Kindergarten teacher shortage: high pressure and low salary, "What are you trying to do?"

Preschool teachers are the soul of early childhood education. The quality and level of early childhood teachers determine the development and growth of children. However, the reality in China is that the shortage of early childhood teachers is as high as one million. The early childhood education industry is not only facing a shortage of teachers, but also a test of quality.

Wen Wangshan

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After working in a private kindergarten in Changping for three months, Li Mi felt that she was "about to be depressed" ”. Li Mi was also stressed with a dog she raised. Whenever her work was not going well, Li Mi would pat the dog on the head with her hand. Every time she saw her, the dog's first reaction was Just pull away and hide behind. "The dogs have psychological shadows, which reflects my irritability." Li Mi analyzed to this publication.

Li Mi graduated from a certain normal university majoring in preschool education. The kindergarten she works in has 11 classes, which is above average in Beijing. The reason why the school chose Li Mi is simple because she graduated with a bachelor's degree and majored in preschool education. This is the most scarce thing about this private kindergarten: most of the teachers in the school are college graduates, and some teachers who have worked for many years do not have kindergarten teacher qualification certificates.

Li Mi is a living brand. Every time there is a parent-teacher meeting in the class, the introduction sent to the parents by the kindergarten will be marked with "Class teacher Li Mi, graduated from a certain normal university with a bachelor's degree in preschool education"; the same thing that is mentioned by the principal is A graduate of a certain second normal university. "Parents often don't approve of new teachers, but seeing that my academic qualifications are pretty good, they have no objection."

A bachelor's degree did not bring any substantial benefits to Li Mi; The salary is only 3,500 yuan. In this kindergarten that advocates experience, the principal said bluntly in his first conversation with Li Mi, "You have no experience. You are in the learning stage now. You cannot be a main class teacher yet, nor can I give you a higher education." salary". Despite this, Li Mi happily entered the kindergarten and became a teacher in a class of 35 children.

However, facing so many children, the theories in school are no longer useful. Li Mi asked the children to wash their hands. After telling them many times, some children were still immersed in their own world and playing with toys. The classroom was a mess. She shouted "little mouths don't talk" over and over again. Her voice became hoarse, but no children responded. she. Li Mi was confused and didn't know how to attract the child's attention. She wanted to seek help from the head teacher, but she couldn't find anyone every time. "Every time she went to class, she would do her own thing, and she wouldn't look at the children to help maintain order."

Later, she wanted to observe the head teacher lectures to gain some experience. She found that the main class teacher did not care about these situations. She only focused on speaking in class and did not interact with the children below. Only when the classroom is really chaotic, the teacher in charge will yell a few words to make the children quiet down.

The head teacher also gave all the work to Li Mi. "She asked me to think about the content of environment creation and asked me to do handwork. Then she kept urging me and said, 'If you don't do it well, the entire class's teachers will have their wages deducted.' I was under a lot of pressure." In this kindergarten. Here, in order to strengthen management, all teachers' performance is linked to their salary. Just like the exam, each teacher has a basic score of 100 points per month: points will be deducted if the attendance rate is not met; points will be deducted if the teacher has a bad attitude. In the first month, everyone's scores were posted on the bulletin board on the wall. Li Mi found that no one got full marks.

Every teacher is a blank slate

Li Mi often thinks of her internship experience in a provincial kindergarten when she was in school. Newly graduated teachers are During one internship period, there were experienced teachers who answered questions and discussed how to write lesson plans. Nowadays, she racks her brains to write nine lesson plans a week, five lesson preparation lesson plans, and four training lesson plans. I have no time to take care of my children during the day, so I go home from get off work at night and write.

Her boyfriend looked at her and couldn't bear it, "What are you doing with such a small amount of money?" Li Mi knew why she worked so hard. She came from a small county. After she failed the exam, her parents wanted her to go home and become a junior high school teacher. She doesn't want to go back, "I want to have a break, and I don't want my children to try to leave the county again like me."

