Professional confidence
As leaders, they must relate to both employees, children, and parents, and they also often sit in meetings with other public agencies where they can sometimes find themselves challenged on both expertise and competence. Then the education provides solid confidence.
– I find that the kindergarten profession is often a bit underestimated by those who do not work with it themselves. One of the biggest myths about our profession is that we "just take care of kids," but we are responsible for your children up to 10 hours a day, 48 weeks a year. It's a big responsibility, and I am glad to have a good professional education behind me, emphasizes Marit.
They have also maintained close contact with the professional community at DMMH after education through regional competence development for kindergartens and find that the threshold is low for reaching out if there are professional questions they wish to discuss.
– Queen Maud has the best kindergarten competence and academic weight in the country, and we appreciate that we can call the advisor and ask if there is something. It is especially valuable for us who are located a bit far away and cannot just drop by when professional days and such are arranged, say the two.
Utilizing own strengths and interests
Even though neither of them originally intended to become kindergarten teachers, both are glad they ended up here.
– No matter what you are interested in, you get to use it in this profession. We have quite a bit of freedom to play to our strengths and adapt our setup around both the children's interests and the employees' strengths, says Pia, with support from Marit.
– We have an education focused on interdisciplinarity, and it provides many opportunities. We don't have to think only about Norwegian, math, or English, but rather focus on learning through play and exploration. Even though we also have to adhere to the framework plan, we have quite a bit of freedom to work with different topics based on the children's interests, she says.
In Skage kindergarten, this means that the children learn to carpentry and build, get to go on fishing trips and berry picking, or perhaps have their singing sessions refreshed with guitar playing, depending on who is on duty.
– As leaders, we are concerned that each pedagogue should be able to participate in determining and shaping the content. We, of course, have some fixed things we must do, but employees plan the content based on their children's group, says Marit.
– One of the things I like best about the job is that it is so varied. No days are the same, and we have so many different tasks during a day. I truly appreciate that, concludes Pia.
