- She put her hand on my hand
and she looked me right in the eyes and went,
"You are not stupid."
And I was like, thank you.
(fun music)
- Hi, guys, I'm Jake.
On the hardest of days are the days
where you actually kind of take away something for yourself,
and as cheesy as it sounds the kids end up teaching you
almost as much as you teach them.
I was directing the miniature version of Willy Wonka,
it was called Willy Wonka Junior.
We had you know, kids who were a little bit older,
kids who were a little bit younger,
but the preschoolers
were all supposed to be the Oompa Loompas.
As you can imagine, getting a bunch of preschoolers
to do Oompa Loompa doopity anything
can be really, really tough.
But one of the Oompa Loompas, the lead Oompa Loompa,
he recognized that stuff was not coming together
and that we were just days away from opening this show.
And like, he clapped and got everybody's attention
during one part of rehearsal,
and there's kids everywhere,
and he said, "Guys, we need to get it together,
"we're the Oompa Loompas,
"and we're gonna show everybody how good
"we can be oompa and a loompa-ing."
And from that point forward,
I mean, it's hard to say was it perfect,
uhn not quite, but was it significantly better?
Absolutely.
And I think what was really amazing
is seeing somebody step up and not be afraid
to talk to their peers,
but also kind of have this commanding presence.
- For the last year, I've been in one classroom.
I was basically the third teacher in a team of three
for the whole year.
And I always knew that eventually
they would fill the team with a permanent teacher
and that I would leave to go substitute
in the rest of my center.
And I've always been kind of emotionally prepared for that.
I, like most millennials, am very self-conscious
and very anxious as a person,
and it's easy to forget our self-worth a little bit.
But when I was leaving this classroom,
once they filled the team of three,
after I had been there for a year,
I was kind of like, oh my God, starting a new chapter, ah!
And it was easy to get like really in my head about it.
But then when we had my little goodbye celebration,
I realized, when looking at 20
like tiny little three-year-olds
and hearing how much they cared about me,
how much I care about me, too.
So, that was really, really rewarding.
- Hey, I'm Emily.
I'm a former preschool teacher.
We had this thing at our school,
we had like a little thing of band-aids.
The band-aids were a very special treat
because everybody wants the band-aids
with the characters on them.
A lot of times, when there's a boo boo,
you go get a band-aid.
They get to pick the character.
It usually fixes it and it's a very, very big deal.
I had a time where I was like cutting up stars
that we were gonna paste on a hat.
And I was busy and I was frustrated,
and the irony is that these are like kid scissors
and I cut my finger like a little bit.
I saw like a drop of blood, which wasn't a big deal,
but of course, I was like oh no,
like I don't want any of these kids to see this
and panic and cry, and be like Emily's bleeding.
So I like, and I covered it,
and I went over to the sink to wash it.
And then, one of my sweetest little girls,
actually did climb up on the stool,
she knew exactly where the band-aids were.
And she came up behind me and had like a menu.
She had like Elsa, Spiderman, ninja, and like a bear.
And she was like, Miss Emily, which band-aid do you want?
In the moment, seeing that they can apply
not only lessons, but just like compassion,
that isn't necessarily a thing that comes from me,
it also comes from growing up and helping each other.
In that moment, I teared up.
- I remember it was very, very tough for this one girl.
She was having a really tough time.
We had little leaders in our class for the day,
and it was her turn to be the leader.
And at every turn, things got mismanaged,
other people thought that they were the leader,
so they were able to go retrieve the lunch bag baskets,
or they sat in her chair.
And you could just tell that she was getting
really, really frustrated.
But I could tell by the end,
she was incredibly disappointed
'cause her day to be the leader,
it had kind of been ruined.
And I remember saying like,
I'm sorry that this happened to you today.
I hope that the next time it goes better.
And she looked at me and she goes,
"It's okay, 'cause now I get to go home and eat cereal."
To me, that just reminded me
that no matter how bad stuff can really get,
no matter how turbulent things become in life,
that she recognized that she had a family at home,
that she like cereal,
that she was not worried
that she wasn't going to get the credit
for not being the best leader that day,
and that it would come around again in a few weeks.
My takeaway, the life lesson, was just be yourself,
be okay with it.
If you have a rough day, you can go home, eat cereal,
try again tomorrow.
- There was once a moment I very specifically remember
where we always on St. Patrick's Day
we hide gold at the school.
We let all the kids loose and they go find it.
And they don't even get anything for the gold.
They don't win money, they don't win prizes.
They just have to find these rocks.
And just like the pure nirvana joy on the kids' face
when they find one.
And it's stuff like that that just like so much fun
and so much joy in the little things.
- One time, one child was kind of having,
he was being very boisterous in a moment
and he was calling me stupid, and I was like ugh.
But he was three, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
And his friend, one of our other kids,
she put her hand on my hand,
and she looked me right in the eyes, and went,
"You are not stupid."
And I was like, thank you, I know.
(laughing)
But it was so sweet, just the way that she
that she was so genuine and so sincere.
And I was like aw,
and it made me realize like oh,
her parents must be doing a really good job
at like teaching her empathy
and teaching her how others are feeling.
- Working with kids is like wildly inspiring.
I used to do,
I was like in charge of the imaginary play
section of the day,
and the school I worked at
had this like stock score soundtrack.
So it was like a bunch of movie soundtracks.
So, every day, I would put on the soundtrack
and I'd be like go to sleep, go to sleep,
and they're like yes!
And they like run to the middle of the carpet.
I was like go to bed, go to bed!
And then like the music would start,
and I would just like lead them.
Oh, I was like we're at a zoo, what do you see?
And they're like I see a dinosaur!
I see a penguin.
And one kid's like I see lint.
And you're like, okay.
It's just like seeing how young kids
can imagine together.
It's like so cute, you know,
it's like they all were like on board.
Yes, there is a dinosaur in that corner.
Like yes, we're being attacked by bumblebees,
but they're nice.
And like yes, there's a race car running through it.
You know whatever they come up with,
it's just amazing to see everyone work together,
and you're like huh, what if we all did that all the time?
- I think what is the life lesson
that I've taken away from working with students
is that you can just be yourself
and that that's an okay thing.
Preschoolers, they don't have any preconceived notions
of trying to be something else
unless they're playing pretend.
Or wanting to impress somebody.
Or needing something so that they can have status.
They just are who they are.
- Kids have so much more depth to them
than I think people give them credit for at the surface.
- The world is made for adults.
We don't realize that
and it's easy for a kid to feel very out of place
or like they can't do anything yet,
but a lot of these kids, they're people, they're real,
they have real feelings and real ambitions.
- The big takeaway from working with students
and being a teacher is that kids, at their heart and core
are just themselves.
And they're really not afraid to be themselves
and to say like exactly
how they're feeling about everything.
I think as we grow older,
and we put up more and more shells,
and we get a little bit more defensive,
a little bit more protective.
We get caught up in life's minutiae.
Kids can really bring it back down
and remind you that hey, everything's gonna be okay
and tomorrow we can all try again,
just doing the best that we can.
Being our best selves is just being
kind of our most authentic simplistic selves in some ways.
And that's a really beautiful thing
that I don't think anybody except young kids in preschool
can really tell ya.
(fun music)