Teaching young children I feel is one of the most difficult aspects of being a teacher. When I first completed my early childhood teaching degree I went almost by default into the day care ranks as a supply (relief) preschool teacher. This being that this was the only place that seemed to provide any immediate teaching jobs especially for early childhood graduates. But once I got there I soon realised why. And as much as I did enjoy the many challenges of teaching in this system I soon realised how tough it was. The hours were long and the contact with the children was constant, very constant. I guess in a lot of ways I almost felt like a surrogate parent and a teacher also. And as all parents know that spending lots of time in close quarters with their own children as much as it can be rewarding, it is also unbelievably tiring.

This leads me to the question of why our teachers and teacher aides (assistants) in this field are not treated with the proper respect they deserve. The first aspect of this is the pay scales. For such an important job the pay is ridiculously low. And yet this is the very first and most vital step that most babies and infants make in their educational life.

I recall being told once that as an early childhood teacher all I was, was a glorified baby sitter. But it’s strange how some ridiculously ignorant individuals may state this yet they would never be the first to want to spend a full working day with a group of babies, toddlers or even preschoolers. Yet they will still profess to think that it’s “not really that difficult.” Believe me, staring down a class load of four year olds is not for the faint hearted. And working with two year olds even more so.

Another interesting aspect of early childhood education is that fact that most people see it as necessary but not really that “important. ” Yet these same people fail to realise that most of the skills they have ever learned in their life they learnt before they were five years old. Yes, the educational development from birth to five years of age is staggering.

So I urge our community to push our governments for better pay and better conditions for our early childhood educators.

And as the famous Greek philosopher Plato once stated…

“What is honoured in a country is cultivated there.”