“No thank you!” “Walking feet please.” “Use your words!” Would you use these phrases to talk to your best friend, or your mom? Probably not. However, these are the words I use everyday at my job. Working with four year olds requires a whole new set of vocabulary that one is not used to. You see a four year old jetting full speed across the classroom do you yell out to him, “STOP IT NOW!” Well, you could. However, this would result in the four year old stopping abruptly, turning to look at you with wide eyes and shortly following the boy would throw his head back and tears would pour out of his eyes while a loud shriek rang from his lungs. It takes patience and a lot of thinking to become accustomed to the vocabulary needed to truly reach these four year olds.
One big part of my work vocabulary is referring to everyone around as “my friend” or “my friends.” I can’t go around in my classes and say, “excuse me friend, can you tell me the homework assignment?” The person I asked would probably look at me with a wary expression and turn away. At work I’m used to saying, “you need to be nice to my friends,” and “Excuse me friends, we need to be quiet.” When you are four, everyone can be your friend no questions asked. No one passes judgments or thinks on kid is the “un-cool” kid. Everyone is cool in their eyes, and to help the kids stay equal with each other I help them by calling them and my co-workers my friends.
Another saying we use at work is, “Listen to my words please.” When talking to a friend or a co-worker you would simply say, “Listen please.” But with four year olds things need to be broken down. I need to explain to them exactly what I want them to listen to. Four year olds are so crazy and tend to want to be on their own and act how they want. However, if I let this happen my classroom would be total chaos. To avoid a whirlwind of four year olds terrorizing the classroom and taking complete barbaric rule I give them specific orders and break things down to the most simple things to help them understand and give them more of a chance to adhere.
I could spend five pages explaining the vocabulary of “Miss Jessica” and her four year olds, but I think you get the point. When talking to my four year olds I need to simplify things down to the exact detail and I need to keep my kids on an equal level basis. I can’t talk to them like I would talk to a fellow adult and sometimes I forget who I’m talking to even when I’m with my friends. I’m with my kids so much quite often I find myself telling my friends to “listen to my words,” or I’ll tell them “no thank you” when they do something I don’t like. A person’s vocabulary changes depending on the situation they are in and what kind of point they want to get across. I like my “no thank yous,” and my “use your words,” and my “walking feets” while I’m at work. I feel my words help maintain balance in what could become a jungle of tiny people, and they help those tiny people develop their own words on their way to becoming adults.
When Is at down to do this assignment, it did not even cross my mind that different age groups of people are communities within themselves. Thank you for drawing my attention to that. Do you think it would be hard to instruct four-year-olds as a career because of this lingo or does it almost become second nature? Do you ever find yourself using this language with your peers before you snap out of work mode? I like what you had to say here and I think it is interesting to think that people of different age groups have a set standard of language within themselves.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you engaged the reader with phrases and questions. I really enjoyed reading your blog thank you for your very well worded insight.
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