However, after an incident, Li Mi decided to resign. One day, she was running with her children on the small playground. One child suddenly tilted his body and hit the ground, breaking his knee. She panicked and went to the infirmary with her baby in her arms. The principal and parents rushed over one after another. The parents relentlessly accused her, thinking that she had not taken good care of their children, and demanded compensation. After the principal helped to appease the parents, he criticized her for being "careless" and later deducted her salary. After that day, Li Mi never dared to leave her children's sight. She stared at each child in a daze. Even if they were sitting on the chair, she was worried that they would fall off, so she hurriedly went to help them. "I really hoped that I was the one who fell." She told this magazine that one day, she had a dream. In the dream, she stood in the middle of the classroom, clapping her hands and shouting to the students, but she couldn't make a sound. "I feel very helpless. The pressure is too great and I can't go on."

Stills from the documentary "Kindergarten"

Feng Xiaoxia, a professor of preschool education at Beijing Normal University, once conducted a questionnaire survey and Interviews were conducted to investigate the living conditions of 447 teachers in 50 kindergartens with different systems in Beijing. The survey shows that more than half of the teachers have obvious burnout tendencies. Many people feel exhausted, worried about something going wrong, and restless; nearly half of the teachers feel that their tempers have become bad, and they often get angry with children and family members over trivial matters.

"Kindergarten teachers are under much greater pressure than ordinary people imagine, and they must obtain effective strategic learning and support from the kindergarten." The principal of a public kindergarten in Beijing told this magazine, "Even if you have studied psychology With certain abilities in education and education, a new teacher is not capable of managing twenty or thirty children. Even a mother does not have the experience to manage twenty or thirty children. The most important thing to support and help the teacher in practice is to teach her to understand children and see things from a child's perspective."

"Kindergarten", French painter Jean Geoffroy, 1898.

Sun Yuhong, who is also in a private kindergarten, does not feel such pressure. She is 26 years old and is the main teacher of the large class, responsible for the daily life and teaching of more than 20 children. When the class first started, the children would also make various requests. Sun Yuhong didn't know how to deal with them, so she would communicate with the senior teachers during the training at noon every day to ask for help. Later, every time she encountered a similar situation, she would say to the students: "You have made so many demands, but I am only one person. Who should I deal with first? Can you go and discuss it?" After hearing this, the children , Sure enough, they will get together to discuss and finally come up with an order.

Sun Yuhong’s support comes from kindergarten. After she joined the job, she did not directly participate in the teaching and management of children. What awaited her was a study period of about one year. In a kindergarten that advocates hands-on teaching, this is a must-have procedure. Through this kind of learning, new teachers can complete a basic understanding of kindergarten and learn certain experience. "Old teachers have a lot of experience and will tell newcomers what to do when they encounter problems."

An Xiu, Sun Yuhong's principal, prefers to compare new employees to a blank piece of paper. "When she first entered the kindergarten, everyone loved her children. But why did she lose it later or cause some incidents to happen? It's because the energy has not been recharged and has been depleted. She will have resentment and her patience will be lost. No more." Anxiu has been the principal of the garden for more than ten years, and she has also worked her way up to where she is today. In her opinion, the philosophy and education methods of a campus determine the appearance of the teachers it trains. “If you can establish correct concepts in the early stage, you will have a positive way to face problems.

What is the philosophy of your unit and how you view children's behavior will be reflected in the teachers. "

Anxiu has rich training experience. She told this magazine that generally new employees have to go through two time periods: the first week and the first three months. "It is necessary to establish a basic sense of security for teachers in the early stage. , tell her the difficulties and emotions she may face, and make her realize that kindergarten is not just repetitive work. Otherwise, the teacher may quit working soon, and his understanding of kindergarten may not be clear. ”

Energy replenishment is specific and detailed. For example, when encouraging children, someone will say "You are great", and the children will not feel it if they hear it too much. Anxiu and the old staff union in the kindergarten Tell the newcomer how to observe the child's behavior and use new praise methods, such as: "You actually moved the thing here, you are so powerful!" The child who heard this immediately made a strong man's gesture and said, "I am Ultraman!" ”

Creating conditions to help teachers solve problems is also what a mature kindergarten is good at. In the first two years of the kindergarten, every time Anxiu encountered communication problems with parents, Anxiu would go with the teacher to visit the parents. , for example, looking at the situation at home, why the child was in a mood, or how to solve the problem when the child was crying. It was not until the teacher suggested that she could handle such a matter that she slowly withdrew from all the parents. No., she often said: "Teacher is busy at work, you come to me. "Sometimes parents call me and ask: "Why doesn't the class teacher reply to my WeChat message? An Xiuhui patiently told the parents: "The teacher may be in the supermarket or studying." ”

