Hello! It’s me again, back in California, back at Scripps, and back, undoubtedly, in my element. Happy as I am to have returned to the chaos that is campus life, I’ve found myself occasionally yearning for the routine I had established for myself over the summer. I always find it a difficult thing to switch between homes. Still, I’m unbelievably happy to be back here, and to come back with a newfound sense of confidence that I got from my summer job.

This summer, I worked for an organization called The GO Project as a Teacher’s Assistant. I had expressed concern last year that I would be woefully unqualified for the job, as I had little to no experience working in a classroom environment. But the training I had on educational inequality, and the progressive teaching techniques that GO uses, prepared me to deal with the variety of circumstances that I would- and eventually did- face. I was still the youngest person working the job, but I believe that gave me an advantage; I felt like I was able to just talk to the kids a lot better than my older counterparts. Also, because I wasn’t a teacher, I wasn’t comparing the kids at GO to kids I would have taught before. This is an important distinction, because many of the kids at GO have behavioral problems or learning disabilities that made them difficult to manage in a classroom environment. But to me, they were just kids; I soon began to refer to them as “my kids.”

Though I had never been in a classroom before, I found that having sixteen eight-year-olds looking towards me as an authority figure immediately forced me to adapt to my environment. Every day was nothing short of a day-long adrenaline rush. The structure of the day worked out so that from 9-2, the kids were in an academic day, but from 2-5, they were in “enrichment periods,” including Art and Poetry, Drama, and Martial Arts. I was the only person that was with them for the whole day, and I gained the trust and support of the kids as a result. My group was incredibly challenging: I had a runner, some fighters, and a lot of dramatics. Though I used a lot of effective teaching methods, I found that the most important thing I could do was to not get frustrated with the kids, and to be empathetic. A lot of kids in my class at GO came from unimaginable circumstances, but the effort and love that they put into our time everyday showed me a lot about the resilience of the human heart.

Aside from the kids, I was working with a fantastic teaching team, which supported my kids and me. A lot of what I learned came from other teachers; whether it be the “One two three, eyes on me!” “One two, eyes on you” chant that I would use to get the children’s attention, or the cool-down techniques that helped when dealing with an eight-year olds mental breakdown. I had people that would chase my runner’s for me, and people who would take care of the kids if I had to run to the bathroom. It was amazing to feel like a part of a real, working team.

The logistics of my job at GO made it so I had a two-hour commute every day, so it was literally all I was doing for six weeks. While I don’t think I’ll be returning to GO next summer, I don’t think I would trade the experience for anything.