a direct quote.)
    Me: .... wha? But ...?

    Now, I was maybe 26 at the time. I was young and not particularly assertive, and if the director had told me that was legal, I likely would have believed her. But insisting that I didn't HEAR IT AT ALL? Convinced me that I was going to be committing felony child endangerment or something if I let Jimmy's mom pick him up. I was terrified all day preparing for this conflict, knowing the director wasn't going to back me up and I'd probably get fired.

    Jimmy's mom sent grandma to drop him off and pick him up for the next few weeks, at which point my class graduated to kindergarten and I immediately quit.

    I'm not sure how long they stayed in business. Preschool teacher is a high-burnout occupation, but even so the turnover there was insane. In 11 months I think the school went through 20 teachers altogether. I was the senior employee by the time I quit.

  • #2
    Last year? Maybe the year before I happened to run into a lady who watched me at a preschool. Now I'm 31, stopped going there when I was 5. She is still working there.

    So maybe not a high burnout everywhere but more so with bad bosses.

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    • #3
      I wonder if this is the Same 'Torture Time' company my Mother in Law just escaped from. If so, you have my condolences for having to step foot in that Urine soaked hell hole pee pee soaked heck hole (cookies for the reference). The same level of lying to parents and blatent disregard for the safty of kids. Must be corporate policy
      How ever do they manage to breathe for themselves without having to call tech support? - Argabarga

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      • #4
        Quoth TimmyHate View Post
        I wonder if this is the Same 'Torture Time' company my Mother in Law just escaped from. If so, you have my condolences for having to step foot in that Urine soaked hell hole pee pee soaked heck hole (cookies for the reference). The same level of lying to parents and blatent disregard for the safty of kids. Must be corporate policy
        Reference: Simpsons episode "Cape Feare" when Sideshow Bob complains about the conditions of prison and the parole board objects to his use of the term "urine soaked hell hole".

        Child safety/lying to parents: I'd be doing some research into the state requirements for ratios well beforehand and wouldn't hesitate to call out the director on the ratio. As for the safety, I sure as hell hope that there was an anonymous line that people can report to....
        The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

        Now queen of USSR-Land...

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        • #5
          Quoth Aethian View Post
          So maybe not a high burnout everywhere but more so with bad bosses.
          For some people. it's the right career path. There are many amazing life-long teachers. However, it's a ridiculously demanding job, and its only getting harder. I don't have the exact numbers, but I know the majority of people who start teaching quit within 2 years.
          Aliterate : A person who is capable of reading but unwilling to do so.

          "A man who does not read has no advantage over a man who cannot" - Mark Twain

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          • #6
            Florida law requires that children in state care go to school or daycare, regardless of age. This is a safety precaution put in place after the Rylia Wilson case a number of years ago. So, before my little brother was my little brother (still a foster child of my parents') he had to go to daycare. My mother had him enrolled in a small school that touted similar safety features. It was down the street from her church, and since she had a few hours free during the day due to having to put the child in day care, she volunteered at the school at the church. One day she was working in the office and a bunch of 8th graders came flying into the office with a little blond boy, shouting "Mrs. Mathnerd'sMom! Isn't this your little boy?" The child had gotten out of the daycare building and walked three blocks to the church/school. Worse than that, when mom brought the child back to the daycare to confront them, they had no clue he was even missing. Mom reported the place to DCF, but since they're still open 8 years later, I guess nothing bad happened. That might have had something to do with the fact that the owner's husband is a high ranking cop.
            At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

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            • #7
              Daycare was one of the worst jobs I ever did. I was a preschool teacher. At 18. With no degree, qualifications or the pay raise that came a long with it. The director was promoted to district manager and the new director was the biggest idiot I met. She immediately set to making work conditions so miserable that the long time employees quit. She then went about hiring all her friends. It got so bad that I walked out of my shift. I have NEVER quit without notice. I cried the entire way home, because I really loved those kids and I knew how bad things were getting there.

