I am a male kindergarden teacher. AMA!

Mr. Biff-Boff, can I go to the bathroom?

NO! YOU JUST MESS AROUND IN THERE!

My wife teaches kindergarten - I have nothing but respect for you and for everyone else that is willing to subject themselves to this on a daily basis. It truly takes a special person.

My wife has one kid this year that is uncontrollable. She usually gets those kids because she does well with them, but this one has proven to be a mini-terror.

What's the worst kid you've ever had to deal with?

Some kids take everything you've got in terms of patience. They test you like crazy. I'm usually special strict to those. They try their shit for a while, but it has always a downside for them, so they stop. The only question is how long they are able to do so. Of course there are days when I just want to slap someone, but as soon as the situation is over I calm down and look foward to the end of the workday. Next day is always a fresh start. This one kid was terrible. It had no respect at all for adults. Giving the finger, even when being shout at. I learned that you have to build a connection, the kid has to like you. In that way its way harder for it when you are mad.

I know in German there are three pronouns? But usually in English for people you just say he/she.

Oh, yes! Thank you for this! Will keep it in mind next time.

Kids that age fall and cry. Are you allowed to hug them and comfort them? I sure hope so but I have no idea in this paranoid society.

Yeah, the do it constantly. It always depends on how hard you estimate the actual injury. Most of the time they fall and look straight to the adults and figure out how they react to it. Some cry instantly due to being frighted but telling from my experience about 80% of the 3-6 year olds wait for your reaction. Knowing this, I usually tell them to come to me and I look closely if they are able to walk normal and stuff. When they still cry I hug them of course, but mostly its already forgotten. Parents tend to be way overdramatic which results in the kids trying to get the most out of their accidents. It's funny to see how fragile they behave once the parents are around.

I'm glad you are allowed to hug them.

Yeah sure. Would be weird not to. Kids need that from time to time

In North America pedophile hysteria is insane. There is a reason our teachers are 80% female (and counting).

It's a lot more complicated than pedophilia hysteria..

It really isn't. I'd like to agree with you on that and find some other kind of explanation but I spent 7 years teaching swim lessons and wow...you couldn't even begin to imagine the sort of shit I saw from parents. The first thing that happened every session was every single mother with a female (and half the male) child would stay poolside for the first few days at least. This was expected for me after a certain point. When they saw I wasn't groping their daughter by day 3 they usually backed off a bit. And by that I mean literally backed off. To a seat or something instead of hovering a few feet from the pool. The real problem came when the children grew attached to me. I don't know what it is, but kids in the toddler to 7/8 year old range just fucking love me. Maybe it has something to do with me being horribly immature. I don't know. But they really do. I would have kids crying because they didn't want to leave my class after time was up. Then there were two completely different reactions. One I loved, where the parents would talk to me afterwards and say things like "My child has never liked the water at all, thank you so much!" and even to the extent where they would request from my employer for me to teach private lessons. The other half was dirty/suspicious looks and complete silence, even if I tried to engage the parents about how I thought their child could best improve outside the lessons. That was extremely disheartening. When you spend time trying to teach a kid how to not drown, when their parents don't trust you, it really puts a damper on things. And the thing was, this never happened to my female coworkers. They had complete trust from the start because "Hey! You have the genitals to produce one of these too! You're automatically trustworthy!". Yes, I do realize I seem like an asshole complaining about this, but it really did hurt. My point is that it's not more complicated than pedophilia hysteria, that's precisely what it is. Any male in our society who shows interest in any way towards children is automatically a pedophile. The real kicker is, when I was in that job, I was a TEENAGER. I mean, what the hell. The sideways looks and lack of response when I tried to talk to parents was made worse by the fake smile I had to put one when interacting with them.

However, I have to say that there were parents, sometimes, who just didn't give a shit about all of that. There is one experience that will stick in my mind for a long time. I was a manager, and one of my instructors didn't show up so I had to get in and teach her class for her. This one little girl absolutely HATED getting in the water at the beginning of the class, but by the end I couldn't get her to stay on the wall! She kept floundering out to try to grab onto me and by halfway through the class might as well have been my personal barnacle. At the end, her mother came up to me afterwards and said something along the lines of "She has NEVER wanted to get in the water much less leave the wall and try to swim. Somehow you got here to learn two strokes today, thank you so much. Is it possible to do private lessons?".

