Why did you become a kindergardener? Did you expect it to be more fun? And since you don't consider it to be fun anymore, have you considered to take up programming? If not, why not?

As for nursing, no it is not "fun" in the strict sense, but I think it comes with a lot of expectations of emotional reward, helping other people and so on. I was using "fun" loosely.

Btw, as a father with a kindergarden going kid, I hope the kindergardeners have some enthusiasm for the job... If you need help entering programming, get in touch. I live in Germany, though.

Edit: actually, programming gets boring after a while, too, and people ponder steps to make it interesting again. Maybe the same could be done for kindergardening? Can't you think of ways of making it more fun again? A change from the routine perhaps? I worry a lot about my kid just doing standard stuff at kindergarden. On the other hand maybe it is unrealistic to expect more, and kids first have to go through the basic motions. (There are no lego mindstorm sets at my kid's kindergarden - but then kindergarden kids can't be expected to program, I suppose. But perhaps they could build robots, and the kindergardener could do the programming).

I became a kindergarten teacher because I like kids and I much prefer teaching younger ages to teenagers. Maybe adults are better again but here in China there is infinite demand for (native) English speakers to teach at all levels. I am not professionally qualified to do what I'm doing but my Chinese coteachers are and the difference in what we do is not that large. My current lack of enthusiasm is not just for my job but for everything. It's been a very long week.

After a day or two off more real enthusiasm returns but the job is not intellectually stimulating except for trying to help spme special kids and while reading psychology is fun applying the concepts involved is remarkably similar to common sense. Or what seems commonsensical to me; I've been reading psychology textbooks well before I came to China and started teaching.

I like kids, I enjoy playing with them and it's satisfying helpinh them learn English and learn to read, helping socialise them. But the longer I do it theore I think John Taylor Gatto is right. For sure age matched education is wrong. When I have kids I'm going to try home/unschooling them if s Summethill type school is unavailable. I believe Steiner is similar hippy shit.

As far as your own kids go the Kindergarten Ausbildung is thorough anf professional, as I'm sure you're well aware. For what it costs and the pull and effort it takes to get a place it should be. But what I'd concentrate on is are your kids having fun and developing social skills in kindergarten. Intellectal development is something you are much better suited to deal with.

And I am learning to programme. It's going very slowly.

Thanks for mentioning Gatto. I think I already bought one of his books, but haven't read it yet. I am very scared of the time when my kid will have to go to school, because I personally hated it. It sounds as if I agree with a lot of Gatto's points. Not sure how to avoid it, though :-(

My best hope atm is to find some techniques to enable my kid to master school with minimum effort, trying to maximize non-school-dominated time. I don't think Homeschooling is possible in my country (Germany).

I imagine to turn it into a kind of game. For example there are memory competitions, and people don't seem to mind memorizing useless things to win those competitions. So perhaps if it can become a game to master the school nonsense in as little time as possible, there doesn't have to be so much suffering from the wastefulness of it all. Some useful skills could still be harvested from going through school that way (memory techniques, presentation skills and what not).

I can relate to a general lack of enthusiasm :-(

As for intellectually stimulating, I don't know. I must admit I am sometimes scared about playing with my kid (2 years old), because I fear not having any good ideas. Luckily he usually comes up with stuff himself, and somehow after a while things tend to happen, random ideas take on a life on their own. Maybe a bit like improvising music - after a while suddenly things start to "jell".

I suppose as a kindergardener you have a repertoire of so many standard games that you hardly have to improvise. But maybe that is a potential to escape the drudgery? In theory, couldn't you play out arbitrary scenarios, whatever you fancy? Like writing a new book? You could invent new games every day... Or at least role playing games.

Not that I know much about kindergardening... And I don't even play enough with my kid, hope to improve on that... Atm I sometimes read HN when I could be playing with him, which is ridiculous.