Blog Reflection #1

My experience with children in urban classrooms has been eyeopening.  When I began teaching in early childhood education in 2018 at a private school that catered to the rich and privileged, I was not fully prepared for the challenges.  Children in privileged homes tend to have different learning challenges, such as needing assurances of security, a pressing need to learn empathy and pro-social behaviors, and often not having time with parents at all, since both parents work and subsidize childcare to nannies. This is very different from what I expected when embarking on teaching in an urban setting.

When I started teaching in an urban Montessori preschool, I was surprised by the level of helplessness displayed by my students.  Most of them displayed difficulty separating from parents or caregivers, and took long periods of time to settle.  The low level of security and self-awareness they felt was evident by their crying and freezing up.  As a teacher, I had to step up and be extra attentive and caring to meet their need for attachment and security.

Many of my students had not spent time around other children at all; rather, they had been kept at home or allowed to play only by themselves.  I believe a lot fo children have experienced this during the pandemic. We call them Pandemic Babies. They've never had the experiences that we've come to expect from children their ages. When my students came to class, it was a shock for them to suddenly be required to share toys or respect another student’s belongings and person.  As a teacher, I needed to leave my prejudices behind and offer modeling and patience to my students.  That wasn’t easy, but I started deep breathing exercises, which helped me stay calm while my students melted down after fighting over a toy.  This modeled for them the appropriate way to self-regulate before addressing a problem.

Almost all of my students came from very rich families where both parents worked full time.  Their caregiving was handled primarily by a nanny, and these children rarely spent significant quality time with a parent.  This often resulted in parents not really knowing their own child and not recognizing who we described at our parent/teacher conferences.  I had to learn a special dance of respect for parents while also recognizing that nannies were doing the hard work of raising the child.  For big picture things, I began to refer to parents, but for day-to-day issues, I deferred to the nanny.

In conclusion, my introduction to urban schools was different than how I’d previously envisioned an “urban school.”  Instead of dealing with the challenge of underprivileged youth and few resources, I was struggling with students who displayed entitlement and parents who were occasionally elitists.  I was referred to as the servant on more than one occasion!  The experience taught me patience and the vitality of self-care.  Students who come from privileged backgrounds deserve respectful, robust educations, and my job as a teacher is to deliver what they need, regardless of my own biases.