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Q: What's your worst preschool teaching experience?
Every day I work at my job seems to be a stressful and unpleasant one. My ESL training did not prepare me for the stress of teaching young, bored, and often quite naughty children English. I had wanted to teach older, calmer students, but I was assigned the younger kiddos because my school has been unable to hold on to any suitable native English-speaking preschool teacher, especially a female one, for a few years now. (Before any jokes are made, I almost never see the ones who get hired by and then very soon after leave my school; I only know that they're working with us, and I'm always grateful they're handling the kids instead of me.)
So, what's your worst preschool teaching experience?
9 years 34 weeks ago in Business & Jobs - China
Wasn't so much pre-school as Training School.
all the children would arrive tired from their regular classes and wanted to sleep.
However the was one boy that was thought of as the 'devil's spawn' by all of the teachers.
He kicked and hit the other children if not restrained (he also hit me in several unprovoked attacks).
I asked that he be taught on his own as he was disrupting the other children's English games and their right to attention.
he was also accompanied by his Ayi who stuffed him with sweets to distract him.
The only time he behaved was when there was a parents day and they all sat in the back of the class.
His father was a General and when his father was present, this boy would behave perfectly.
to the OP, you are not a teacher, you are a baby-sitter and entertainer.
it was assumed that because i was female that i would automatically like children.
After this, I worked only in Universities 
Teach preschool in China only if you like being a dancing and singing monkey for wealthy peasants with more money than brain cells and their spoiled brats.
Nobody expect you to teach anything there, you are only an entertainer for the little emperors while their daddy is having fun with his mistress and their mom is at the shopping mall.
I taught little kids once and it was good. But only because it was at an international school so the kids were decently behaved.
I wouldn't teach Chinese children. They are just WAY too poorly behaved.
I love to work with babies. For me it's relaxing with loads of laugh and fun. I shouldn't reply, because I'm OT! I think!
10-12 2-4Y olds. Lesson: 'stand-up', 'sit-down', 'clap your hands' (or 'turn around') and 'give a hug to each other'.
I repeat commands loud with action and Chinese TA present. Everybody follows
.
At 'give a hug to each other', I hug TA.
Now, TA is outside on the break. We 'review' alone.
On 'give a hug to each other', all 10 kids race toward me, who's going to reach me first, and give me a hug. Falling, screaming, crying, trying to hug me (on my knees).
I always choose this lesson for new parents/kids as 'show lesson'. Apparently, it's impossible to translate in Chinese 'each other'. Hilarious
.
It wasn't a preschool, it was a training center for kids in Beijing. Ages ran between 3-12, and it was hell on both ends. The older kids came in fresh from their day schools/music lessons/Math Olympics/whatever else their crazy tiger parents wanted them to do. They didnt have the heart to sit still for yet more lessons; i didnt have the heaet to force them to fo that. The younger ones were cute, but the classes were always dominated by spoilt little crotchspawns. I lived in the most wealthy district in my country; I've handled spoiled brats before. Chinese brats are like none I have ever seen. And, since these mills are business first ( education never), there was no way to discipline unruly kids. Not even if they kicked, punched, but, and swore at you.
I had one kid who, according to my slimy 'principal', came home crying and told his grandmother that he wanted to die (bullshit--3 year olds have no concept of death). I had to shower him with special treats to 'give him his confidence back'...all while he was
Punching and throwing things at me.
Oh, what did i do to him to precipitate this incident? He hit a little girl square across the face earlier that month, so I gave him 0 good behavior stickers at the end of class. I'm not kidding.
sorrel:
sounds like a incident in my first year teaching in university.
i removed phones from students during class time - they had been warned this would happen.
a staff member later said to me that the girl in question had cried and 'felt like committing suicide' over it.
drama queens
DrMonkey:
@sorrel If it can make you feel better, I had the same kind of reactions with 2nd years university students. Because I exposed a student to her own cheating, she said that she would kill herself after crying a river. Went to the principal office, we called the parents and told them the story verbatim, problem solved. From what my colleagues told me, emotional blackmail was routine.
I hate preschool so much, like mentioned above it is just being a clown. The students mostly behave but there is always a few little emperors who demand you ignore the other children and when you don't they misbehave. I now refuse any work involving preschool. It is not worth it. Too much hastle. If I wanted to be a clown I would have become a clown.
Eorthisio:
And being a clown for 20 minutes can be more tiring than actual teaching during 1h30 long class or more with older students. Never I have been so tired than when I was "teaching" preschoolers, and I mean really tired, impossible to enjoy my weekends.
Standing in front of a class one day holding a bunch of flashcards and the kids were all standing in front of me in a semi-circle. Looked from one to the other, getting them to say "house" or whatever was on the card, when I met the eyes of a boy called 'Tiger' standing directly in front of me and had only moments to recognize the look of mischief in his eyes and realize the extreme vulnerability of my nether regions before he punched me full kilter, right slap-bang in the Jackson Pollocks.
