The interviews reveal how teaching and learning occur at the kindergarten stage. According to the points which have been made in the discussion chapter, there are certain roles and responsibility of the teachers which have been specified by the organisation working for early education and kindergarten in Saudi Arabia. These roles and responsibilities are stated below in accordance to the discussion provided in the subsequent chapter of the dissertation:
1. As replacing the mother, the role of a kindergarten teacher is not limited to conveying information to children but includes different roles with multiple properties. She is an alternative to the mother in terms of dealing with the children who leave their parents and homes for the first time and
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find themselves in a new and unfamiliar environment. Therefore, her mission is to help them to adapt to their new educational environment. 2. As an expert in education, she deals with young children who require a
lot of patience, organisation, direction, and familiarity with modern teaching methods.
3. As a provider for the society values, she is responsible for raising children with the values and traditions of the society in which they live, and for using appropriate methods to teach them socially accepted behaviours.
4. As a communication channel between home and kindergarten, she is able to help parents in solving the problems they face with their children. 5. Balancing discipline and freedom inside the kindergarten classrooms.
She is responsible for assuring discipline while at the same time providing a space of freedom for the children and encouraging them to freely express their opinions through the spirit of love, cooperation, and obedience.
6. As a teacher and as a learner too, she should be aware of the new developments in the field of education and renew herself accordingly. She should develop her capabilities by following modern educational methods and by exchanging experience with colleagues.
7. In the psychological and educational field, by determining capabilities, interests, and preferences of the children, she is responsible for identifying appropriate activities, and thus directing their energy, and at the same time investing in those capabilities. In addition, she has to identify problems children face, try to solve them, and also take the preventive measures to avoid the appearance of other psychological problems (Alghamdi and Higgins, 2015).
This is a view on the role of kindergarten teachers in Saudi Arabia (Alghamdi and Higgins, 2015). When it comes to how the participant teachers view their own roles and duties, there is an agreement among teachers about the routines and practices that are the minimum requirements in both public and private kindergartens. Central to the duties of teachers are planning and
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implementation of teaching, and for principals and senior managers, is to carry out supervision and evaluation of teachers’ practices. While some teachers were less assertive about the evaluation process and its value to inform further teaching, others viewed it simply as a process of observing teachers’ behaviour rather than improving the teaching-learning process. Nevertheless, there was a reasonable agreement among the interviewees that the key role of a kindergarten teacher is, essentially, to develop the educational program according to the educational authority’s plans to meet the children’s needs – although some claimed that the plans that usually come from a government are clear enough.
What the teachers understood by “developing educational program” was limited to classroom logistics, for when they were asked about how they prepared for a new school year, one teacher said that they prepared classrooms, another teacher added “also the lists of children,” and a third one elaborated,
“Some corners in the classroom would stay the same, special the quiet corners. We need to change some other corners to accommodate any new activities.”
Thus, with respect to how the teachers perceive their role, two points emerged from the interviews: 1) There is not much change within the classroom environment from one year to the next; 2) The teachers understood ‘preparation’ as preparing the classroom only, rather than improving the teaching or the skills of interaction with children.
In essence, some of the role and duties described in the interviews were also reflected in the interviews, but as a whole, it looks like yet another ambitious job description that attempts to cover many aspects of a given job. This is the case because in regard to what is mentioned in the documents which are provided by the government and other organisations that deal with the training and roles of the early childhood teacher it is very broad. Based on the seven points which are presented in the section, the teachers of early childhood education are expected to fulfil a number of duties and tasks. From the analysis of primary responses which is obtained for this research, it can be shown that the teachers also are of an opinion that they have a vast range of duties to be fulfilled.
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