Munich: How the retraining to become an educator works for career changers – Munich

Christiane Tricarico looks around a little doubtfully. The theater scholar, in her mid-40s, is standing on the parquet floor in the movement room of a school with only socks on her feet. It’s a Friday evening at the beginning of May, and a hairdresser and a trained confectioner, office clerks and forwarding clerks and three women with a degree are standing around them; and the women should now sort themselves according to the first letter of their first name. They come from Munich and Brazil, from Russia and Bavaria. And they all have one goal: They want to learn another profession. They want to be teachers.

There are too few educators in Munich’s day-care centers – this fact is as well known as it is problematic. Daycare groups are understaffed, others cannot even be opened even though the rooms are there for them – because there are no teachers. The educators and nannies who are there are often overwhelmed. When someone is ill, uses up days off or is on vacation, things often get tight; Care times have to be shortened due to the lack of staff.

The number of training places at the various technical academies has increased, as has the salary for educators. There are more and more ways to get a job and the providers are also looking abroad for men and women who want to work in Munich daycare centers. And yet at the approximately 450 city day-care centers alone, around 13 percent of the educator positions are vacant, and the figure for childcare workers is five percent. There are a total of around 1,450 day-care centers in Munich. And the colorful “educator wanted” banners on the fences of the day-care centers are part of the usual picture.

Lateral entrants are in demand, they bring life experience with them

For Christiane Tricarico, that was one of the reasons to retrain to become an educator. Knowing: I will always have something to do in this profession, I will always find work. So far she has worked as a concert organizer, first employed, then self-employed – until Corona came. “It was clear to me that now is the time to rethink,” says Christiane Tricarico. “And besides culture, children have always been my second great love.”

She applied for two internships and was immediately accepted. The first stop: a forest kindergarten on the Isar. Strolling through forest and meadows, carving and climbing trees as high as they can – this freedom for the children to try everything, she says, has impressed her. And the ability of the educators to endure and have faith when a child climbs the tree. And she knew: she wants to do it, she wants to become a teacher.

The career changers, according to a spokeswoman for the Department for Education and Sport, are extremely important for the daycare centers in Munich. “Without them, the shortage of staff at the daycare centers would be far greater.” And career changers are good for the teams and the children: Through their life and professional experience, they bring other perspectives and impulses with them.

First a year of teaching and practical hours, then a year of professional practice

There are several technical academies in Munich that offer courses for career changers. Christiane Tricarico is one of 27 men and women who started their external course at the Caritas Don Bosco Academy for Social Education this year. Some are already working as nannies or supplementary workers in day-care centers. In addition to their job, they will go to school for a year, on Thursday and Friday evenings and Saturdays, and also study at home.

Fees differ from school to school. At this academy, for example, the preparatory course costs 2300 euros, plus 900 euros for the examination fee. Those who have no day-care experience must complete 960 practical hours. And if the exams are passed, there follows a year of work experience with an accompanying seminar, which the city of Munich pays around 1,800 euros a month. Christiane Tricarico and her fellow students have the same curriculum and at the end, if all the exams are passed, the same degree – but much less time.

On this Friday evening in May, after getting to know each other in the movement room, half of the group will study music and the other half will do social work. Evelyn Brandl stands in front of eleven women in a classroom on the first floor and explains: Social work practice is not an examination subject, but it is important nonetheless. In addition, there is space here to talk about your own experiences and everyday working life.

And that’s what the women do: they talk about children who are inherently curious and that’s what excites them about work; from the demanding work in integration groups, from the gratitude of the parents. And again and again from the lack of staff. Of groups that have never been able to open and of others that have had to be closed. About sick colleagues and what it’s like to work understaffed.

One floor down, music teacher Sonja Beck shows her group how they throw cloths in the air and sing along, they practice changing arms and learn how children hold wooden sticks and that they can also be made from broomsticks or branches. Drumming louder and softer, crescendo and decrescendo. She raises her hand, it gets quiet. It also works in daycare, says Sonja Beck. And recommends introducing the gesture early.

It’s about rompers, verses, knee riders; All of this is in chapter seven of the book, Musical Play with Small Children, pages 204 to 220. They should read through it, try it out in their day-care group – and learn for the exam. Because this topic will be started and completed on this Friday and will only come up again in the exam. It’s similar in many courses: the exams are a topic, even if it will be almost a year before they are written.

Getting started isn’t made easy, says a retrainee – including financially

Before they start teaching this Friday evening, Sonja Beck and Evelyn Brandl explain what is special about this course for external participants. “Anyone who takes it upon themselves has thought it through carefully. Our participants are highly motivated. They’re actually always there, unless they themselves or their children are ill. And they challenge us and want to know a lot,” says Evelyn Brandl. And Sonja Beck adds that the external employees are in the middle of their professional lives. They would appreciate further training in a completely different way. And would like to take on responsibility.

Christiane Tricarico, for example, sees this period of training as an investment in her future. She says, “I took this year to study.” She is not earning anything at the moment, living off her savings, her family supports her. “It’s not easy to get started as an educator,” she says. “Of course, pedagogically sound training is important. But financial compensation is also important. If you want good people in the day-care centers, then you have to pay them accordingly.”

Open detailed view

She has 13 exams ahead of her in the coming year. On average, three of the 30 participants don’t make it, says Evelyn Brandl. And that the day-care centers are often happy to hire career changers. Because they don’t dream of a trip around the world like younger people do, most of them already have children. And anyone who manages the further training has demonstrated self-discipline: Learning at home is part of the course, five to seven hours a week, says Brandl.

The courses for external people were introduced to give people with professional experience the opportunity to become educators without having to complete the classic long-term training. The teacher training course at the Pedagogical Institute, for example, has been around for almost ten years, with 50 places a year. The minimum age at the Caritas Academy is 25 years. According to Evelyn Brandl and Sonja Beck, many find access to the profession through their own children. There are also a few men in each year group. And there are always more applicants than they can accept.

Christine Kastner, for example. The 33-year-old with the purple strand of hair is sitting on a patchwork rug on the floor of the music room. They’re just having a short break, and they’re about to continue with a game to get to know the instruments. She applied because she is a single parent and her job as a foreman for pool operations is difficult to reconcile with family life. Now she works as a pedagogical assistant in a crèche and is doing her training to become an educator.

Next to her sits Elisabete Souza-Lübbert. She studied primary school teaching in her native Brazil, but the degree was not recognized in Bavaria. So now she’s going to be an educator, alongside full-time work in a Waldorf facility, alongside being a mother. “Sunday morning before breakfast is learned,” says the 53-year-old and smiles. Her husband and daughter support her, she says, otherwise it wouldn’t work.

In the classroom on the first floor, Evelyn Brandl talks about how everyone can find their own style of parenting over time. Why baking a cake with ten children doesn’t work and that hand puppets are just one of many ways to prepare children for a specific offer. When Evelyn Brandl decides the lesson at 9 p.m., it is dark outside. In autumn she sees her students again. Until then, they should write a report about a pedagogical offer that they have tried out in the day care center along seven outline points. The women put on their jackets, next week we’ll continue, then the subject of education/psychology/curative education will be on the timetable. But in the evening, Christiane Tricarico will first celebrate her wedding anniversary with her husband.