Preschool teacher goes the extra mile

Tiziana DiCastro has a tough job to do and she does it very well, her boss says.

DiCastro is both a preschool teacher and supervisor of early childhood education at Royal Crest Academy in Maple.

“In a position like this, especially when you’re dealing with young children, it has to come from the heart and she definitely puts her whole heart and soul and truly cares for every single child that she’s responsible for,” says Michelle Johnson, Royal Crest’s director.

DiCastro has been an ECE professional for eight years and is now in her fifth year with the Academy. Almost a decade into her career, she credits the insatiable curiosity of her kids for keeping things fresh and new everyday.

“There’s never a dull moment,” she says. “They always constantly ask questions and make you go that extra step.

“‘Why is the sky blue, Miss DiCastro?’ And I have to look it up and tell them,” she adds. “It’s their imagination that really I’m after, that amazes me day in and day out.”

DiCastro says her aim is to teach valuable social lessons and that often means getting creative. To teach her young students about multiculturalism, for instance, she uses sand of different colours: each grain is different but it’s still sand.

“It’s a vocation,” she says. “It’s a calling. It is.”

Vaughan Today
In print: February 6, 2009, page 11
Online: February 9, 2009 [link]