Topic 4

What are the personalities we should have or must be

ready to have if going to work with young children?
• If you don’t have any of these, most or some of
these personalities it does not mean you are not
meant for the ECE field but to inform you that
usually these are personalities will appear later
after we have joined work with young children. General
Do some people who do not have these information
personalities still work with the young children?
(not sure)
• Some of these personalities can be gained soon
after starting work, or may be gained when you
are doing your coursework during your degree
time
 Story books

• Yes, usually we teachers prepare ourselves with what story

we’re going to tell tomorrow to our young children
• This sometime goes on weekend nights too / or public
holidays or whenever we’ve got time, we will think of a
story to retell in our own way – sometimes we’ve got no
other time to pick our own book, so bed time we might
automatically pick a book which is related to our field
(working with young children – e.g. a children’s story book)
• Usually we have many children’s story books at home
Usually we the teachers
• Carry many bags to come to work
What bags – a personal bag, bags full of books/report, bags with
teaching aids / new items for teaching, food carriers and so on –
we are organized people, who keep items in separate bags
• Personal shopping – we will do same things, we usually good in
sorting things in bags according to their attributes e.g. wet
items in one bag, cleaning product in one bag and so on – we
usually carry recycled bags, which means we have more bags
• Teachers should always be good in planning, so we plan in
advance to take more bags if we’re going shopping and since we
are teaching children to recycle, it means we should be doing the
same!
Children’s corner
• We always want to watch what activities are
conducted in play corners – are they suitable or
not?
• We always want to see if there are new toys –
suitable for teaching? Or get ideas to create new
teaching materials
• We always want to check on new books that are
good for us and for the children
• We always want to see what is new for dressing
and clothes for children so that we can talk with
the children during role play time – or get ideas
for concerts etc.
We always think we at the center –
want to see everything bright and colourful
• Just walk in and see most of teacher’s office and
personal rooms – you can see these how they
decorate their places
• We always prepare ourselves to receive young
children in our place – we believe environment will
teach children and/or ourselves naturalistically so the
decoration must have meaning
• The center’s concept is how the children can learn
from everywhere, so it is important to see what is
appropriate to place around us – the same goes for
the teachers, we always want to see what and how to
educate others naturally
 We always want to make sure we do what we said
• We tell the children that the center does not allow hair
coloring – so we follow too, keep our hair colour natural
• We tell the children, must comb and keep hair in neat way
– so we do the same
• We tell the children no make-up at the center except
during event time – we do same
• All these to avoid the children questioning us “why can
you colour your hair, not neat, make up etc but we are not
allowed?” or “I want to follow teacher, colour my hair like
her in red”, parents don’t like this etc.
• Most of time, we also follow this after working hours or
during off days just in case we meet the children outside
• Some teachers have multi personalities – they can be
different when you meet them outside, they seem to
have a totally different personality Children
Teacher
The center always checks the children’s finger
nails, means
• We need to keep our finger nails clean too – because
we are dealing with young children (hygiene matter)
• We also need to ensure our finger nails are short –
not to harm the children with sharp finger nails
when you are touching them
• Remember the children usually imitate what we are
doing so if you have coloured finger nails, possible
the children will copy that by using water colours
• We the teachers put the children first in almost
everything!
 Most of the teachers will choose
children’s songs to listen to and sing, why?
• We are just preparing ourselves to
teach
• We just want to make sure we can
sing the song, then later we can
sing it with the children
• We want to know a new song that's
available for the children – how we
can change the lyrics of these songs
later
May be you don’t feel like that yet, but once you start to work in
the early fields then

• You will go to bed early because you need to wake up to reach

your center
• You will wake up early because you need to reach to the center
on time before the children reach
• To feel fresh to go to work, because we’re dealing with the
children – we need to prepare ourselves to leave personal
matters behind and only need to think about the young children
at the center
• Remember working with children is not the same as working
in other fields – the children need you fully focused at the
center, so you need to eat and sleep well
We are multi tasking
• We need to teach
• We need to observe
• We need to feed
• We need to wash / clean
• We need to be counsellors
• We need to see parents
• We need to prepare and write reports
• And so on… the list is so long!
 Usually we teachers have a big
voice

• We always want to make sure we are loud enough

so all the children can hear us
• We always want to speak clearly so that the
children can learn words, sentences, language etc.
from us
• Also, most of the time we correct others like
correcting the children’s mistakes!