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It was one of those perfect spring days — chilly in the shade and warm in the sun — and the ground was squishy from the morning rain.
My preschool class was busy in our playground when I heard, “Why did you do that?” followed by crying. One of the children had accidentally stepped on an earthworm that two others were observing. A group quickly gathered around the tiny, writhing body. After a couple of minutes, the movement stopped, and one of the children looked up at me with tears in his eyes. “He died.”
The sweetest voice delivered the harshest truth. The worm had, in fact, died. This set about a flurry of emotions — sadness, anger, confusion.
At this moment, it would have been so easy to say, “It’s ok everybody… It’s just a worm.”
But it wasn’t just a worm. It was a source of interest and a window into one of life’s most difficult lessons. So, I got to work comforting and listening, giving hugs or space depending on what each student needed, and answering questions to help my students understand what had just happened and why they felt the way they did.
As a class, we decided that the worm’s life was valuable and that he should be respected. Two students wrapped it in a tissue while two others dug a hole in the corner of the playground to bury it. Many of the students brought little gifts to the burial site — dandelion and clover blossoms, sticks, rocks and a fluffy feather.
Some students stayed by the site to talk to the worm, some set out to find other worms to “save,” and three of the children acted out a scene where one was a worm in distress and the other two were veterinarians trying to save it. They were all busy making sense of what they had just experienced and building coping mechanisms to use in future situations.
When I think about the important work early childhood professionals do, I think about rhyming activities, name writing, math games and the many other strategies we use to kickstart young children’s learning. However, more than that, I think of all the moments that have had such enormous impacts.
I see the faces of my students as I support them during moments of frustration or despair. I hear their voices squealing in delight when they “finally” succeed at a task by themselves. I feel the weight in my lap as we settle in to read “just one more” book. I taste the tangy sweetness as a student and I both try pineapple for the first time and discover we both love it. I smell hyacinths in the air as my students gather to say goodbye to a simple, but important little life.
Why doesn’t our society value the work of early childhood professionals? Is it seen as too simplistic, too ordinary?
The fact is that our work is extraordinary. We are tasked with providing the service of professional love to children who do not belong to us. We build children up to be confident, capable and compassionate people who will have the tools they need to experience physical, academic, social and emotional success.
Every parent will tell you that their children are the most important thing in the world to them, yet the professionals who choose to make caring for those children into their life’s work are so often underappreciated and certainly under-compensated. In fact, the average child care worker in Pennsylvania earns $10.69 per hour, and 18% of early educators live in poverty.
For too long, some Pennsylvania legislators have kicked the can of early childhood education and care down the road, leaving the underpaid professionals in the field to shoulder the incredible burden of building the very foundation of our societywith severely inadequate funding. Please join me, and countless other early childhood professionals, in telling our legislators that early childhood funding is critical to our economy, our society and our children’s well-being.
Right now, Pennsylvania has a historic budget surplus, and the legislature should pass Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed $70 million increase for publicly funded Pre-K. They should also invest at least $115 million in sustainable state and federal funds to supplement wages for all childcare teachers. This funding will allow early childhood professionals to be compensated as just that — professionals.
Regardless of where they live or how much money they make, every family deserves to have access to high-quality care and education for their children, and every child deserves to receive excellent care — the kind of professional care that allows them to understand and cope with every life lesson thrown at them, whether it’s a feeling of frustration, a need for persistence, or the death of an earthworm.
Donna Reid-Kilgore is a Pre-K Counts teacher at Bloom Early Education Center in Swoyersville, PA and an Early Childhood Education Policy Fellow with Teach Plus PA.