A mental health teacher at a local preschool in Denver, USA, hugged the children and comforted and encouraged the children who were in bad moods (Photo courtesy of Visual China)

Once, the teacher had already got off work The parent sent a WeChat message to the teacher, saying that she had something to do and asked someone else to pick up the child. Half an hour later, the teacher saw the WeChat message and immediately called the principal, but it was still too late. Outside the door. Anxiu called her parents to communicate. The first thing her parents said was: "What's going on with you? Didn't I tell you?" "The safety of our children is of paramount importance, and we cannot blindly leave it into the hands of others." "This vented the parents' anger.

Afterwards, Anxiu sent the parent instructions to the group again and noted her office phone number again. "For teachers, what kind of kindergarten you enter is particularly important. If you enter an institution that regards profit as its purpose and does not pay attention to teachers' welfare and cultural atmosphere. If parents complain, teachers' bonuses will be deducted. As long as parents refund fees or leave the kindergarten, teachers will be punished. Such an unit will cultivate Some teachers think that they have to please parents so that nothing happens to their children. "

However, most people are not as lucky as Sun Yuhong. More people, like Li Mi, are powerless and helpless at work. A principal told this magazine that she once knew a teacher who graduated from She later worked in a very good kindergarten, but soon resigned. When asked why, the teacher said that she could not control her urge to hit the child because a senior teacher in her class often punished a child with developmental delays, even if she told the kindergarten. It didn't help that the teacher's husband was the principal's superior. She felt deeply powerless and resigned.

High turnover rate

More private kindergartens do not have the ability to complete post-entry training for teachers. One private kindergarten principal told me, “There is such a shortage of teachers that there is no time for training. You said when there is no one around, should we use it or not? "Some kindergartens even require teachers to just satisfy parents. A kindergarten teacher told me that a teacher in her kindergarten never pays attention to students' learning results, but after every get out of class, he will name the children's parents one by one on WeChat. , tell them what their children have learned, and they should review it when they get home. Sometimes, they will also remind parents to put on more clothes for their children when the weather is cold. “In the eyes of parents, she is a serious and responsible teacher.

”

In the article “Preschool Education Must Maintain Educational and Public Welfare”, Liu Zhanlan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, affirmed the status of private kindergartens and described their living conditions: Kindergartens have now become the mainstay of kindergartens in terms of number. They do not receive any financial subsidies from the state. And because about 79% of private kindergartens are organized by individual citizens, the number of kindergartens run by private organizations is very small, especially those run by non-profit organizations. Almost none. Therefore, most of them operate according to the market approach and generally aim to make profits. Some places even set a one-time upfront registration fee of more than one million yuan for kindergartens and require them to pay a high proportion of corporate income tax or business tax every year. Policy.

In other words, from the perspective of market rules, private kindergartens can only reduce costs if they want to survive, and they have no ability to ensure the excellence of teachers. What’s more, the gap in kindergarten teachers themselves is already huge. Reconciling contradictions.

When there is a shortage of teachers, many even choose interns to serve as teachers. The principal of a private kindergarten told me that they will bring in six or seven interns every June. The advantage of this is that on the one hand, interns can increase the vitality of the park and reduce the pressure of lack of teachers; on the other hand, "the salary of interns is only The salary is about 1,500 yuan, which is half of that of an ordinary teacher. Calculated this way, tens of thousands of dollars in salary expenses can be saved. There is such a shortage of kindergarten teachers, and the principal often says, 'Just one person will do.'"

