just an educator

Sometimes I hear people speak about my job as if it were something easy. As if my days were made of coffee, crafts and a bit of chatting with colleagues. As if anyone could walk into a room full of small children and simply manage. As if what we do grows on trees.

I smile at these comments, not because they are true but because they reveal how little people see. They have never stepped into my world for longer than a school visit. They do not feel the weight of twenty tiny emotions shifting in the same room. They do not notice how much of ourselves we give. They do not understand that early childhood education is not babysitting. It is the beginning of everything.

I work with children in the years that shape them most. Years where language grows and emotions take form. Years where confidence is built or broken. Years where a child learns what safety feels like. Years where small hands learn to trust their own strength. We accompany future doctors and future artists. Future mechanics and future judges. We are the ground they stand on before they even know what standing means.

And still, we are often treated as if we chose something small. Something anyone could do. The old line that every Hausfrau could be an Educator still shows up from time to time. I smile at it because the people who say this would not last two hours in my group. It is easy to underestimate what you do not understand.

I am an educator, a pre-school teacher.
But I am also a nurse, a referee, a psychologist and an observer.
I am a storyteller and a translator of emotions.
I am a coach for small bodies and a guide for growing minds.
I am a mediator when conflicts appear out of nothing.
I am a safe place when the world feels too loud.
I am a detective who notices the details others miss.
I am a gardener who tends to patience and curiosity.
I am a builder of trust, a calmer of storms and a quiet anchor when a child is overwhelmed.
I am a mirror that helps them recognise themselves.
I am structure and softness in the same breath.

And with the parents I become something else again.
I am a partner in their child’s growth.
I am a source of reassurance on difficult mornings.
I am the one who explains what their child cannot yet put into words.
I am someone they confide in, sometimes more than they planned.
I am the calm voice when their own worry rises.
I am the bridge between home and school, between how a child feels and how a child behaves.
I am a witness to their child’s milestones and their struggles and I carry both with care.
I understand that parents are learning too.

And the day is never done when the children go home.
There is planning and preparing.
There is organising the next week.
There is evaluating what worked and what did not.
There is supporting trainees, guiding them, holding space for their questions and insecurities.
There is paperwork, meetings, messages from parents and colleagues.
There is the constant mental list of what needs to happen tomorrow.
My job does not end at the door. I am available at all hours, every day of the year.

Yes, I have a lot of vacation, but I need it to recover.
My mind needs time to empty itself.
My body needs to heal from the daily parade of germs and exhaustion.
And sometimes, like last week, the body shuts down earlier. There are days where I am spat on, coughed on, covered in snot and other bodily fluids before it is even ten in the morning. There are days where I give more than I have. There are days where my strength runs thin.
But I still show up. I show up because it matters. Because these years matter. Because children deserve adults who see them and hear them and hold space for them.

I love my job. I am passionate about it. And while I wrote this, I realised something simple and unshakeable. I cannot imagine doing anything else. I would not survive a world filled with numbers and spreadsheets. My mind does not work that way and it never has. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Mine were meant for children, for presence, for patience, for the quiet, steady work of guiding small humans through their first years in the world. This is where I belong.