Mentoring The Assistant Educator

[libbyjane]

Hi,

I'm an ECT in the kindy room and this is regarding my assistant educator. We have a good working relationship and solid rapport, so that's a positive foundation. I'd like to preface this with her background and strengths. My co-worker has been working for 5 years, 4 of those as a float (she was a trainee initially, studying her cert III and then diploma) and this last year she has been with me in kindy. She'll be with me next year too. The children enjoy her company, she's willing to learn and adapt to change and communicates honestly and directly. The following is a bit of a long-winded rant, but I do want to be open and honest about the frustration I've been experiencing and I want some advice about how to mentor her and help develop her confidence and skills.

I feel like there is a gap in her training, since it was all online and she struggled with the literacy and language demands of the course and needed lots of support from her husband to do the assignments. Since all her training and work has been in a float role, her behaviours are much like a float - patrolling like a security guard, hands on hips, rarely getting down to the children's level, does not initiate or follow through with learning experiences because of the ingrained habit of having to watch the clock, abandon her post and move on quickly to the next room. The problem is she's no longer a float, so this approach to her work is ineffective and very frustrating for me and intensifies my workload. She will only intervene into children's play when it is getting dangerous (so being reactive instead of proactive). When the play is unsafe, she says "no, you're not allowed" instead of trying to understand their intentions and then negotiating and redirecting them to a more appropriate form of play. Her approach to behaviour guidance is very loud, abrupt and negatively phrased (a lot of "stop, don't do that."No" "Too loud"). I explain to her everyday about how to positively frame language "walking feet" instead of "don't run" "play your instruments gently, like this" instead of "too loud, too loud." Naturally, the children have tuned out her directions and do a lot of "acting out" behaviours when she behaves like this. I have said, "watch me. I'm going to get down low, make eye contact and speak softly. Notice how the children respond." They respond very well to this approach because it is gentle and directive at the same time. I do very explicit role-modelling with my co-worker several times a day, asking her to watch what I'm doing and then try doing it herself. She will try it once and then fall back into old habits when I move into a different area of the room or outside. It's been 11 months of telling her and role-modelling everyday and it just isn't working. She does not like to take initiative and will refrain from interacting with children unless I've specifically requested her to do so. Help, what do I do? Telling her and role-modelling like this everyday is not working. Should I mentor her as I would a student? Give her a focus skill of the week/month, observe her and give feedback? Should I request that she attends professional development workshops?

Cheers,

libbyjane

[Lorina]

Hmmm... I can understand your frustrations! It's hard working with an assitant whose so use to being in a different role. However, it's good to see you care enough to want to try and help her so good on you for this! It seems like you have tried alot of different techniques which doesn't seem to bring around any change to her work practices as she still continues to relay back to her old habits. Like you suggested, I would get her to focus on a skill for a week and during this time, observe and give feedback. From the feedback you both should come up with strategies to acheive the skill in whcih she has to implement the strategies for a week, you observe and once again give feedback to see if she has found any changes.

Regardsing her interactions etc. do you tell her what's happening in the room for the day? Tell her what you would like her to do for the day. For example - assist the children in the art and craft. Maybe give her some experiences that she can be responsible for during the day..

For her positive langauge maybe you could stick up posters as reminders around the room or even with the kids create behaviour colour posters to display in the room. For e.g. on green coloured paper you could have "we use our walking feet inside", on red coloured paper you could have "we use inside voices" and these also can be used as prompts for the assistant educator.

You could also get your assistant educator to do some reading at home on behaviour guidance strategies, using positive langauge with children, interacting with children etc. I have some articles avaiable on this site that may help! let me know and I could give you the links.

Also lastly focus on the things she is doing good! Give ehr priase and encourgaement when she does interact well with the children. Maybe this will give her the confidence to continue doing it the right way.

Like I said, it's so refreshing to see that you want to assist and support your assistant educator and she is lucky to have you guide her!

Hope this helps!

,
Lorina

[libbyjane]

Yes, I ask her to help plan/program a few days a week, I ask her to write short spiel in the journal with a potential way to expand on it. I talk to her regularly throughout the day about experiences she could focus on with the children (noticing what is emerging and asking her to please guide them further). i.e. "I've noticed xyz doing this. I think we could take this further by ..... what do you think? What's your idea?" I feel this is a more respectful way of interacting, giving her a choice about how she might do it, but I think she sees my request as optional. I do explain that in kindy, parents have high expectations about the educational side of our program, so I really need her help to help achieve this. I explain that routine cleaning and administrative tasks are just one aspect of our job, they're not our main priority. I'll definitely try the one skill a week/month to focus on to help focus her attention on one aspect.

libbyjane

[Lorina]

It seems like you are doing all you can to get her involved in every aspect! Yes, try the one skill a week and see what happens...

,
Lorina