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I've been working for the San Juan School District for a month now. My job title is Child Development Assistant, specifically a sub. This means that I look after kids K-7th grade and have relative flexibility with where I want to work on a day to day basis. I'm going to attempt to work at all of the schools but I'm not sure every school will need a sub for the summer. Right now I only work with the Discovery Clubs, which are the after school programs, but I assume that during the school year they also have people sub within the classroom as aides.

This job is not a career for me. I want to move into the secretary position so that I can go further into clerical work and perhaps proof reading or editing in the later future. I've worked with kids before so this is familiar to me. The kids are generally not a problem, though I notice some schools are better matched for me than others.

I am going to omit names of schools and just put the dates because my experience may be a singular occurrence, and I do not want it to reflect poorly on the school or peoples there if you have not had any experiences there. One of the few schools I never wish to return to was on the 27th of June. The kids were playing with a brick, kicking it around and such because kids are kids and bore easily. I attempted to stop the brick with my foot, not realizing that it was a brick or that they kicked it that hard. Hurt like the dickens and I have a big bruise. I was really worried I might have fractured something, cause I'm a huge wuss like that. Better me though than some other kid in retrospect. That school was just trouble. The older kids would not listen at all and my classroom had little to no discipline, meaning they didn't respect the teacher at all and thereby me as extension. The big kids during recess were told not to play with sticks or bugs and so they decided trying to pick up a cigarette bum was the next best thing. When I disciplined them, they talked back and gave me this look like "who the ******** do you think you are" ... are you kidding me?! Later in the day I was left alone with the kids so the teacher could go get some things from her old classroom and the younger ones needed to go to the bathroom. The restrooms are at the end of the hall so I can't go with them but also can't let them go unsupervised. I waited as long as I could, but in the end watched them from the door. A little girl thought it was OK to go into the boy's bathroom, which cause this HUGE drama when I yelled and another teacher heard what had happened (because she needed something from our room). A parent came in at the same time so the kids got chewed out TWICE so the bathroom incident, and then later by the teacher in my room.... it was just a mess. That isn't even mentioning that they didn't listen to quiet reading time, deciding it was time to play instead, and they fought with each other constantly (not an exaggeration, there was always a fight going down. Only like 2 minutes between)

That school was... exhausting and I was there 8 hours. No thank you ma'am. On the flipside, the school I was at today, July 5th, I was only there 3 hours and it was awkward because the kids were so well-behaved that all you did was play with them. It made me tense after looking after kids to relax with this school and entrust the kids knew what to do or that things worked themselves out. It was... odd to be so tired from doing nothing. Even compared to June 16th's school, which was one of my favorites, the disciple level was different but somehow still very controlled. The 16th had lots of rules and the kids knew how to behave around those rules if they were ever called out or enforced, but the 5th's school had no rules for the day to day actions, the rules were imposed on the activities instead. Let me be more clear... the 16th had a specific way to line up and sit when finished with activities. The kids responded to a certain clap/call in the classroom to "eyes on teacher" sort of thing, but when it was play time they could do whatever they wanted. Today, the 5th, they had stations for play time where each area of the room has a set number of people and they have multiple things set up to entice the kids. The kids do not have a set manner of lining up but get called off to check in and they focus more on solving the issues as they arise rather than keeping certain kids apart.

I don't know, maybe that doesn't seem too different to you, but they FELT different. Just being there in the midst of these teachers and the kids, you FEEL the way that these people make an impact on the kids. I'm learning tricks to drawing kids to me like silly faces, playing certain games, drawing certain pictures, etc. For now, I'm happy doing this sort of thing. I don't want to work with kids forever, but I do like kids and I like the idea that I'm helping someone by doing this work. I hope that I make it a little easier on the other teachers when I am there. I hope that I can give something to the kids as well, for a day at least.