I'm telling that story to bring some balance. There are parents who understand and those who are paranoid. I don't want to exclude the former group from my little argument. However, those were the exception, not the norm. In general, males in society today have to completely ignore children out of fear of being labeled as, or at least suspected of, being pedophelic(is that a word?). And that has to change. How do people expect young men to become good fathers if they are discouraged so heavily from interacting with children?

Thank you for your comment! I figure swimlessons are taking things to a much higher emotional level for the parents since its "easier" to molest a child. It's crazy how some parents react, no doubt here. I think those have some headlines stuck in the back of their heads when some gym/swim/sports teacher actually did something bad. But considering that this is one case in literally thousands makes this fear crazy. There are so many males working with children everyday doing a fantastic job and those parents only need one to mess everything up. I guess they'll be paranoid about anything and are not even considering that there is a pretty high dark digit of female child molesters too.

Do you have any significant memories that you'd like to share, from the children you've taught? Something very positive, or sad, etc.?

Has you being male led to suspicion / questioning from parents / employers, and if so do you have any tips for dealing with that? (Here it seems pretty difficult for guys to have any kind of job that involves children because of two pedophiles that were on the news for a long time)

My most positive memory was an italian girl, 3yrs old which refused to speak at all. She was quite the perfectionist I supposed and I figured that she could be embarrassed by making mistakes speaking german (german here btw^). So I offered her to "trade" words and that she could teach me italian while I was gonna show her german words she wanted to know. I've put her into the position of the teacher and I was her student, which she liked a lot. One day I told her that the other kids wanted to learn italian too, so she started counting the kids every morning in her native language and all the other kids picked it up pretty fast. This boosted her confidence way up and after about 2 month of intensive work she started speaking german, with very good grammar of course. This girl has left for school a few months ago, we are still counting in italian in the group though....

I love this, its an amazing teaching technique. =) especially because everyone (including yourself) profited from it =)

Thank you :) Exactly!

Have any parents complained about their kids using Italian instead of German?

No, because they already can count in german. Never encountered parents which were against kids learning a new language. Our kindergarden is bilingual anyways, german and english. So there are always teachers around talking only english with the kids.

One funny situation comes into my mind: Two boys came to me and asking me to change their pants. It was weird because only the knees of both pants were soaking wet. I asked them what happened but they've been too ashamed to tell me. I asked a few times. Finally they told me they were both going to the toilet and decided to share one because they didn't wanted to stop talking to each other. So they peed into the same bowl while standing when one of them asked the other something and they both turned to each other, peeing on each others pants. It was hard not to laugh at them.

Are special ed students fully included? If not, what is the amount of inclusion time and what benefits/challenges do you see?

We got none, but it strongly depends on the level of disability the child has. If we state that we couldn't keep up with the normal amount of work we would be given a special caretaker only for this child. To be honest I only see benefits except for maybe the added effort. Kids adapt to every situation, so they'll quickly get used to other kids being different and learn to take care and be considerate.

I actually think at least at kindergarten level, having special needs kids in the group would be extremely beneficial to future social behavior IF you have a good teacher etc...

Completely agree!

Hey, I'm a male Kindergarten Teacher too, working in Australia! Glad to see there are more of us around the world.

My question is, do you ever get sick of people instantly talking about how good it is to see a male Kindergarten Teacher when they meet you? Its nice, but it's funny how it's the first thing so many people say after meeting me.

Good on you!!!

Hi there! Thats right, its nice to see another :) Yes constantly. Especially outside of work when meeting new people. It's kind of the same response everytime but I feel that elderly people say it more often.

What led you to your career choice?

I've always liked the way kids think. They don't gossip or are mad at you for more than a day. This shit starts maybe once they are in school, but at the age from 3 to 6 they are honest and straightforward. Also I like explaining stuff, picking up themes they are interested in and turn those into projects and activities. I was always the guy kids liked to be around and once I did an internship in a kindergarden I got a lot of positive feedback. Was an easy decision.

Who is your daddy and what does he do?

My daddy is Gerd, he works as a technician. He tried everything to get me interested in his field but I guess it wasn't meant to be...He's glad for me finding a job I like tho.

What kind of first impressions/reactions do you get from parents?

Usually they don't show that they are surprised, but I notice some weird looks from time to time. They are way more sceptical towards me than my female coworkers and I feel being under surveillance for a while until they realise that I am not a weirdo or something. It felt bad in the beginning, but I learned to deal with it and just be professional and nice towards them. Most are exited and saying stuff like "oh, nice to have a man in here!"

