Last week I started working full-time as a Preschool Teacher at Play and Learn Children's Center in Ames! It is such a blessing to have consistent work now that will also continue through the summer. While I really enjoyed substitute teaching for its flexibility and variety, one thing I really missed was building relationships with the children and adults I worked with. My schedule was so variable as a substitute that I was in a different school working with different students and teachers everyday so I never really got to know the people I was working with well, and I realized that wasn't ideal for me.
Right now at PLCC I am working in the Pre-K classroom, which means the kids are four and five years old. Since there has been a lot of transition with their previous teacher leaving, the students are in a bit of a rebellious stage and I've been having a lot of issues in these first few weeks with classroom management and students being disrespectful and acting out toward teachers and each other. I've realized at first I need to spend a lot of time modeling and reteaching my expectations for good behavior and establishing routines and structure and that should really help. The good news is I can see improvement already in how the kids are beginning to behave since I've been working with them!
One of the cool things about this job is that a lot of the kids come from lower-income home situations, many are children of parents who never got married or are divorced, and a few of the kids' dads are in prison, so I have the chance to really love on kids who need a positive influence to speak truth into their lives and let them know they are valuable and special.
Here are a few prayer requests:
- Pray that the students would begin to value listening and being respectful toward their teachers and classmates
- Pray that the students would feel safe, loved, and special in our classroom community
- Pray for good spiritual conversations with my co-workers
