By Emma Blackwood

Lower School teacher and Collegiate parent Aster Kidane is a Kindergarten assistant, but her job entails much more than what her title portrays. Most people would agree that child care is a difficult responsibility on its own, but teaching a group of 15-20 five-year-olds every day is beyond challenging. Kidane’s job is to assist with anything the teacher in her classroom needs help with, which can include anything within the lesson plans for five different subjects: reading, writing, science, math, and social studies. She also assists with regular classroom tasks that might overwhelm one teacher on their own, like organization, creation of in-class activities, and of course helping the kids get where they need to go. In her words, “Our job is to meet all of [the students’] varying needs and develop their confidence as well as their love of learning! That looks different for everyone and every day.” 

Kidane didn’t start out with Kindergarteners, or even at Collegiate. She was born in Ethiopia and lived there for the first ten or so years of her life. She then attended a boarding school in England for three years before going to the American International School in Vienna, Austria. Kidane then earned a degree in economics and Afro-American studies from the University of Virginia and a Masters in elementary education from Marymount University.

She began her teaching career in the Virginia public school system and looked into Collegiate as both a potential employee and an interested soon-to-be parent. In 2000, she began working as a 2nd Grade assistant while her first-born was at Cougar Care, the employee daycare center that Collegiate ran in the Lower School’s Nunnally Hall from 1998-2015, in the current Junior Kindergarten’s Sycamore Room. Eventually, she moved on to become a Kindergarten assistant in order to increase work hours and has loved the position ever since. She has three children, all of whom moved through the Collegiate Lower School over the years: Destana (‘17), Selam (‘19), and Zhema Herring (‘22).

Throughout Kidane’s story, the most consistent detail is her never-ending love for the children she works with. While her job is taxing, she works endlessly to make sure the kids in her class are getting the best possible experience in their emotional and mental development. That is one of the reasons there is both a teacher and an assistant in the kindergarten classrooms. She says of the staffing, “It takes a village to grow these children, but grow they do!” Kidane believes this is a great way to create a loving and healthy environment for young children, as demonstrated by her decision to continue to teach and send her own children to Collegiate. 

When asked why she chose to stay with kindergarten and why she favors it over other levels, Kidane had no more obvious answer than, “I fell in love with how much these babies grow in just one academic year. The innocence and excitement to learn in a Kindergartener does not compare with any other group.” For Kidane, it’s so rewarding to teach Kindergarteners; she says that their desire to learn and rapid growth makes her job incredibly worthwhile. Daily satisfaction can be near impossible to find in a career, but Kidane has found it through helping these kids learn more about their world with every minute in the classroom.

Teaching has been the focal point of her job, but Kidane also enjoys her work in the guidance counseling office, where she taught a few guidance lessons to Lower Schoolers in past years. Additionally, she has worked in the Service Learning department, helping coordinate Lower School community service efforts alongside Director of Service Learning and Civic Engagement Suzanne Fleming. On top of all that, she spends afternoons working with students individually to work on any issues they may be facing, in or outside the classroom, and she assists Lower School music teacher Christine Hoffman during Kindergarten music classes when students from the Faison School come to visit. This is yet another example of Kidane’s endless devotion to her work and the children she cares for on a daily basis.

Editor’s Note: Since Collegiate has transition to online learning, Kidane says, “I miss being in the same space as the children, but I’m learning to figure out new and different ways to keep connected to the babies!  Seesaw is the App we are using to continue to foster the bond we built with our students. We are also calling each student for about ten minutes once a week. That one-on-one time with each student via the phone or on FaceTime allows them to ask questions and tell the stories they need to share. It’s a brave new world, and we are all just doing our best to keep our connections going!”