I had a male kindergarden teacher and he was a cool guy. Keep up the good work.

Thank you! I'll do!

It's really sad that the sexism and assumption of guilt is so bad that the default is to just accept the prejudice.

You can't change how people think about it in the beginning, but how they think about it once they know you and your work. Thats what I am going for. Usually the most critic ones turn out to be overly nice. Maybe because they feel a bit ashamed for having prejudices at first...

"oh, nice to have a man in here!"

If I said the equivalent of that to a woman in IT, I'd be reported to HR in a heartbeat.

edit: the reason is because it's patronizing and could be construed as harassment. PC culture in action.

Possible. Its weird how its a whole other story when its the other way around.

what sort of valentines do you get on valentines day?

A lot of painted hearts. We don't do valentines day so much here.

From the kids? Is it cute or weird?

Nah its cute. They just want to give you something to make you smile.

Did you have to go through more rigorous ethical training than your female counterparts?

Not at all. My employer considers me absolutely equal.

Hello,

Do you teach any outdoor lessons like learning about nature or growing a garden?

Also, does the school provide meals and what are they like? US school meals are infamously bad and the internet told me lunches are better in other countries.

Yes we do. We've got nature-day once a month and a forest week once a year where we spend whole days in the forest. Also we have a garden and are growing vegetables there as a project. It's a lot of fun and the kids love harvesting and eating their "own" carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers. Meals are provided since some kids are staying from 8am to 5pm everyday, the quality is alright. Could be better, but would be expensive. I eat lunch with the kids everyday and gotten used to it.

I'm in the last days of my son's Eingewöhnung (helping him adapt to the situation), he loves it (it's a Waldkindergarten) - anything we as parents can do to make your job easier?

Also, how much do you hate parent meetings?

The first one is obvious: Trust us! We know what we do. Even if you hear your kid cry, DO NOT ENTER THE ROOM! It'll get used to being saved by you everytime this happens. Kids adapt fast and they get used to being there. Don't stick around too long when you drop him off, make saying goodbye the final ritual. You'll be gone after that, even when he doesn't like it at first. I've seen it so many times that kinds have figured out how to make their parents feel guilty by crying resulting in staying way to long. It only gets harder for them when you finally leave. Kids also cry sometimes when you pick them up again, sometimes this get overinterpreted and parents fear that the kids don't like the place. Most of the time the kids are just relieved you came back for them (and again make you feel guilty for leaving them there in the first place)
Also especially in a waldkindergarden make sure to have always at least 3 full sets of cloths in the kita, running around try to find fitting stuff sucks. Parent meetings are alright, we've got pretty chill parents. It's more the 3 hours extra after an 8 hour workday which suck.

are there multiple kindergarden teachers at your school? have you ever had kids (er, parents rather) try to switch teachers for gender reasons?

Our whole team consists of 14 teachers in total, I am the only male. I've only experienced it in a positive way, like parents want to have me being the teacher of their sons because I'm male and they figured it would be kind of better for them.

Hahn im korb, huh? =)

Kikerikiiii ;)

Have you seen Jagten? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2106476/) If so, why didn't you quit your job already? I was terrified watching that film.

Nope. Not that much into this kind of movies tbh.

do you encounter issues due to your gender ? I often see that it's more difficult for men in positions like this as they are often feared of having malicious intentions with childcare jobs as things like changing nappies, hugging kids etc. regularly happens between female teachers and is seen as normal and it seems weird for male teachers, or so is the impression I get from society anyway

Yeah quite some times it happens, but it strongly depends on how your employer thinks about it and how he tells the parents. In my case the parents got told that I will start to work there and that I'm equal to my female coworkers in terms of changing diapers and cloths and stuff. Worked out good, but I've heard of cases where the males weren't allowed to do so. I consider this sexism, but wouldn't miss changing nappies either ^{^}

You have to change nappies at Kindergarden? I figured that wouldn't be an issue for that age group. Is it just for naptime or are you talking about handicapped kids?

Nope, its daily business. 'My' group consists of 2,5 to 6 year olds, so youre stuck with nappie-kids. Sometimes I help out in other groups and in early education the kids are joining sometimes being only 6 months old.

Oh, I see. In most US schools children aren't allowed to attend Kindergarten unless they are completely potty trained (unless handicapped).

Is it like that there too? I would imagine changing the nappy of a completely healthy 4-year-old would be somewhat awkward.

