Gayle Jessie

I attribute my success to creating a safe, loving environment for children and building strong relationships with families. My rewards come from parents trusting me with their children - I've had families where I taught all five of their children, from the oldest now in high school to the youngest at 4 years old. Then they told their siblings about me, and I taught all of their children too. I'm currently teaching another family's middle child after teaching their oldest, and I plan to retire on their baby boy. When parents feel confident enough to request you year after year, and when a grandmother has you teach every single one of her grandchildren because of your reputation in the community, that's the real measure of success. I focus on making school enjoyable and pleasant for kids when they're fresh and new, so they learn to love education. I try to be there for the child no matter what baggage they may have - whether they're in foster care or not being treated well at home. I want my classroom to be the safe place where, even if they don't have anywhere else safe, when they see me every morning, they know they're safe. It's about having a special calling and a special set of patience, because this job isn't for everybody. You have to deal with the kids, coworkers, principals, and parents. The reward comes when you see what the children were when they came to you in August versus what they're doing by the time they leave in May.

The biggest challenge is being taken seriously as an early childhood educator. I think during the pandemic, people were able to see how teachers have to deal with kids - parents saw their own children acting out on computers and could imagine what we go through in a classroom. But for us in early childhood, online teaching was especially hard because so much of what we do is hands-on, touching, talking, and sometimes mothering. You can't do that through a computer. People don't think early childhood, especially Head Start and pre-K, is as important as it really is. Even my own family thinks we don't do nothing but play all day, but we're actually teaching. When we're singing songs and clapping hands, we're keeping beat, clapping syllables in words, making funny faces when we hear certain sounds because we're working on specific letters. It may look like fun, but these kids are learning, and it takes time and planning. In Texas, you don't even have to go to kindergarten - you can start first grade. Can you imagine a first grader walking in who doesn't know what a book is or has never seen a letter before? They're already at a disadvantage. We're dealing with 3 and 4-year-olds who aren't potty trained, who can't tell you their real name, who can only point at what they want. We have to build background knowledge in one year that they should have gotten from birth until that point. Even in our own districts, they don't pay attention to pre-K and Head Start. They think we just have the babies and they're so cute, but it's not cute when a child tries to hurt you. I think we as educators of early childhood don't sell ourselves enough. I would challenge any man who used to be a coach but is now a principal to go into a classroom with 3 and 4-year-olds and see what they can do. They take the little kids for granted, thinking we're just down there playing and singing, but we're teaching children who have never been taught basic things.