The teacher of Peter wanted the parents to comment on the room and their work. After carefully drafting, below is mine. I feel so nerous and hard to criticizing the kid's teacher. Not that i don't have comment, it is difficult for me to figure out the right way to express my concerns, while not hurt the teachers feelings.

Overall, we appreciate the good work performed by the teachers of Tiny Turtles. We are glad that Peter is growing and developing happily and healthily in the room, thanks to the efforts from each of the three teachers.

However, we, as parents, do have some comments and suggestions for you to refer to, and they are not all necessarily to be appropriate and as I said, we list them here just for your reference.

We don’t think that it is very easy for an infant of this age (less than 1 and half years old) to really self-play for long. Therefore, we hope the kids will still be mostly guided and cared by the teachers to have a wide variety of activities.

We wonder whether it is possible for the teachers to work on the nap schedules in the room a little bit. Right now, they’re having the first nap around 9-10am, and second one around 12:30-2pm. As you may have noticed, by the time of 5pm, most kids are already tired since they have been up for another 3 hours. If you can try to move the second nap time a little later, say 1:30-3pm, I personally think it will be easier for the kids to handle the next transition of going home as well as for their parents.

I personally have encountered over a couple of times that Peter was sitting on the floor, crying by himself when I went in the room at the end of the day. I know sometimes it is his fussy time and I can totally understand that sometimes the teachers are having a lot of stuff to do. But we do hope that the kids are checked on frequently even when the teacher is involved in something else (such as talking to another parent) especially when babies are giving out their signal by crying or yelling.

It is understandable that most of the time we are told that our kid had a good day when we go pick him up. It is also what we like to hear. But, please don’t hesitate to let us know if he had a rough day or had some unusual problems. I always feel lost and frustrated at a later time when I am informed that my kid was not as good. Instead, if I know before hand that Peter was not doing very well at school, I can make certain arrangement about my work schedule and get prepared for anything might occur. If I know he had some problem such as eating or sleeping by himself, maybe I can work on it at home together with the teachers. Sometimes I feel shocked when the teacher tells me about his progress, since I didn’t know he was so much worse than I thought.

After all, we owe much thanks to Vera, Zee and Annie. You guys have done a terrific job for us and we know it is not an easy one. Thank you!

Best regards,
Ligang Zhang and Lei Chang (Peter’s parents)