              I found out later that the director tried to install some cubbies herself, did it half-ass and the whole shelving unit fell on a group of 1 year olds. She then instructed the teacher in that room to lie about it to the parents. She refused to and the whole place was shut down when the parents reported it.

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              • #8
                I love kids. LOVE 'em. But there's no denying that in the US, preschool is a low-status, low-paying job with a high level of stress. I generally find I need a break from it after 3-4 years and I go do something else for a bit.

                I wonder if this is the Same 'Torture Time' company my Mother in Law just escaped from. If so, you have my condolences for having to step foot in that Urine soaked hell hole pee pee soaked heck hole (cookies for the reference). The same level of lying to parents and blatent disregard for the safty of kids. Must be corporate policy
                If it has a special dramatic play "village" room prominently located just past the front desk, then probably.

                At some point while I was working there, corporate came in with a new curriculum we were supposed to implement. But ... I think it was literally made up by some lady at home with no qualifications, because it had things like "teach your kids about plants!" ...That's not a lesson, that's a suggestion.

                My favorite two pieces of curriculum were, in a lesson on the solar system "Uranus is the planet scientists don't know anything about". Well gee, that's informative. And then there was "teach your class how to say 'Good morning' in Braille!" Yes. Braille. Followed by, naturally, a diagram showing the ASL sign for "good morning".

                Ironically, the parents at this place were all pretty good (with the possible exception of DUI mom). Other places I've worked that have been great facilities have had the sucktomer parents.
                Last edited by manybellsdown; 08-27-2013, 08:19 PM.

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                • #9
                  This is the main reason we enrolled my son in a preschool that is part of the local college's Early Childhood Education department. There is one lead teacher for his class and 2-3 ECE students working while he is there, for a class of about 15. In addition, I know the people who work there love kids (they're in school for it, after all) and are being educated in child care and teaching, and I feel that, being connected to a growing university, they will be held accountable for anything that might happen there. It's a little more expensive than a regular day care/preschool but I feel it is worth it.

                  I know most people who work in preschools- any kind- do so because they love kids and have the best intentions. But as is mentioned above, many are hired without qualifications or training, and the owners need to make money so sometimes deception like this can happen.
                  https://www.facebook.com/authorpatriciacorrell/

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                  • #10
                    Quoth manybellsdown View Post
                    Speaking of tours, I can't tell you how many times the director would come through my room and point out how great our ratio was. Ratio = the number of students per teacher in a classroom. My class had 12 students per teacher (at this point I had a co-teacher and 24 kids in our room). The director would talk this up; how great our low ratio was!

                    Except. 12 students/1 teacher for that age group is the maximum ratio allowed by law. It's not GOOD, it's the bare minimum.
                    I probably shouldn't say this, but, touting "we're providing X service!" which actually turns out to be the bare legal minimum, comes up in other industries too. I repeatedly have received projects that sell themselves on how there is massive levels of insulation in these new houses, resulting in low heating bills, as per Building Regulations! and then I explain to the design team that this is the legal minimum... Some of them are genuinely surprised that the legal minimum isn't actually 'best practise'. *head>desk, head>desk* What's worse, some projects can't prove they are meeting the minimum legal requirements...

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                    • #11
                      Quoth infinitemonkies View Post
                      For some people. it's the right career path. There are many amazing life-long teachers. However, it's a ridiculously demanding job, and its only getting harder. I don't have the exact numbers, but I know the majority of people who start teaching quit within 2 years.
                      I've heard the number has being around 40-45% within FIVE years and that's for primary/secondary teachers alone.

                      Quoth mathnerd View Post
                      Florida law requires that children in state care go to school or daycare, regardless of age.
                      Dumb question, but how does that work if the child is too young for daycare? (ie less than I believe it's six months)

                      Quoth April View Post
                      Daycare was one of the worst jobs I ever did. I was a preschool teacher. At 18. With no degree, qualifications or the pay raise that came a long with it.
                      Down here, they are now requiring that all staff in any form of childcare (including after-school care) are either studying for their childcare diploma or for a teaching/early childhood/social work degree at university. No idea how two of my coworkers are getting around this rule...

