Challenges That Early Childhood Educators Face Essay

Early childhood educators (ECE) play a significant role in the lives of the student; therefore take part in the success of the children in the lifetime career shaping. Every effective early childhood teacher takes part in the molding of students to be responsible and law abiding citizens in the society (Currie, 2001). It is palatable that teachers have a role in the future development of the nation as it entirely depends on the current children. The children in society have become people of interest in the social and political welfare of the country, which creates more quagmires for early childhood educators. The teacher has an impact on what the teacher becomes in the future. However, in their dissemination of teaching services, the early childhood educators face a lot of challenges in their day to day activities. This essay makes an in-depth of the insurmountable difficulties faced by the early educators which range from time, changing curriculum, inadequate finances, other family engagement and safety concerns.

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Although the pre-school teacher job seems to be a simple one, the everyday routine proves it to be very complex tasks. The ECE makes sacrifice and dedication of most of his or her time to ensure that the children get the best. The time they are allocated to meet their curriculum requirements is so little compared to the tasks they should accomplish. It takes a real struggle to ensure the young ones get quality and quantified learning period (Morrison, 2007). Most of the children brought to the institutions are young; some of them know nothing from speech eloquence to the rate of comprehension. The daily time allocated to educators may be very little compared to the workload that they are expected to handle in a day. You can imagine attending to about twenty children in a day, each with unique requirements. Everyone would agree that managing a classroom full of children can be a hectic task, really hard to contain within the stipulated time. As a result, such an educated have a busy day; therefore, experience draining of energy by the end of the day.

Similarly, the teacher may be unable to attend to all children within the school day owing to the daily challenge faced whereby some children may exhibit other behaviors such as crying and cranking. As a result, such a teacher would have to drift the attention to the troubled kid, therefore ending up having inadequate time with the rest of the children. It presents challenges to the pre-school teacher to since it is impossible to pay equal attention to every child in the classroom within the school work day and schedule. Such educators find it hard to retain the kid's attention as well as managing the time they have to attend to the toddlers.

The ECE teachers face the challenge of implementation of the standard and curriculum. The pre-school teacher has a notable role in the implementation of the curriculum which includes the guidance and discipline of the child, paying respect to the cultural diversity as well as adaptation to the correct teaching methods of offering education and training. According to NAEYC (2005), the knowledge of the ECE should be approached in a manner that upholds standards that enhance a quality education system. This explains the teacher's required rules in regards to their role in the implementation of the curriculum. In most cases, it seems that the panned and documented curriculum that should be implemented in the classroom does not sometimes fit the classroom settings, therefore, leading to a failure in the realization of the aims of the teaching practitioner. The teacher as the leading player of the implementation of the preschool standards and curriculum may experience factors that may cause the disruptions and distractions of the process. A deficiency of the materials required may result in an ineffective execution of the process. The facilities and materials availability plays a significant role in the implementation and effecting of the necessary knowledge provision to the kids. Such materials would include the books and the technology that acts as the guide to be followed by the teacher. The inadequate resources and facilities become a hindrance to the teaching and learning process. Extensively, the Curriculum Research and Development Division presents conditions and regulations that state that an enabling environment is one of the critical factors that aid in the achievement of the proper curriculum implementation. This includes the libraries, sports fields, and facilities, laboratories, libraries and classrooms. Without these essential physical resources, the educator may experience challenges leading to demotivation therefore inappropriate implementation of the curriculum. Some of the educators may lack enough information on how and the means of implementing the curriculum effectively. As a result, such teachers teach other materials other than the ones stipulated in the curriculum and the syllabus. This is because it is not arguable that teachers may be different owing to their different background settings, some may be tempted to bring along their previous experiences in their practice, therefore, influencing the curriculum (Gordon & Williams-Browne, 2004). Without proper guidance and organized workshops aiming at giving directions on how the teachers should approach the curriculum, there may be numerous challenges experienced by the educators as they exercise their duties in education provision.

The learners also participate in curriculum implementation. They are the ones to influence what is to be transmitted and adopted in the curriculum. The type and different pupils may again present a challenge in the implementation of the curriculum (Webb, 2003). This is because the curriculum in most cases is designed based on the average pupil. In a classroom setting, there are different types of children, inclusive of the slow, average and fast learners. The educator may experience a challenge in the implementation of the curriculum that doesn't favor either of the types of children. Extensively, the children may have originated from different backgrounds; therefore, their abilities are entirely different which affects the classroom achievement. Similarly, the teacher may face the challenge of implementing a curriculum that is not all-inclusive, therefore does not take care of the disables and the ones with various impairments. Assessments of such children may cause a problem to the teacher thus unable to monitor the progress of the child.