It used to be like that 10 to 20 years ago. But now this doesn't matter anymore. We had 4 year old which needed nappies because developing the feeling for bladder is very different from kid to kid. It hasn't necessary to do with cognitive development.

It's mostly awkward for the kids, so they try their best on potty training. I guess the average age of being potty trained is somewhere around 3, give or take a half year.

I consider this sexism, but wouldn't miss changing nappies either ^

Erm why? Woman are mothers, so just let them change the nappies.

I'd imagine it's something most men would want to avoid anyway? Unless it's your own kid like.

It's about the fact that I wouldn't be allowed, because I'm a man. Which would basically be the assumption that I could be a pedophile based on my gender. This situation doesn't exist for female employees at all. Why?

Do you have to deal wth any crazy parents? If so, what's the craziest?

Some parents are having too much time, thats for sure. Especially those who have the second child which is currently a toddler so they are on maternity leave. They consider kindergarden and the employees as a real soap opera so they try to know everything and get involved and complain about everything. Always 1st world problems.

We had this one kid which got "touched" by another kid. Normal kids stuff, like doctors play. Kids do this a lot and they are just curious how the others look like "down there", this has nothing to do with our adult view on sexuality at all. The mother (lets call her A) of said kid went crazy after her boy told her, spreading rumors about "sexual abuse in the kindergarden" which caught on like a wildfire. She even encountered the mother (B) of the boy who touched her son, screaming at her that its her sons fault. The other boys mother is very kind and nice and she was crying and completely dejected. We hosted a parents meeting about the subject of kids development in terms of body and sexuality. Mother A had the nerve to tell everybody that its important not to point fingers and stay reasonable. I watched mother B during this, she just stared at her in complete disbelief.

Have you ever just given up on a child?

Sometimes you have to, mostly because kids go to school at age 6. When you know their situation and the family its hard sometimes to accept that you can't change it. But if the kid is still there for a year we all try our best. Spoiled and misbehaving kids mean a lot of more work for you and your team, so its usually worth investing time to get it on the right path. At least within the kindergarden.

[deleted]

No, not that I'm aware of.

My daughter had a male teacher in preschool and all the kids called him "Miss Joseph." When I tried to explain that she should call him Mr. Joseph, she acted like I was crazy. The guy just rolled with it, didn't seem to bother him too much.

Have you encountered any blatant sexism at work? If so, how did you deal with it?

The positive sexism is way more common. Like I already wrote, some parents look more closely at you. Trips are always funny because sometimes when its only me, a younger female coworker and about 6 kids especially elderly people assume its a family. One time a woman looked after us and walked straight into a road sign.

I honestly can't see that much reason behind there being one. But have you ever had a negative reaction from a kids parents before just because you are a male?

Yes! One dad noticed me and said to my coworker that I'm not allowed to speak to his daughter or even touch her. I was standing right next to him but he didnt bother to even look at me. He was from former Yugoslavia and participated in the war there, so I guess he has seen some disturbing stuff. My coworker just told him that I'm working here and the only thing he could do about it is to look for another kindergarden for his daughter. He let her stay, but ignored me the whole time.

"kindergarden"?

Look it up here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Fröbel

I was referring to your spelling of the word.

Oh I didn't realise until now that you use the full German word. Always thought Garten gets translated to garden. That's for pointing it out.

Common Core, For or Against and why?

Never heard of it, something like this doesn't exist here in germany (at least not that I'm aware of) From a short google research it looks like basic training to ensure the kids are doing good in maths, english and stuff? My opionion is that kids need their time to look for their interests and get proper activities in the fields they like. School is the place to get assigned to learn specific stuff. Doing this too early would kill their curiosity and focus too much on the weaknesses instead of talents. Social and emotional growth is way more important in that age and is the base of learning and being ready for school. Therefore kids need to know what they are good at to build confidence regardless of what they should learn according to some plan.

You said you worked for 8 years, and that means you started teaching when you were 19. How did the kids and parents treat you back then?

Differently than now. When you're 19 you still need to figure some things out, especially with this amount of responsibility. I think communication with parents is the hardest part to learn, especially when there are some problems. I think when you get older, parents trust you more. When you are 19 and talking to some 40 something parents they sometimes look down on you, since its your first years and they have more experience with children from being parents.

What do you think is the most unique, positive aspect of the education/curriculum of the German students that schools should look to adopt worldwide? I'm a recent teaching graduate in America so I've loved this thread; thank you for sharing!

