The joys and tribulations of running a kindergarten
Print Edition
AT 6:40am every day, Jin Huiping stands at the front gate of Sheshan Hill Kindergarten, welcoming the children. As school director, she’s been greeting them every day for 24 years.
“I love children,” said the 45-year-old Jin. “Each time I see them, I forget all my troubles,”
She was recently named recipient of Shanghai’s Gardener Award, the city’s highest commendation for teachers.
Jin graduated from Shanghai No. 2 Preschool Normal College in 1990 and began her teaching career in early childhood education.
“Children have different
characters and tempera-
ments,” she said
“An experienced teacher needs to judge quickly which new students will adapt to their new environment and which will be frightened and cry,” she added.
Jin has developed the skills to handle all comers, from the solitary and shy to the willful and spoiled. It hasn’t always been easy.
After her first day on the job, trying to handle unruly children, some of whom cried incessantly, she went home feeling unsettled. She awoke in the middle from a nightmare where the children wouldn’t stop crying.
“It was really scary,” Jin said. “And I suddenly envisioned a life spent with crying children. I cried myself that night.”
She can look back now and laugh at it all.
“I realized it was the career I had chosen, and I decided I wouldn’t give up easily,” she said.
A kindergarten teacher has to be mother, nanny and peacemaker to youngsters who find themselves uprooted from the cozy homes of infancy.
In order to establish a comforting environment, she often squats or kneels during classes, putting her on eye level with her young charges. She tries to give each child individual attention.
“You can’t do this job without patience and a love for children,” Jin said.
Married to a sailor who is often away from home, Jin said she strives to be a “super mom” at home and a caring teacher at work.
The kindergarten has almost 300 children in 16 classes.
Several months ago, the Sheshan Hill community was included in a Songjiang District relocation project.
Because of that, she found some of the children arriving at the front gate in the morning, delivered by an old woman driving an unlicensed van.
She immediately contacted the parents and persuaded them to bring the children to kindergarten themselves instead of relying on a stranger with an illegal car.
“I know the relocation made it inconvenient for the parents to send their children to school every morning, but the children’s safety is paramount,” Jin said.
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