Every Teacher’s Worst Nightmare (by Courtney)

I am not sure what every teacher’s worst nightmare is but I am sure everyone has one. It is the nightmare that keeps you up the night before the first day of school. The other day I lived through my worst nightmare. The first day I went to the preschool the teacher was late. I sat down on the front step and ten preschools came running at me. They sat down as close as they could to me holding on to me any way they could. I had 20 eyes looking at me expectantly. I tried asking them what the liked to play. But all I got was blank looks. I tried asking them if they knew any songs. Blank looks again. There was no teacher in sight and I had ten 3-6 year olds waiting for me to do something. Every teacher has a tool bag of tricks and I couldn’t use any of them since I didn’t know the language. So I did the next thing I could think of which was to sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” As soon as I started singing all the kids chimed in. I was saved for at least a few moments. The teacher arrived and all the kids filed into the room. I sat in the back and watched. There were 15 students sitting in rows. The teacher started reviewing numbers in English. After 20 minutes the teacher disappeared for 10 minutes. What do you think happens when you leave a room full of 3 year olds alone for 10 minutes? They start running around, yelling, hitting each other, and crying . Before things got too out of hand the teacher returned. Since it was my first day I didn’t know if this was how things normally went. After another 20 minutes the teacher disappeared again. The kids had been sitting for an hour now repeating numbers in English. Three year olds have an attention span of about 10 minutes. I figured out that the teacher was leaving to go teach the other class since the other teacher wasn’t there that day. I didn’t know how to ask the teacher if she wanted my help since she didn’t speak English. So once again the kids started running around, yelling, crying, and hitting each other. The teacher in me kicked in and I tried to get them to sit down and stop hitting each other. But how much can you do when the students don’t know you, they have been sitting for way to long, and you don’t speak the language? Not much. All I knew was that I had woken up and was in my worst nightmare. Since that day things have gotten better at the preschool but it is a challenge. The teachers have no official training and the kids sit for the entire class repeating words out loud in English. Not my idea of an ideal education but it is very hard for me to help the teachers or teach the kids with out having a common language. Each day we try again and each day I get a little closer to feeling like I am a capable teacher.