Xu Ming, the chairman of Anxiu's kindergarten, cannot accept this approach. On the one hand, the interns have not received relevant training and are professional On the other hand, this will also have a great impact on the cohesion of the entire teaching team and the overall teaching and research. Her principal only selects people through two channels. One is to contact the school and interview students for internship in the park. The other is the recommendation of an acquaintance, "He must be able to guarantee that the person is trustworthy, and you can also know the reason why he resigned." She doesn't like to recruit teachers from the society. "Many teachers change jobs in exchange for salary. , her education and child's heart gradually disappeared in the process. And after cultivating for a period of time, she will still choose to leave. ”

With limited financial resources, Xu Ming’s method is to find ways to retain people. She set a rule that if the teacher stays in the kindergarten for five years, the child does not have to pay any fees from the time he enters the kindergarten to the time he leaves the kindergarten. Fees; if the employee has been employed for less than five years, he/she must pay half of the normal tuition fee, and the employee will be refunded after five years. This provision ensures the stability of the personnel to a certain extent. For Xu Ming, this is not an easy decision, which means that every year. However, this did not stop the flow of students. Geng Xiaoge, a master's degree graduate from Beijing Jiaotong University, selected 10 private schools as samples for his graduation project and counted their arrivals in 2013. Teacher turnover rate in 2015. He found that the average three-year turnover rates of 10 private kindergartens were 22.6, 25.8, and 22.8 respectively, significantly exceeding the normal turnover rate of 15. Among them, the turnover rate of one kindergarten reached 46.7.

Geng Xiaoge found that in terms of age, teachers aged 20 to 25 have the highest mobility, accounting for 42.1%. After several years of work, they have gained certain teaching experience and want to change jobs to jobs with better pay. There are generous kindergarten jobs. 25 and 30 years old are around 21, and they are at the age of marriage and have to give up their jobs as kindergarten teachers.

In Xu Ming’s kindergarten, there are more people leaving their jobs. It's because of love and marriage reasons. More than 90% of the teachers come from normal colleges in provinces around Beijing, such as Shanxi and Hebei. At the beginning, everyone wanted to find a job and make a living in Beijing. However, after reaching a certain age, it was difficult to find a job. Due to the pressure of life, many people will choose to go home. “Unless they have a family and a place to live in Beijing or the couple’s salary can support their rent, others will basically go back. "Xu Ming's chief director Feng Jia told this publication.

Xu Ming also understands that in the eyes of these teachers’ families, private kindergarten teachers “just look after other people’s children”, which is not a promising job in the first place. The children will have better choices when they return to their hometown. Go to elementary school or junior high school, get married and have children early and stabilize. There used to be a girl from Xinjiang in her kindergarten who was loved by the children. Later, she went back to her place of origin to take exams for further studies and never came back. "After her studies, when she was old enough to get married, she was the only girl in her family, and her parents wouldn't let her out."

There was an event that Xu Ming did not expect at all. At that time, her kindergarten had just been rated as a first-level demonstration kindergarten. Xu Ming originally thought that the kindergarten could build on this foundation. Unexpectedly, during the summer vacation that year, almost one teacher from every class chose to leave, and all of them were important teaching positions. The reason was simple. A private kindergarten was opening a new kindergarten and wanted to recruit people from her. It sent a text message to all her teachers, promising a high salary. "I have no choice. There are only so many positions, and it really can't solve the position of so many head teachers and teachers." Xu Ming felt helpless. It takes 3 to 5 years for every qualified teacher to mature from the beginning. Losing one It means starting from scratch.

There is a huge gap in early childhood education

In November 2017, after the "Red, Yellow and Blue Incident" occurred, Xu Ming quickly organized a dinner party. She invited the principals of more than a dozen of her kindergartens to gather together and chat, with the purpose of calming the principals' emotions and "calming down their shock." The dinner tables are all occupied by women. There is no changing of cups and cups, only emotions and bitterness are poured out.

Some principals said that many teachers would come to complain that they did not know how to get along with their children, "Can I still hug my child?" "Can I still kiss my child?" Faced with the original Many teachers don’t know what to do with children who get along day and night. Parents are also full of emotions about kindergartens. There are always people in the parent group who will come out to question the attitude and behavior of teachers in the kindergarten. A further difficulty may be the potential wave of departures. “Many teachers received calls from their families, saying that Beijing was too chaotic and asking them to stop working and find another job,” Xu Ming told this publication.

Xu Ming comforted the principal while discussing countermeasures with them. She asked all the principals to go back and count the number of people who had resigned as a contingency. “Kindergarten is really getting harder and harder to operate.” She told this magazine that several kindergarten operators she knew chose to close their kindergartens.