I'm not that much involved into school related stuff since kindergarden is a whole other thing here... I think the german level of education is pretty high compared to the US, if you look up what each class is learning in 10th grade you'll see the gap

how do deal with super bratty kids? Especially when you know that the parents allow that kind of behavior?

The consequences of their behaviour MUST be a downside for them. So testing us is always way harder for the kids at the end. Usually the kids figure out that they can't pull off all the shit they are able to do at home and that's it. I'd tell the parents a few times what might work, but if they are not putting in some effort at home not much will happen.

I'm an american and took German in high school and college. I'm wanting to read books or watch shows to keep up on my German. My level of comprehension is about a 5-7 year old native. Do you have a chapter book or tv show recommendations at that level?

The simpsons helped me a lot with learning English, maybe it'll do the trick in German aswell. Make sure to watch it with German subtitles on an pause everytime you don't understand the sentence and look it up. I loved the "das sams" by Paul Maar books in that age, they could serve you well.

What is the difference between this subreddit and casual ama? I feel like it wasn't long ago that this sub was super strict about who could and couldn't do an AMA.

Don't know, maybe ask the mods about it. I'm pretty new to reddit but figured it would be interesting to some to hear about my job.

What is the best surprise you have ever received in the garden of Kinder?

When you quit the place for another position you'd usually recieve a lot of nice gifts, like handmade photobooks with a lot of memories. So I think this one is the nicest way of being surprised.

Has there been a situation where children have been utterly unruly and chaotic, nothing you tried worked, and the more you tried the lesser effect it seemed to have? How did you overcome it?

Of course, this happened a lot in the first year. But you grow with the experience and I was happy to have nice coworkers at my side ready to step in when I was clueless. Research, reflecting and talking to other teachers helps a lot. Now I know myself way better and it's not a problem anymore.

Which education route did you take?

I did regular German school (gymnasium) until 10th grade. Then I went to the 'technology gymnasium ' in an IT course but lost interest in the subject. After I quit I did an internship at a kindergarden for 6 months and started the schooling for this job which took 4 years in total.

Who is my daddy, and what does he do?

Seriously though, a friend of mine worked with pre-school kids for a while and had an incident where a little boy ran head-first into his crotch while trying to give him a hug, then he had to fend off a little girl who was trying to kiss it better; have you any stories of utterly innocent "holy shit this could get me arrested"?

The part with being hit in the crotch has happened to me too several times. Luckily not that powerful, so no consequences except for short time pain. Kids don't know shame, they learn it from adults. So it happens that they ask to see your Penis for example, just because they are curious. This happens not so often but still, it happens. I explain them that it's mine, so it's my choice and I don't want to show it. This has also the purpose of giving a positive example of saying 'no' and the right to choose over my own body.

How often do you get sick?

It was crazy often in the first 2 years, my immune system had to get used to the amount of bacteria and sick kids around me. Now its about once every two months for a day or two...

Is there a certain activity/playtime/craft/teaching that you especially notice the kids benefit from? Something that you plan to keep up year after year, a necessity in your curriculum?

Also, I had no idea that you would be getting so many gender specific questions - I didn't think it was a big deal to people. But it made me think: I had a male teacher (grade 6, mind you) and he was one of my most influential teachers of all time. I was thinking of him the other day and wished I knew how to contact him to thank him. I had another in grade 7 for two electives and he was equally as important to me.. I think having a balance of male and female teachers growing up helped me cope with having a very part time dad. Everyone needs a good father influence! So keep it up, you're undoubtedly more important to those kids then they know. Cheers!

Thank you so much, this means a lot to me. I actually wrote my final exam piece about this issue (The importance of male teachers in this age group) and the scientific data shows that boys tend to look for male role models in television when theres none available irl. This is obviously bad, since most Men in TV are strong, don't show emotions and solve conflicts with violence. Every teacher has a specialty somehow. I play guitar and sing a lot with the kids and their interest in music and instruments went way up. A big amount of children wishes for a guitar on birthdays/christmas since I do this and I am happy they adapt the interest in music I'm giving them.

Wow yes, I could only imagine how amazing it would be to have a teacher play guitar and sing. Arts and music are underrated! To show the value of it (through example) is hugely influential. Those kids are lucky! The world is lucky we've got you.

Thank you :)

Have you ever had a student that smelt really bad? Like really really bad.

