From Educator to Mother
As I look at my eight month old son as he sleeps, I wonder what will happen when I go back to work and he enters daycare. I worry about whether he will be hugged enough and shown love through the day. I know that whoever watches over him will not possibly
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3. From Educator to Mother My Personal Journey
Take care of our children, for they are on loan to us. (Linklater, 2014) Being a Guardian of a Precious Life
As I look at my eight month old son as he sleeps, I wonder what will happen when I go back to work and he enters daycare. I worry about whether he will be hugged enough and shown love through the day. I know that whoever watches over him will not possibly love him like I do and will not be able to make him feel as safe as I can. Yet, before I had a child, I asked parents to entrust me with their babies each day. As a teacher who had not yet had children of her own, I could not fully understand what a parent goes through on that first day of school. What must it feel like to walk into an unfamiliar building, drop off your baby to a stranger, and be asked to leave? I have witnessed mothers crying as they drop off their child, and I have always offered 43
M. LYNCHUK
comfort, but I never understood the importance of providing parents the opportunity to truly be a part of their child’s school journey. Now that I have my son, Jude, I cannot imagine leaving him. I know that I will want to be given the opportunity to be with him as much as possible. When I began this journey towards attaining my master’s degree in education, I was six weeks pregnant. I had the single view of an educator. Although I had always invited families into the classroom, never asked a parent to leave, and kept family close at heart when teaching, it was not until I began working through the classes, Re/Presenting Families in Schools and Engaging Parents in Teaching and Learning, that I started to re-imagine what it means to be an educator. I found myself thinking back to my experiences with families and how little I had done to create a relationship in which we shared our knowledge of a child. Maria and Walter Linklater were invited into our class one morning. They are First Nations elders from our community, who work closely with the schools their grandchildren attend. We sat in a circle, listening to their stories, and hearing about their personal experiences with education. When we were wrapping up our time with them, Maria said one last thing, “Take care of our children, for they are on loan to us.” I reached down and gently touched my growing belly. How very true she was. My baby is on loan to me as a mother. I am the guardian of this precious new life, his caretaker until he can take care of himself. As he travels through the school system, moving from grade to grade, I will have to trust his teachers to watch over him and care for him until he can be with me again. I had an “Aha” moment. I realized how important it is for teachers to work more closely with families to create a space for them in their children’s learning. Becoming a Parent
My experience with having Jude began like so many others do – complete panic! I had been off work due to medical issues, issues that eased once I was able to relax for the last trimester of my pregnancy. My water broke shortly after 4:00 p.m. on Ma
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