Joy Conley wanted to get into early childcare due to a deep passion for educating young children. While nannying in 2020, it became more apparent to Joy how too many children went without one on one time and quality care and education. This imbalance of care prompted Joy to pursue a career in larger educational programs. They returned to the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, VT and enjoyed watching young children and their families interact with the toys and exhibits.
“From a young age kids are natural scientists,” they told me while we chatted, “I wanted to keep seeing those moments of ‘ah ha!’ and those moments of curiosity.”
This led Joy to take classes in early childhood. They knew it was a field that needed more providers, and they already had the background in childcare, so it was a natural transition. They were able to easily enroll in classes at the River Valley Community College; New Hampshire and Vermont offer scholarships to support people joining the field of early education, and so Joy found “very few barriers to jumping into a class or two” while working full time.
Joy currently works at a center that is close to approaching full capacity. “We have five classrooms open right now, with a sixth that has been closed since I started here two years ago,” they explain, “but I think over time we want to build up enough staff that we can open that sixth classroom.”
But the issue of capacity is slightly more complicated than just going by the state regulations for maximum number of students per center.
“I can tell you,” Joy said, “that the classroom teachers feel at or over capacity way before the technical number of students is reached.” For a four year old classroom, the minimum ratio according to the state is 1:12. That might seem fine on paper, but when it comes to addressing each child’s needs, keeping them safe, keeping them fed, helping them with tasks, and then on top of that, trying to teach them particular lessons, one teacher for 12 four-year-olds is a big lift for even a seasoned educator.
Joy’s typical workday varies, as they float among different classrooms. They might be in and out of different groups during the day.
“Drop off time, everyone is together and sort of relaxed and chilling… then once you get towards breakfast everything starts to ramp up. [Sometimes you’re] working with a dozen toddlers, [they] could be yelling, need a diaper change, need to wash their hands, need to eat, and some kids are done at the table before others are sitting down.” It varies day to day, and “sometimes [it] can feel really playful, and sometimes [it] can be an assembly line.” There is time for play, both structured and unstructured, indoors and outside, and nap time is decompression time for the kids and adults – however there are always dishes, laundry, paperwork, and lesson planning to do while the kids sleep.
One of the challenges that Joy faces in their job is the difficulty of managing so many different opinions when it comes to how children should be taken care of and learn. Some might wonder why the children are “playing” all day, and consider an early educator a glorified “babysitter”. Joy would explain that playing is how children learn social and physical skills that are integral to their development. Joy is a big advocate for outdoor play and exploration, but without the appropriate clothes and support, it can be unsafe for a class to get outside in snow or rain, which is a large part of our reality here in New England.
“Sometimes I think that there are… no win scenarios. No matter what you do you’re going to face criticism from one direction or the other.” Joy explained. On top of managing all of the moving parts that go along with being responsible for many children’s safety and education, and the financial pressure from low wages within the field, early educators also have to figure out how to hold all of the potential criticism they could receive for their philosophy of teaching.
“As a teacher you’re learning how to be sensitive to different beliefs and cultures. But it becomes hard to manage all of those things, especially when you’re understaffed…at the end of the day just trying to keep everybody safe and have a good time.”
One of the ways that they have come to respond to these challenges is to invite parents into the classroom setting as volunteers to see what the job looks like in action. “I like to use a curiosity approach,” Joy explained to me, talking more about how they want to encourage curiosity in the families of the children they look after, “I want to be a partner, I want to help you and your child succeed.”
Despite all the devotion to raising young children into all sort of wonderful community members, everyone in the early childhood education field faces challenges.
“Aside from passionate and caring and dedicated, the culture is tired,” Joy said.
“The whole project of raising and educating children is a collective, community effort… it is a project that has often been overlooked and made invisible in the home (and with that comes a bit of gender inequality). In general, that has transferred now to the workplace. I think we need to realize that it starts somewhere. It starts with making it more of a communal project to raise children. It is the foundation of so many things that come after. I think, for me, [I would like people to] stop overlooking [childcare and education] as an unimportant sort of given and recognize that it is a true priority. And there’s a reason people are out there doing it, for less than they could be doing something else. It’s important.”