Yeah. One had some kind of a disease which made his sweat smell fishy. I mean REALLY fishy. I was always reminded of my vacations at the sea when he walked by. Besides that theres a rule of thumb for kids: You can smell poverty.

My daughter loves her male kindergarten teacher Mr. P!!

Are there any free websites that you or colleagues can recommend as a resource for parents of kindergartners? I really want to get more involved with my daughter so far as reading, sounding out words phonetically, starting math (counting objects, money, etc) but I don't know where to start besides the constantly-advertised abcmouse.com. Whether it's interactive with games or simple print-outs, I'd love a starting point.

TIA, and thanks for doing the AMA, great answers

To be honest, no. I don't look up things on the internet about this subject. It's more learning from more experienced people, going on to seminars and sometimes reading up some scientific articles. I figure your kind of kindergarden is more schoolish (correct me if wrong) and focused on learning specific things. In the age of 3-6 this shouldn't matter that much tbh. The everyday situation offers so much questions kids ask, make sure to take time to talk and explain things to your kid. If you don't know be honest and say "I don't know either, but lets find out!"

In that age she wants to know everything and that's the easiest time of her life to educate her. Use that curiosity and offer her places to get new questions like museums, the airport,open house days at factories/facilities and stuff. Teach her everyday situations, like how do I buy a train ticket, go into the forest and limit (family) screen time to a minimum. Girls become overly girly at some point, this gender exaggeration is healthy in some ways. So if shes interested in being a princess visit a castle, if shes into horses look for a farm or place where she can see some. You get the point. Parents are often concerned about giving their kids too little cognitive input and want to offer them some 3rd hand material like print-out learning forms. Free yourself from this thinking, you know this world already and you can explain it to your daughter.

What is your favorite species of bird?

The crow, smart af

What's your attention getter when you want everyone to listen?

My gf teaches kinder and I've heard her say these adorable rhymes

Teacher: Tootsie Roll

Students: Lolly Pop. We were talking Now we stop!

I clap loud for 2 or 3 times and start speaking. If a kid is still talking I call him by name and ask him to listen. Some use like little gongs or something, but it's better to use something you can use everywhere like on a trip or in the garden. This rhyme is sweet though

Is it a tumor?

If google says so it definitely is!

How closely do you identify with Kenny in Half Baked?

Not at all. The job is getting ridiculed and the message is that even complete stoned guys can do it. Maybe that's possible In the US though.

I was referring more to how he was with children than his extracurricular activities.

Haven't seen the movie in a long time...so its hard to tell

I figure people see men in your role as either gay, a potential pedophile or can't get a job with older kids. That's why the apprehension. p.s. They probably are more comfortable if you were gay. Who knows?

Don't think so. Being gay would lead them to suspect that if a man likes penises, he may likes kids penises too. A friend of mine knows a guy which is gay and works in the same field. He keeps it a secret for exact this reason.

You smoke weed?

Yeah you smoke weed

All the prejudices about pedagogic workers are true.

I'm almost sure that's illegal. You work with others kids for fucks sake.

You're not very good with sarcasm aren't you?

Do you hate your life? Do you have kids of your own? What are your top 2 hobbies outside of work?

No, I like it. Everybody has their ups and downs of course, but all in all I'm pretty much satisfied. My hobbies are photography (which is slowly turning into a side business atm) and travelling, those two go great together.

You missed a question. The one about having children. But. My detective skills have told me that you do not have any when you said "you ENJOY traveling".

Thanks! Now i know a little something about German male kindergarten teachers!

Your right, I don't have kids. Glad to leave it like that for some years hopefully.

How do single moms react to you? My guess would be that they react soaking wet and panty-less.

I get flirty looks from time to time, especially from young single mothers like about 23 yrs old. It must appear very attractive for them to see a guy being good with kids, especially when the "jerk father" has left her while being pregnant. The older sisters, cousins and mothers friends are also exited to see me sometimes

Ever acted on any of that?

Nope. I don't shit where I eat.

This doesn't quite seem like the right phrase.

I think you get the idea

What rules are there with dating 1) parents of kids 2) other teachers/student teachers interning from college?

I'd say there are no specific rules given. Sure it would be weird to date a mom from your kids, and since the moms from the kindergarden like to gossip A LOT it would turn things complicated pretty fast. My boss is pretty chill, I don't think it would bother her if I would date an intern, as long as the work wont suffer and the kids/parents wont notice.