Mr. Chuck (圖)

As we know, most of the child caregivers we see are females.  That is probably because a female represents a figure that is closest to a mother, therefore is easily related by a young child. People relate qualities like soft spoken, loving, gentle, caring, patient and forgiving to females and therefore feel more comfortable if their children are taken care by female caregivers. I felt the same way and that was why I was little concerned when I heard that then eight-month old Evan’s primary teacher was Mr. Chuck, the only male teacher in the four infant suites.

Of course, I was immediately ensured by the head teacher of the classroom that Mr. Chuck was very capable of taking care of infants and very good with the children. He had been in another infant class for the previous year and children loved him.

On one hand, I have to admit that his decision to be an infant teacher was intriguing to me. He must be good/special in some ways to be qualified for this position. On the other hand, looking at the infants lying around the room, some as young as 7 weeks old, half of them screaming, I was curious how would he, a man in his early thirties, deals with this on a day to day basis. So half believing and half doubting, we started Evan’s daycare journey.

Needless to say it can be very stressful working in infant suites as you have to take care as many as four or five infants at the same time, who totally rely on you and some of them just like to cry and they can not tell you why.  I definitely can not do it but Mr. Chuck seems to have the perfect qualities to deal with little babies.

First of all, he always smiles when he talks and seems always in a good mood, which is amazing. Second, he is extremely polite and always speaks with this gentle caring voice, whether to the parents or to the children. He gives you full attention when he talks to you and never leaves your questions unanswered. I have never seen him loosing patience trying to comfort a screaming baby. He held them in his arm, rocked them, talked to them or sang lullabies.  In fact he seemed more patient than some of the female teachers I saw in the suite.  

Mr. Chuck also did an excellent job creating Evan’s portfolio, lots of good pictures and detailed annotations recorded every single step of Evan’s growth during his first year in daycare. We consider Evan’s portfolio one of the most precious gift we received. 

Because Mr. Chuck’s schedule was the same as ours, Evan got to spend most of the time with him during the day. Very soon, the head teacher told me that Evan and Mr. Chuck bonded so well that he would not allow any other teachers to feed him (see picture).

Evan was a late crawler just like his sister and I had asked Mr. Chuck to help him to learn whenever he could.  I will never forget one scene I saw during a pick up one dark winter night two years ago.

I was running late picking up the kids and they were obviously the last few left in daycare. I rushed into the daycare and turned right to the long hallway leading to the Infant suites to pick Evan up.  There, in the middle of the hall way between me and Evan’s classroom, were two figures crawling towards me, one very big, one tiny. I was in shock for a second wondering what that big figure was. Then I recognized it was Mr. Chuck crawling side by side with Evan. He was cheering him up “Yeah, Evan! Good job, Evan.” Hearing the cheering, Evan went laughing and crawled even faster, almost lost his balance. I was surprised and deeply touched by this scene. I did not expect a daycare teacher to actually get down to his knees to crawl with my son. Have you adults tried it? It hurts!

It was through small things like this that Mr. Chuck showed us his dedication as a child caregiver. I was very pleased with the care he provided to Evan and I gave my vote for the Award of Excellence to him without any hesitation.

After Evan finished his infant class, Mr. Chuck moved along with him into the young toddler class. He was the one who suggested to us that it was better for Evan to have another primary teacher so that he can have the experience of bonding with a new teacher which was important. We followed his advice and after another year, Mr. Chuck remained in the same class while Evan moved up. They still get to see each other a lot in the gallery or playing in the hall ways. Evan would still mention him once in a while.

I wonder how long he will remember Mr. Chuck, his very first teacher. We, of course, will always remember him and feel thankful that Evan got to spent two years with a wonderful teacher like Mr.Chuck.