The center is coming to the last week before summer vacation, and this has been an interesting year. I had my evaluation done and I got positive marks for it =) My interactions with the children has improved I've become a stronger teacher over all. I might get a master teacher job, if not than I will be a lead in the afternoons, and that is a step up from where I am now. I have learned a lot from the children and my co-workers. But the one thing that stood out to me is work is a lot like marriage, and here is a great example of what I mean.
I have a co-worker in my room that I adore. She is a sweet person and is very helpful, but the one problem is that she does get too much. My room got three children that are having really hard drop offs, and those three are my primary. I'm trying to help and child and she would sweep in and then steps on my toes when I try to help my primary children. I appreciate the help, but I didn't need the help and if I did need help I would ask my master teacher to talk me through. Because of her sweeping in on my children, they are now attach to her and they want nothing to do with me.
She also has no issue of telling on what I need to do. It is always "Ashley go get this", "Ashley, get that", and "Ashley can do it". Even if my hands are full with a child. But when I asked if she can get me a tissue for a child and she acts like it is a big deal and how dare I ask her to do me a favor. It was one time that she did this that really ticked me off was when it was my week to set up. On the last day of my week I was doing a collage on sticky paper of flowers and bugs stickers because that was my theme. She removed all my items that I had set up and replaced it with cut up pictures of animals (Like the week before activities that she set up). And said "I don't think that was a good idea and that the animals would be better."
Another thing that she gets a little much on is that she has an open schedule, so that means that she can sub and help out in other rooms. But every time they call to see if she can help out she gets really mad about it. Then she makes a big deal about it during her shift in our room. I understand that when someone is tired, they are tired, but the time with the kids are with the kids.
One last thing is that she gets why too frustrated easily. We and these three tubes out for the kids to play with, but also they had a hard time sharing and waiting their turn. So a teacher needed to be there to supervise the children. The master teacher was helping both a child and a lab student. I was going to take the kids outside because they had so much energy. But before letting the kids out, I had to change a child's diaper. As I was helping a child, she freaked out on the kids because they were fighting over the tubes and then just removed it from the room. The master teacher told her that if she need to step out for a moment to let us know, and not take her frustration on the children.
She is a good person, but she does need a lot of things to work on. I remember when I first started working at the center and the progression that I made. I finally grew into a teacher that I'm proud of, and I need to step back and remember that I too was in her shoes and I should try to help her as much as I can.
Word of advice:
Work is a lot like marriage that we have our ups and downs and that we need to pick and choose our battles and work on a lot of our issues to make it a better environment for everyone.
