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permanentvacation 08:21 PM 01-24-2015
Do the kids act like that when the co-worker is there until 2:30? If so, does the co-worker try to make them behave better, or does she just let them act like they do? Is it that YOU notice things that YOU think should be changed, but everyone else seems to think is just fine?

I went out to work at 3 different centers for a little while. I had moved and if I was going to start my home daycare back up, I would have needed to allow time to get my new license at my new address. I decided to go out to work at a center to 'learn how to be a better daycare provider from the 'professionals'.

All 3 centers seemed more like a zoo to me with the teachers pretty much ignoring the kids. I was at the last one for almost a year. So I'll tell you more about it. The 3rd center was the best of the 3. However, other than the 10 minute circle time, lunch, and nap, the teachers just let the kids run wild and completely ignored them. The kids were constantly fighting with each other, cussing, hitting and kicking each other, playing in the bathroom, putting toys in the toilet and flushing them which then flooded the bathroom, etc. If a child tried to tell on another child, whether it was that someone else hurt them or was putting toys in the toilet, all the teacher did was cut the child off and told them to stop tattling and go play. Honestly, I never could figure out why the teacher was even in the room!

After a couple of weeks of watching this, I decided that someone, namely me, needed to do something about the zoo they called a daycare. So I started sitting with different groups of children throughout the day. I'd go from one 'center' to another; from 'housekeeping' to the 'block' center to the 'book' center, etc. and I'd talk to the children about what they were playing, as I would see a child start to hit another child, I'd tell him not to hit him before he got a chance to make contact, etc. At lunch time, to keep them calmly waiting for their plates, I'd get them all to sing songs while sitting in their chairs. I found games and puzzles in the teacher's closet and got the kids to play them calmly and properly with me. I made up activities at my house for them to do. One of the was where I printed off pictures of little penguins and laminated them. I then numbered plastic cups 1 -10. The kids were to put the proper amount of little penguins in the cup to correspond with the number on the cup. I did a lot of things that made the classroom much calmer and the kids much better behaved. They still played and did everything they had been doing, I just got them to behave better and have more control and organization in the room.

All it did was get me in constant arguments with the other teacher in the room and be in trouble with the director on pretty much a weekly basis. Apparently, they liked their daycare center being completely chaotic. They didn't want the teachers to intervene when the children did things wrong.

After 8 months of it, I finally quit. I told the director that I was bored to death because they only wanted me to sit in the room and not do anything. Not teach the kids, not interact with them while they were playing, not teach them manners, not play games like color and shape bingo with them. NOTHING. I also told her that the kids were bored to death which was what lead to them fighting and misbehaving all the time.

So, it might just be the way the director and teachers WANT the center to be run. They might NOT want you to make any changes.
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