Step 2: Back to basics

Primary school children that I've spent some time with have given me some insight and valuable lessons, but I wanted to go back to the beginning. The logical conclusion was to also spend some time in kindergarten, since the first 6 years of a child's life are considered the formative ones. I wanted to observe the interaction among the children and with their teachers, to see how they play, what kind of activities they do and also what is the reason behind all of it. I read about developmental psychology, but theory is one thing and real life something else. I met with the very nice principal of my local kindergarten and she kindly let me spend two weeks at one of the units.

I admit I was very nervous on my first Monday morning since I wasn't quite sure what is waiting for me and I was not used to such young children. Everyone was in the same playroom before leaving with their teacher for the day. There were less kids because it's summertime and some groups were joined together, because the teachers also went on vacation. I was impressed with the sincere warmth each child was greeted with in the morning by their teacher. It was obvious they really care about the little ones and everyone was relaxed and smiling.

I spent the first week in the 3 to 5 age group with their two teachers. We never had more than 13 children, one day only 8. Just observing them was fascinating and often hilarious, because of the things they would sometimes say. One of the teachers has been doing this job for 38 years and she gave me valuable insight into this great although sometimes difficult job. She explained the reason behind each activity: fine motor skills, body coordination, language, ... One day one of the girls ambushed me because she wanted me to read a book to her. No problem. Soon there were 3 girls sitting beside us and they wanted to read another book and after that they begged me for a third one. My voice was hoarse after that and I could barely get away from more reading to the girls.

We also spent a lot of time on the playground where I got to meet all the other teachers, while the kids were playing in the sandbox. The kids didn't need a lot of time to accept me. One of the little guys, a three year old, cracked me up each time he asked for something. He didn't remember my name, so he called me Auntie (teta), which is what Slovenian kids would call an unkown female. The way he said it was really adorable. One of the more touching moment was one day when I went outside the playroom to fetch something and when I came back one of the girls ran up to me and hugged me, happy to see me come back.

I spent the second week with the oldest group, the 6 year olds, who are going to the 1st Grade of primary school in September. It was interesting to see the difference only one year can make. Some of them could already read and write and they were more wary of strangers, prefering to play among themselves. We had some interesting activities because the theme of the week was puppets and I joined their workshops often. It gave me a lot of ideas for my own workshops which I will try to adapt and implement in the Gambia.

All in all it was a precious eye-opening experience which convinced me to change my career path and hopefully work in the kindergarten in the future after taking some additional classes. I loved the relaxed atmosphere, the creativity and the freedom the curriculum gives you, it's less rigid than later on at school and you are able to give the children more individual attention. I'm glad that I decided to do this because it unexpectedly changed my life.