CONFESSION BY FORMER SG CHILDCARE TEACHER MAKE YOU LOSE FAITH IN KINDERGARTENS

When I was 17, I took on a job as an assistant teacher at a child care center in the East. I’ve since worked at several ccc/kindergartens but that particular one was the worst.

Incidences:

There was this teacher from another country which will not be named. She wasn’t happy with certain managerial decisions so she took it out on the kids she was in charge of, which unfortunately happened to be the infants (2 to 18 months). She would not wash their bottles completely while preparing milk so many times the babies had soap bubbles mixed with their formula. She would also be unnecessarily rough with when transferring them from one place to another e.g. high chair to playmat or cot to changing table.

They had a weekly menu they were supposed to follow but they took many liberties with it in order to cut costs. For example, if the days menu was “rice with chicken cubes and garden vegetables”, they would substitute the chicken with chicken luncheon meat, and the vegetables with frozen corn/peas/carrot. And this was clearly not a case of the Aunty not being able to cook because she was perfectly capable of cooking really awesome food for the staff. It was just the principal buying the absolute cheapest stuff for her to cook for the kids.

A teacher from the play group (18 months to 3 years) told me, “I know they teach you in school that you cannot beat them (the kids) but if you don’t beat, they won’t listen. Just don’t beat so hard until got bruise. And don’t beat the N2, K1, K2 because they very clever, know how to complain.”

Teachers who bear grudges. Some parents were really quite unreasonable and teachers did get pissed off. While some were able to separate child from parent, some would take out their anger on the child in little ways. Too many to list but one stands out. The teacher engineered a situation where every single child got rewarded with candy for getting answers right except the child whose parents upset the teacher.

I regularly heard teachers scolding or belittling children. And when they cried, they would be left to cry UNLESS it was almost time for their parents to pick them up. And then because I was the lowly assistant, it became my job to get those children to stop crying before the parents arrived. “Play with them, make them happy before the parents come. Don’t let the parents see them cry,” they said.

Teachers would sometimes do the toddlers’ coloring or craft work for them just so that they would have something to bring home to show their parents. They only did this for the very young ones who can’t speak well.

Okay this one isn’t really terrible. When I was attached to the play group, my job was to supervise the kids and to help the teacher with simple tasks. One such task was to help the kids with toileting. Because these kids were so young, they gave me a pot/bucket to carry around for them to use as and when needed. For the boys, I had to hold that pot in place for them to pee into and many times, they would pee all over my hand.

I left after 6 months. I loved the kids, but hated the management. Made an anonymous complaint to MCYS (now renamed MCDYS) but received no follow up. Not sure if they did anything.

plumpig