In 2003, Xu Ming opened his first kindergarten. At that time, her biggest concern was the choice of a kindergarten venue. Commercial housing was too expensive and unaffordable, so a supporting kindergarten in the community was the best choice. After choosing the venue, she posted an advertisement in the Beijing Evening News and wanted to recruit 20 teachers. She received hundreds of application letters, many handwritten. "At that time, it was really the best of the best, so we only picked beautiful ones for interviews, because children like gentle and beautiful teachers." Forty or fifty girls performed their talents or took small observation classes one by one, and in the end 20 people stayed.

From now on, 2003 is the first year for the development of private kindergartens. This is due to the gradual withdrawal of corporate kindergartens and street kindergartens. The "Guiding Opinions on the Reform and Development of Early Childhood Education" released that year described the overall goal of the five-year education reform from 2003 to 2007: to form a public kindergarten as the backbone and demonstration, with social forces as the main body to establish kindergartens, public and private, formal Development pattern integrated with non-formal education. Since then, private kindergartens have developed rapidly.

In 1958, a domestic kindergarten teacher led children to play games (photo provided by Visual China)

Data show that from 2003 to 2011, the number of kindergartens nationwide increased from 116,400 to 116,400. The number increased to 166,800, an increase of 43.3%. Among them, the total number of private kindergartens was 55,500 in 2003, and increased to 115,400 in 2011, an increase of 107.9%.

After 2005, Xu Ming’s job advertisements received fewer and fewer responses.

By 2010, kindergartens were expanding faster and faster. One kindergarten she knew was quickly spread across the country with ten or twenty kindergartens. Recruiting teachers is becoming increasingly difficult. "Others choose you based on salary and environment. You have no right to choose."

Every year during the graduation season, Xu Ming invites employees to go to the school's job fair. Their information desk is next to other kindergartens and schools. The most crowded ones are public kindergartens or government agencies, enterprises and institutions, and then the military kindergarten. After walking around, many people would go to the stall of Xu Ming's unit and ask some basic information, but few people left personal information.

Sometimes, they will also say hello to the school, find a classroom to give lectures, and push recruitment notices into people's hands. The brochure was beautiful and creative, but still no one wanted to come. "The entire recruitment season is as busy as a war, but it is difficult to recruit people, and there are only one or two. Private schools determine that you are at a disadvantage in terms of salary and stability."

This situation is even more obvious in Shanghai. A recruiter from an early childhood education institution told me that since 2015, every time they go to schools to recruit students, teachers will tell them that all students will be "robbed" in two or three months. "Five years ago, we were still talking to the school about a cooperative internship base. Now it is impossible. We have to introduce teachers from remote areas such as Guizhou."

In 2008, the " During the National Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development Plan (2010-2020), Chu Zhaohui participated in the preschool education group as an expert. At that time, he made a budget. He mentioned that it is estimated that 200,000 professional teachers will be required to enter early childhood education positions every year to meet the demand for preschool education. At that time, only about 10,000 early childhood education graduates were produced by colleges and universities every year.

Many people think it is impossible, saying that this number is too big for normal colleges and cannot be reached at once. Chu Zhaohui said that it cannot be achieved, but the demand is here. "Later, although the government took some measures, it mainly focused on opening and expanding kindergartens, and not on expanding teacher training. This is equivalent to building a house for children to go in, but not considering what the children will do after they go in."

Chu Zhaohui said: "The coverage of preschool teacher training is not so wide, which means that some people who enter the position of preschool teachers are unqualified." In November 2015, the Ministry of Education issued the "Preschool Education Special Evaluation" "Report" shows that in 2014, the proportion of teachers with a college degree or above was 66; the proportion of teachers with early childhood education qualification certificates was 61, the proportion of teachers with non-preschool education teacher qualification certificates was 17%, and the proportion of uncertified teachers was 22. Chu Zhaohui provided another reference data, "Among the more than 2 million kindergarten teachers in the country, nearly 70% have not received the professional title of kindergarten teacher. Under the current situation, this situation will continue for 10 to 20 years. Newly recruited teachers They are unqualified in terms of qualifications, but because there is not a sufficient number of replacements, there is no way to let them leave their posts in the short term.”

(Li Mi, An Xiu, Xu Ming, Sun Yuhong and Feng Jia are pseudonyms in the article)