My friend asked how much I was paid as a kindergarten teacher. “Wonder whether I should apply,” she said.

‘You can’t”.
“Oh why?”
“Need a Diploma in Education, at least, if not a degree.”
What education? You don’t need education to teach kindergarten ma”.
“MAJOR in Education”

Actually, I was being mean. You don’t always need a diploma to teach kindergarten in Malaysia. But let’s not limit ourselves. Malaysia has no standard, but we don’t have to succumb.

She could have asked how I taught then. I was just 18, with nothing but the SPM certificate.

Trust me, you don’t want to teach children without proper training. Until this day, I still can’t shake off the guilt for imposing my adult ideals onto those children, without regards to what they really need.

On the eight floor of Segi College, Subang Jaya, hung a portrait of Maria Montessori cradling a child. It read, “The first responsibility of an educator is to recognize the personality of the child and respect it”.

Respect for the personality of the child. Sounds easy enough. But no one can do that without first experiencing some kind of training or education, whether formal or informal, that brings us close to the intrinsic parts of life that so many choose to avoid. Because it would nag at your own.

When we speak of personality, we think of those personality fads that can be found in lifestyle magazines. But here, we are talking about the personality development of children, the very first stages of life, that pre-determines whether a child would grow up to become emotionally congruent, whether the child will always feel an underlying peacefulness or dysphoria, whether sane or psychotic. On the milder edge, early childhood experiences pre-determines how big your brain would be, how many neural connections will be pruned, whether you will make it through school, score in Maths or limited to handiwork.

In other words, the livelihood of young children are in your hands. And that’s not far from the truth.

It sickens me now to think that I once took up the role without any prior training in childhood education. Like so many Malaysians seem to think, I assumed that you need only the ability to read and write, in order to teach little children. What a notorious assumption!

It became worse when the principal forced children of multiple age groups into one class because there were not enough teachers. And screamed at them when the kids did not behave the way she wanted.

Young children are highly dependent on caregivers, not just to fill the tummy. They need us to provide for their physiological needs. Our attention helps regulate their emotions, to mirror them, so that they would know whether to feel happy or sad, or whether to feel at all. They need our attention and validation when children learn autonomy and start exploring the world, or they may harbor inferiority. Children must not be silenced, but need to have their behaviors reciprocated with positive response for desirable behavior and not so positive for less desirable ones. If they are merely silenced, they would start keeping quiet, but not because they know what was wrong. They merely feel inferior., forever.

These are just among the many things I discovered through my readings and personal experiences. Managing a group of young children at once is no easy feat. Even qualified teachers need a lot of training. Because we, as the educator will be tested, pushed to the edge of sanity. We would be dealing with another human being so dependent on our providences. we CANNOT snap. If we snap, the child might snap along. Or the child may repress the trauma we create, but sink into depression or worse still, psychosis much later in life. Imagine that, without first testing our own boundaries through proper training in childhood education. It is so tedious that state laws in the U.S. legislate provisions that require childhood educators at public institutions to meet stringent requirements.

It’s very sad to deal with friends and acquaintances with some form of psychological and behavioral problems knowing their reasons may be traced back to early childhood experiences. There is little I could do, but say a little prayer and wish I could turn back time to make their childhood better.

Unqualified educators should be shot.

But guess what? We have Malaysians saying those who cannot earn a degree should become Play Therapists.

Yet the rest of the world needs to earn professional licenses in play therapy on top of their masters or doctorate degrees.

And Psychiatrists cannot perform psychotherapy without license in counseling psychology. Run far far away when you meet one who pretends he can.

Posted in Blogathon 2006, News Report |