Despite the role played by the ECE, little support is shown on the early childhood development program. There are small funds and financial aid directed to the program which yet presents a challenge to the educators. The investment and funding made by the government on this program are little which cause the teachers to be lowly paid. These results to a significant challenge as the pre-school teacher felt underrated and exploited owing to the great tasks that they are entitled to, the shaping and molding of the toddlers to future career people. Such teachers may have low productivity, therefore, providing poor quality of services to the pupils. This is evident through the numerous complaints you would hear from parents that their children where mishandled or harassed. Extensively, there has been a shortage of early childhood educators against the rising demand. This challenge has been necessitated by the low salaries paid to the people in this profession compared to their input in society. As a result, few people are willing to enter into this career path owing to the low salary and huge tasks and roles whereas others change their career from early childhood educators in seek of greener pasture. The ECE also face a challenge of low promotion chances, where there are no opportunities for the upward movement. Every preschool educator has a low expectation of increasing their income, therefore less are attracted to this profession.

There are challenges of a balance of family engagements and their careers experienced by the preschool educators. This is because of the overlapping responsibilities of taking care of the children at the institution as well as the parental role they may be playing at home (Hoot, Szente & Mebratu, 2011). Most of the educators play a parental role to all the pupils in the class, which may be limited by the other family engagements as some are husbands, wives or parents to other family members. The family engagements may further complicate the activities such as changing diapers to the children and feeding them. The biggest challenge is for the teachers being involved in nursing activities, yet some of them are yet to be parents or have never had kids of their own.

Discipline issues are one of the problematic problems faced by pre-school teachers. This may be caused by the difference in the children's' background setting and upbringing. Furthermore, every family has its own culture that it believes in, therefore fit for the education of the children. On the other hand, a school is a place where all king and type of children are brought together to pass knowledge. The teacher may be faced with challenges in making every child differentiate the right from wrong, and, the good from bad behavior (Hemmeter, Santos & Ostrosky, 2008). However, this process must be done in a peaceful manner that does not undermine or interfere with the attitude and feeling of the child. Extensively, there are those children who may be so big headed, to the extent that the teacher may require to instill discipline and ethical behavior by punishing them. This means of correction may result in challenges such as a bad teacher-pupil relationship with some incidents of the pupils in class hitting on the face of the teacher. The hatred may extend to the parent whereby there have been cases of disagreement between the teachers and the kids. In cases where the parent is in a commanding position, there may be threat cases or filing of cases in the courts. As a result, not only the safety concerns of such teachers are affected, but also the overall productivity causing the educator to practice his career in a wrong way resulting from the fear and intimidation.

Conclusion

The preschool teacher, parents, and the institution management should work closely and jointly to ensure the overall wellbeing of all the stakeholders are promoted. There should be a good flow of communication among them to identify the challenges and problems experienced by the learners and the educators. This would be effective in the reduction of the collision that may arise between the teacher, parent, and learner. The teachers should be able to identify challenges and ethically involve the parents respecting their different abilities and background setting.

References

Currie, J. (2001). Early childhood education programs. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 15(2), 213-238.

Gordon, A. M. & Williams-Browne, K. (2004). Beginnings and beyond: the foundation in early childhood education. NY: Thomson Learning Delma.

Hemmeter, M. L., Santos, R. M., & Ostrosky, M. M. (2008). Preparing early childhood educators to address young children's social-emotional development and challenging behavior: A survey of higher education programs in nine states. Journal of Early Intervention, 30(4), 321-340.

Hoot, S., Szente, F., & Mebratu, G. (2011). Addressing the parenting Divide to promote Early Childhood Development for Disadvantaged Children Hamilton Project, Policies to Address Poverty in Americas. Journal of Education of Southern Americas, 44, (10), 789-802

Morrison, G. S. (2007). Early childhood education today. N.J.: Pearson Merrill/Prentice Hall.

NAEYC. (2005). NAEYC early childhood program standards and accreditation criteria: Th...