Learning to get along

This past Sunday was my final day in gan, and while there is much to write about my gan experience and the future that lies ahead of me, today is Tisha B'Av, so I will save many of those thoughts for another time.

When it came to teaching about bad things that happened to the Jewish people, we tended to water things down a bit. We had to be careful not to scare the kids, and we also wanted to focus their attentions on certain aspects of the story. For example, Haman was not an evil man. He was a not very nice man that did bad things. We wanted the children to understand the connection between one's actions and how others view that person, the connection between one's action and their impact on the world around them.

Probably one of my biggest frustrations where I worked these past two years is how quickly certain children developed reputations which got them tossed into timeout if they merely brushed against the person next to them. Okay, by "brush" I mean they knocked down a block tower or pushed a kid, but my colleagues all too often did not stop to really think about the child's actions and consider why they happened aside from thinking "well he always hits kids, so he must have started it."

In interviewing for assistants for my gan I posed the following question: Child A (as known to do) comes over to Child B and pulls a toy car out of his hand. In response, Child B shoves Child A backwards. Both children are now crying/upset, and Child A is hurt. He is shouting that he took the toy because he wanted it. Child B is upset because he was busy playing with that toy. The idea behind this question was to talk about emotional development and legitimizing children's feelings. Child B needs to know that his feelings of anger are legitimate, but his reaction can be worked on for the future. Child A needs to know that we, the teachers, understand that he got hurt, and that we agree hitting is wrong, but also that his feeling that he can have whatever he wants without asking or without waiting his turn is not okay.

I obviously did not pull this story put of my head. It is something that happened all the time at gan. This particular Child A was often grabbing toys away and getting upset when they were grabbed back. Child B would often hit other children, though I realized especially throughout the second year that he was almost never one to start a fight- and there were plenty of kids like that. There were kids who walked around purposefully knocking down block towers and disrupting play. Child B was not like that. You could tell that he knew he hit because he was upset, and that he tried really hard to curb those emotions and use his words instead of his fists. Sometimes you could even see him clench his fists, take deep breaths, and then come over to a teacher for help instead of fighting back.

Unfortunately while I often pointed this out to my colleagues, I am not convinced they ever saw things my way. They were overall great to work with, I learned a tremendous amount, and I understand that burnout often influenced their reactions towards the kids. I rarely saw emotional development as a priority, and that bothered me (though it only started bothering me as I gained experience and personal growth as an educator). Maybe it's the sabra Israeli attitude, but I started realizing that things were going to be different when I was in charge.

Sometimes you learn a lot about yourself by watching others experience the same thing. You can also learn a lot about yourself by watching young children. Young children are new at everything. They do not yet understand themselves let alone others. When a 2 year old's block tower gets demolished, you might as well have knocked their house down. It is absolutely tragic- something they built with their own hands is no longer there. Kids get angry and upset over all sorts of things. They hit and kick and bite and burst into tears that only end an hour later. But little by little they learn perspective. They learn that they are not alone in the world, and that there are others with feelings just like theirs.

I could get into a whole essay about emotional development, but I am on a bit of a break from my schoolwork and I don't think that's necessary. I just want to express my gratitude to the children I spent the last two years with. Among so many other things, they taught me compassion. Yes, I know when my own feelings are legitimate and can usually appropriately take part in a friend's happiness or sadness, but watching these feelings develop on the most basic level was absolutely inspiring. I think feeling is something often taken for granted. We get angry at ourselves for being upset over something trivial, but hey, maybe at this moment it's worth getting upset over. We should always believe that are feelings are legitimized, but we should always be conscious to how our feelings affect our interactions with other people.

Every month in gan we had a Rosh Chodesh celebration. Part of it included going up to the Beit Knesset to learn about that month. The director told the kids that during the month of Av there is Tisha B'Av, and that Tisha B'Av is a day when a lot of sad things happened to the Jewish people. One of these things was the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash and Jerusalem. As experts on what happened on Chanukah and well versed in stories of heroism for Yom Yerushalayim, the kids really understood what it meant for Jerusalem to be destroyed and the need to rebuild it again. The director also told them that one reason bad things happened was because people weren't be very nice to each other, and that people were finding it difficult to be good friends.

As the end of the year drew near, the kids were at each others throats much more often. While they might not have really understood that they were about to leave the gan and go their separate ways, they clearly felt that they had been in the same room with each other every day for a very long time. A lot of kids were finding it really hard to be good friends. They also were starting to realize that they knew each other extremely well. They knew how to push every one's buttons, but they also knew when to give their friend a hug or simply stand nearby during a tough moment. Getting along is not easy, but it can be learned given the right environment.

This is only my second day since finishing my two years at the gan, and it is also Tisha B'Av. My mind is still racing with reflections on my experience in the gan- my first real job experience. I am thinking about how grateful I am for the opportunity to work there and how it has gotten me to the point where I can move forward with mine and Gila's plans for our own gan.

Tisha B'Av is about remembering the past and looking towards the future. I'm not claiming that by putting a strong focus on emotional development in my new gan that I will pave the way for World Peace and the end of destruction in our time. Observing Tisha B'Av has a lot to do with conjuring up emotions and understanding our feelings about ourselves, each other, and the place of ourselves and the Jewish People in the world. Emotion is a tricky thing. I saw it in my kids at gan, and I see it in myself. What the kids at gan reminded me is that there is always learning to be done when it comes to emotions, but that it cannot be done without the help of our friends and those we look up to. We are allowed to be angry at each other. Anger is a legitimate feeling. We are also allowed and able to help our friend recreate their tower, invite them into our make-believe game about princesses and monsters, and make a place for them next to us at the table.

On days like Tisha B'Av we ask for compassion from Hashem, but maybe we should be demanding more compassion for each other. If the 4-year-olds can figure it out, I think we can too.