                      I found out later that the director tried to install some cubbies herself, did it half-ass and the whole shelving unit fell on a group of 1 year olds. She then instructed the teacher in that room to lie about it to the parents. She refused to and the whole place was shut down when the parents reported it.
                      Thank god someone actually had the sense not to lie to the parents there. Also I'd find it really hard to disguise injuries a la shelving unit.

                      Quoth AnaKhouri View Post
                      This is the main reason we enrolled my son in a preschool that is part of the local college's Early Childhood Education department. There is one lead teacher for his class and 2-3 ECE students working while he is there, for a class of about 15. In addition, I know the people who work there love kids (they're in school for it, after all) and are being educated in child care and teaching, and I feel that, being connected to a growing university, they will be held accountable for anything that might happen there. It's a little more expensive than a regular day care/preschool but I feel it is worth it.

                      I know most people who work in preschools- any kind- do so because they love kids and have the best intentions. But as is mentioned above, many are hired without qualifications or training, and the owners need to make money so sometimes deception like this can happen.
                      My uni has two daycares on site, but as far as I can tell, they don't allow students to do this. My primary school had a program where the Year 6/7s could go out to the nearby daycare and play with the kids. I did that SO much and loved it up to the point where I did a daycare stint in Year 10 for work experience (all students in SA do a week). Then I saw the rigours of doing a full day and decided that I prefer to work with children that are a little older!

                      My cousin runs a family daycare out of her house, but ended up sending her son to a nearby kindy. I suspect it's because he's going to go to school there and if he got in while he was in kindy, he'd transition easier to school.
                      The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

                      Now queen of USSR-Land...

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                      • #12
                        Quote
                        "Dumb question, but how does that work if the child is too young for daycare? (ie less than I believe it's six months) "

                        I work in a daycare nursery in the UK. and while most nurseries state they will take children from 3 months there are nurseries that will take younger children. The youngest we have taken in the last year was 4 weeks old becuase mum was a university student and needed to go back to her lectures as she was on a sponsored place and couldn't defer a year.

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                        • #13
                          Quoth fireheart View Post

                          Dumb question, but how does that work if the child is too young for daycare? (ie less than I believe it's six months)

                          I know of a fair number of places that take babies at 6 weeks and a few who take them at 4 weeks. I'm actually not sure what the law is for newborns. I'll have to ask my parents. I'm sure there's something in place, even though the state taking a newborn from the parents is a comparatively rare occurrence. It happens, but it's a fairly small percentage of all the kids removed from their homes.

                          The law is in place because of a little girl that went missing while she was in state custody, has never been found (that I'm aware of) and is presumed dead. The paperwork from the social workers was forged and the child hadn't been checked on for months by the time it was discovered she was missing. The unfortunate truth is that while the law requires case workers to visit all their kids at least once a month, the reality is that with case loads of 100-120 families, it's an impossible task. Mandating that the children go to school/daycare puts the child in a position of having other adults aware of their existence who could alert the proper authorities if something goes wrong.
                          At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

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                          • #14
                            Quoth mathnerd View Post
                            I know of a fair number of places that take babies at 6 weeks and a few who take them at 4 weeks. I'm actually not sure what the law is for newborns. I'll have to ask my parents. I'm sure there's something in place, even though the state taking a newborn from the parents is a comparatively rare occurrence. It happens, but it's a fairly small percentage of all the kids removed from their homes.
                            .
                            Derp, I checked. It IS six weeks, not six months down here as well.

                            From what I know from work (after school care person), we give first priority in enrolments to children who are in foster care, then children in other scenarios and then all other children up to capacity. Special needs kids are also given priority I believe, although they need to have a full medical management plan knitted out. (And/or a behaviour management plan)
                            The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

                            Now queen of USSR-Land...

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                            • #15
                              Fireheart, I just talked to my father and he said he doesn't know, however, my parents are currently at a conference dealing with foster care/dependency issues, so he's in the perfect place to get the answer. One of the 2000 or so people in attendance at the conference is bound to know the answer. He said he'd ask around and get back to me tonight.
                              At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

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