The upbringing of preschool children is the common goal of all employees of children's educational institutions. It is achieved by solving many smaller interrelated problems. Since teachers are given priority to the continuity of the educational and educational process in preschool institutions and schools, solving these problems is equally important for both preschool employees and primary school teachers.
The main goal of education in a preschool educational institution is to obtain a comprehensively developed, free, socialized and successful personality. To do this, it is necessary to combine the efforts of many representatives of the teaching profession working in a children's educational institution. The result of such work should be getting what you want, that is, children graduating from kindergarten who are fully prepared for school, independent, socialized, and formed as creative, free individuals. To do this, it is necessary to correctly determine the main tasks of the teacher and successfully solve them.
What are the main tasks of a teacher’s work?
A typical regulation on a preschool educational institution rather dryly formulates the following main tasks of the activity of a preschool teacher:
- Ensuring cognitive, speech, social-personal, artistic and physical development of pupils.
- Fostering love for the Motherland, family, surrounding nature, respect for freedoms and individual rights, taking into account the age of the student.
- Correction of existing deficiencies in the upbringing and behavior of preschool children.
- Protecting life, ensuring safety, strengthening physical and mental health.
- Interaction with parents or guardians of pupils to ensure the full development of children.
- Providing methodological assistance, conducting consultations with parents or guardians of pupils on various issues of training and education of preschool children.
In this document, the main educational objectives are formulated extremely briefly, in a concise form. In fact, each point contains a lot of additional tasks, successfully solving which is vital to achieving the main result.
Responsibilities of a junior teacher
The position of a junior teacher in the garden requires compliance with sanitary and hygienic standards in the group:
- cleaning the premises where pupils spend the day;
- wet cleaning of the bedroom at the end of the day;
- change of bed linen once a week and unscheduled if necessary;
- carrying out general cleaning using disinfectants once a month;
- cleaning equipment, toys and washing dishes;
- ventilation of the room and cleaning of work surfaces;
- maintaining cleanliness in restrooms.
In addition, the junior teacher helps the senior teacher with daily activities: feeding, getting ready for a walk, going to bed. The assistant senior teacher instills self-care skills in children, teaches the basics of personal hygiene and the rules of good behavior.
While the main job of the teacher is teaching and maintaining the daily routine, the junior teacher plays the role of a nanny.
Features of fulfilling the main tasks of a teacher
Clearly formulated tasks facing kindergarten teachers make it easier to carry out their complex and responsible work. However, their competent solution is impossible without the main condition - love for children. Each educator must, first of all, be a person who is completely devoted to his work, then the difficulties that often occur in educational activities will not become obstacles for him.
In their work, each teacher actually solves one main task - to form and educate a full-fledged, self-sufficient creative personality. Preschool age is the most favorable time for this. Children who come to kindergarten perceive any information well, and an adult with authority serves as a role model for them. That is why it is important for educators to become such a model together with the parents and other close relatives of the pupil.
And this indicates the fact that in achieving the main goals of education, preschool teachers and educators have to devote a lot of time and effort not only to working directly with children, but also to engage in their own development. A teacher cannot stop at any stage of self-education and self-study, otherwise he will hopelessly lag behind the constantly developing and progressing pedagogical science. Solving the most important problems of upbringing and education is directly related to professional literacy, teaching experience and the ability to apply the acquired progressive skills and abilities in practice.
To solve the main tasks facing every preschool teacher, you will need the following:
- Excellent professional training. The state has made sure that our children are raised by people with secondary or higher pedagogical education, which already provides the necessary professional base.
- Constantly improving the level of qualifications. For these purposes, certification is used as a way to verify the professional suitability of a teacher, as well as passing advanced training or retraining courses that ensure a modern level of professional teaching skills.
- Participation in various competitions, master classes and competitions also serves to grow the teacher’s professional talent and develop his innovative capabilities.
- Working with parents. This is an important point in light of achieving the main tasks of a kindergarten teacher, since both the family and the preschool educational institution must act as a united front, follow common educational methods and support each other to obtain maximum effect. Often this point is one of the most difficult to achieve, because families are all different, and not all of them want to listen to the recommendations and advice of employees of a children's educational institution.
A kindergarten teacher is required to have many different knowledge and skills. For example, to solve the problem of preserving the health and safety of children, he must know perfectly all the requirements of the instructions for protecting the lives of pupils. For your own safety and the protection of other adults, you must strictly follow the safety instructions for educators. In addition, he needs to have basic knowledge of other professions, for example, be able to identify a sick child in order to isolate him and prevent an outbreak of the disease in the entire team, understand how to provide first aid to the victim, and much more. All this requires constant work on yourself.
Solving the main tasks of raising children in a preschool educational institution for a teacher means constantly improving their knowledge, achieving significant pedagogical success, and developing personal qualities and talents.
Schedule
Daily routine in preschool:
- The teacher's work shift begins when the first child comes to the group. Before accepting children into kindergarten, the teacher must make sure that the child is in perfect order. If there are doubts about his well-being, the teacher can contact the medical center for help or inform the parents that the baby should be taken home.
- After all group members have been received, exercise begins, during which the teacher must motivate the children to take active action.
- After a short warm-up, the children will have breakfast. During meals, the teacher helps the children eat. The little ones need help, so they need to be fed.
