Teaching Is Not Babysitting—And Here's Why - WeAreTeachers
I often shy away from telling people that I teach preschool or am an early childhood educator. I'grand not embarrassed of information technology—I take my chief'southward, I've been education for five years, and I admittedly beloved it. But when you lot say you teach toddlers or preschoolers? The reactions are disappointing:
Oh, so yous piece of work at a daycare?
I hateful, that's just babysitting, right?
Wait … only what practise you even teach them?
They must be so cute!
Throughout the years, I've encountered a variety of reactions similar to these. Do I have to hold myself back from spewing developmental research at the person for the next 40 minutes? Yes. And I can because I have impulse control, something I learned from my preschool teachers. Read on for simply a few more reasons whyinstruction is not the aforementioned as babysitting—or even daycare.
Teachers had to earn their degrees and other credentials.
And that includes graduate educational activity. Because of that, we empathize child development, how to teach both academics and emotional intelligence, and how to work as a team with the parents and students. We plan curriculum and daily provocations, keep upwardly with state standards for both academics and social and emotional evolution, and detect each child's growth to make sure that they are thriving and learning exactly as they should be.
Nosotros programme individualized, differentiated instruction.
Our days aren't spent simply making sure that the kids are fed, watered, and entertained (which is exactly what I did equally a teenage babysitter). Teachers are planning and organizing daily, weekly, and monthly throughout the unabridged yr to provide individualized lesson plans and provocations to each and every student. Nosotros run across that every student is working to see our personal didactics standards, the school's standards, and the many, many state standards.
Nosotros work 50+ hours a calendar week.
Even on vacation, I'll answer parent emails. I'll stay with a student if their parent is running late. And I'll worry at dark near how their week has been, because a family transition has thrown off their unabridged world. We accept to constitute trusting and supportive relationships with the students, their parents, and our colleagues. Teachers piece of work a lot, and we absolutely love it, or we wouldn't be doing it.
We undergo rigorous professional development.
In Colorado, that professional development is 90 hours every 5 years, or almost 18 hours per yr. On summit of that, we also have to keep upward with trainings regarding safe, like CPR, starting time aid, and mandated reporting. So not merely are teachers required to, well, teach, but they are also there to brand sure that 20+ students remain safe under our care.
Of course, the reality is we become paid less than babysitters.
When I was babysitting in loftier school, around 2005, I got paid $10 an hr for 2 children, ages ane and 3. Say I babysat four or v kids, I'd crash-land that up to $20 an hour. That means that overall, my rate for ane child was five dollars an hour. Currently, I have 15 students for most four hours a twenty-four hours. 15 kids at five dollars an hour for four hours comes out to $300 per solar day. If you separate that between my co-instructor and me, we get $150 for four hours and 15 students. As a teacher, am I making $300 a solar day? No, not even close.
Have I thought about switching back to babysitting or nannying? Of course, only I like my task also much and know how important it is.
What are your thoughts when people say that teaching immature children is just like babysitting? Come up and share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE grouping on Facebook.
Plus, why teachers quit.
Editor's note: We don't have a source for the viral protest sign pictured above. If information technology's yours, will yous let us know so that nosotros can credit you?
Source: https://www.weareteachers.com/teaching-is-not-babysitting/
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