Since I started volunteering at Lewis elementary school, I have learned a lot about who I am, and what being a teacher is about. Although I’m barely eighteen, and still a kid in so many ways, when I am in the classroom with the kids I work with, I take on a responsibility that I have never had before, and I’m considered an adult even though I’m no more than eleven or twelve years older than they are.
From the time I started volunteering in the first grade classroom, I have gotten to know the kids in the class, and they have gotten to know me. Each day I enjoy my time there more and more, I have enjoyed the experience so much that I dropped another class in order to gain more time, and another day in the classroom. Each day I look forward to going to Lewis, after I finish my classes here at
Cleveland.
The duties that I perform each day at Lewis vary day to day, from Stapling papers, to putting papers in their cubbies, to stamping work and making copies to laminating and binding things, and working with the kids. I help them with math, writing, and I get to go to recess with them and library, and do different activities during centers. My favorite parts of the day and week are recess and library. I like recess because I get to get outside and get some fresh air, and I have always just liked library.
The biggest challenge that I have had after the first few weeks, is when there are new kids coming in, and I don’t know them, when I have had time to get to know the rest of them. Just recently there were two new girls who started less than a week apart, and it is a big adjustment. When these two joined the class, I had spent most of the school year getting to know the other nineteen. When kids move or change schools, it’s hard on everyone, the kid, their parents, their old teachers, their new teachers, their old classmates, and their new classmates at this age, because they spend so much time together in the same classroom.
Although it can be a challenge at times, but I enjoy it, and by volunteering all year, I am learning things that first year teachers have to learn, so I’m getting the same experience to some degree as first year teachers, but 5-6 years earlier. The responsibility I have gained this year is something I won’t forget. The kids take a lot of work, and wear you out, but to see them working on their assignments and a lot of progress from the beginning of the school year, make all the tiredness in the world worth it.
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