- Throughout the day, the teacher monitors compliance with the correct regime.
- Walks are carried out in good weather and the time must comply with the norms. Before the walk begins, the teacher helps those who don’t know how to get dressed and counts the students.
- Upon returning from a walk, as a rule, it is time for lunch and nap.
- The end of the working day is the handing over of the children to their parents. The responsible teacher should communicate with mothers, briefly describing the “working” day of the kids. If the teacher has comments about the child’s behavior, they must be voiced.
Parent meetings
The first thing you should pay attention to is that the job responsibilities of the teacher include holding parent-teacher meetings and, of course, conversations with moms and dads. Everyone knows about this point. Especially when the time is approaching the holidays and it is necessary to decide how this event will be celebrated. And, of course, if the kindergarten needs to raise money.
However, the kindergarten teacher must hold parent-teacher conferences on a timely and regular basis. It is very important to communicate the successes and failures, as well as the progress of each child. After this, it is sometimes necessary to give some recommendations on activities with the baby at home, so to speak, “homework” to the parents.
In practice, this happens extremely rarely, approximately 2-3 times a year. Although it is best to hold parent-teacher conferences once every month or two. This helps track the child’s progress and his timely preparation for school.
What subjects need to be taken to the teacher
In colleges, school graduates are not required to take exams; it is enough to pass a certificate competition and an interview. You can study after 9 grades in 3 years 10 months, and after 11 grades - in 2 years 10 months.
University applicants must submit their Unified State Exam results in social studies and the Russian language. In addition, depending on the university and the chosen profile, exams in biology, mathematics, a foreign language, as well as the results of a creative or professional test (music, choreography, physical education) may be required. Study for 4–5 years.
How to build a career
The teaching profession does not have any promising career path. In principle, you can grow to become the head of a kindergarten, but for this you must have a university diploma. If you study additionally, the option of a career as an official in the field of education will be available.
You can study with children at home privately in your free time or lead small groups in one or another area of early child development (for example, according to the Maria Montessori method). The most promising, but difficult option is to open your own private kindergarten.
Challenges faced by senior educators
- Promotion to the position of senior teacher (methodologist) is recognition by the authorities of the preschool educational institution of your teaching experience, leadership and personnel management abilities. Therefore, the main difficulty is a high degree of responsibility, because it is the senior teacher who will be in demand for correct documentation, competent activities of the teaching staff and the results of the learning and development of children in a kindergarten.
- The senior teacher, along with the leader, is responsible for the life and health of preschoolers, so there is a possible risk of emotional burnout.
- Working closely with superiors also involves serious stress, because it is not so easy to constantly feel under control.
- A specialist may encounter difficulties in managing a team - all teachers have an individual temperament and character.
- The senior teacher must be stress-resistant and well-versed in psychology, because in the process of work he will have to solve many problematic issues and communicate with different people, who are not always pleasant and disciplined.
- But the specialist himself will have to carefully monitor his organization; without this quality, it is basically impossible to lead people.
Activities of a senior teacher in a modern preschool educational institution
The rapid growth in the development of education in our country certainly affects the activities of modern kindergartens and their employees. The position of senior educator requires that he be aware of all current innovations in the children's education system. Therefore, the ability of the senior educator’s personality to analyze will be so important in order to be able not only to assess the quality of educational literature, but also to be able to select exactly the information that is suitable for the work of a particular preschool institution.
Knowledge of modern technologies will help you quickly maintain all the necessary reporting documentation, systematize information, monitor children’s achievements and prepare presentations. The senior educator must not only be able to perform all these actions himself, but also teach them to less experienced preschool employees.
So, from all of the above it follows that today a senior teacher/methodologist is, first of all, an expert analyst, an innovator who knows how to multitask, organize effective and experimental activities in his kindergarten, knows about new information technologies, able to listen and hear people.
Studying the behavior and characteristics of children
A very important point among all the responsibilities of a kindergarten teacher is to study the behavior and characteristics of children. It is this moment that requires special attention. It is just as important as ensuring the safety of a child in kindergarten.
The point is that it is the study of the behavior of children and their inclinations/characteristics that helps to develop a curriculum for the year. Without it, it is impossible to achieve success in development. And only an individual approach, as already mentioned, will help show the best results.
In fact, this point of responsibility is often omitted. And it is used extremely rarely. After all, it is much easier for employees to raise children according to a template than to come up with a variety of activities, entertainment and teaching methods on their own. This is not a very good (and not always effective) approach to solving the problem.
Pros of the profession
In addition to the most important advantage - immersion in the world of childhood - the profession of a senior teacher has many other advantages.
- It has status and prestige; the manager has something to respect himself for.
- Assumes a stable salary.
- Gives you the opportunity to control your child in a preschool educational institution.
- Most kindergartens provide free food to staff.
- All benefits become available to employees of government agencies.
- The profession of a senior educator is in demand in the labor market.
- A specialist in the field of pedagogy has the opportunity to retire early (after 25 years of experience).
- A senior teacher is an interesting position that does not involve routine and monotony.
- Constant self-improvement and self-education is possible due to the regular introduction of innovations.
- Supervising less experienced employees contributes to one’s own discipline and desire for knowledge.