There is a privately-owned kindergarten situated in an affluent part of London. Previously, the kindergarten was a church before its conversion to a school. Today, workers and owners of the institution have made it lively by decorating it with beautiful lights and papier-mache animals, which are attractive to children. Additionally, the kindergarten has a low ceiling and its rooms are spacious, which makes it very comfortable for children. Moreover, the kindergarten has a beautiful garden where children normally play on good-weather days. The Kindergarten serves fifty children, who are aged between 2 and 5 years. The children are divided into five groups based on their age groups. Each group has 2 educators that receive them and …show more content…
Nora never feels lost when she arrives at the Kindergarten. When she and her mother enters the kindergarten, she leaves her mother’s hand immediately and runs towards her group members. She gets involved with her group members that she totally forgets about her mother. This occurrence provides Nora’s mother the opportunity to leave without Nora realizing it. However, I also realized that Nora has developed a connection with her group’s educator, Sabrina. After she has interacted with her group members for some time, she remembers Sabrina and begins to ask for her. She moves closer to the window and looks down to the door where Sabrina sits welcoming other children. Sometimes she is inclined to try to go to Sabrina while Sabrina is still at the door welcoming other children. Whenever, Sabrina is in class with them, Nora loves sitting on her lap, touching her or leaning on her. Miller suggests that such connections between two-year-old children and female adults develop naturally. He writes “if mom isn’t there, you run into the most mommy-ish person present” (Miller, 2004: 30). Therefore, it seems that Nora has developed a connection with Sabrina naturally. Later, towards the end of Nora’s time in the Kindergarten, Sabrina and Samantha started weaning her from the connection she had with them. On 21st May 2014, I observed the following …show more content…
She loves being the center of attention during that time. Often, she raises her hand without any reason. When she is picked, she thinks of something that is not related to the topic of discussion or the game that the class is playing and lets it out. This is an indication that she desires to be held. Additionally, Nora struggles with communication. She has not yet mastered the English language. Her sentences are characterized by pauses of “ummm” and a mixture of foreign and English words. This limits her understanding of the songs and games that she is involved in. this also limits her ability to express herself. However, the extent that the language barrier limits Nora 's participation in classroom activities is not known. According to Davids, a child who speaks her native language in a foreign place may develop feelings of “excitement, anxiety, and self-consciousness ... [and] the child may be in a rush to get out its words and, in this, flutter, stumble, and stutter over the sounds” (Davids, 2010: 42). Such children (foreign) need proper understanding and special care from the educators for them to feel held. This is what the Kindergarten does with Nora and other children in similar situations. It provides them with a “container” to hold them. The “containers” are the educators who encourage these children to practice English regularly; provides them with hints of words in the English language, and are always there to help them