The Story of a Teaching Assistant (Part One)

As schedules came out, disappointment washed over my body. I had put down AP Statistics instead of an elective for my junior year, but to my surprise, my schedule did not include any statistics. On one hand, it stung because the statistics class sounded a lot more interesting and useful than the likes of a game programming elective that only dabbled with using Scratch, but the second bite came from the looming cloud over any class, friends. I knew a lot of people who were doing AP Statistics and while I would love to say I am a completely independent thinker who can make friends anywhere and is not influenced by where my current friends go, I can not. I knew no one who was going to be in my self-described rudimentary game programming class and had seen all of my friend's schedules pile up with AP Statistics block five. I was dissatisfied and chose to take action to remedy this. I went online to put my name on the AP Statistics waitlist, being frustrated by the fact that the scheduling office would not even be open until late August, in a couple weeks. Like most teenage heartaches, the initial pain subsided, and over only a couple of days, I stopped thinking about it constantly. None the less, it would be a fun thing to complain about, drowning my sorrows and getting a laugh out of it with a friend, but when home alone, it was nothing that kept me up awake. On the first day, the scheduling office was open, I went in to talk to the administrators there. I had already put my name on the waitlist online, but anxiousness is not something I lack, and so I wanted to make sure I was actually on the waitlist. I assumed it could not hurt my chances by going in. Low and behold my name was already on the lists, and there was nothing more I could do. I asked about other classes I could enroll in, like a second English class, but nothing caught my eye and the classes I could take did not fit in with the rest of my schedule. So I waited. As the summer came to a close, and I had gotten no notification that my problem would be fixed, I decided to continue looking into alternative areas. One area that started to come to my attention was being a teaching assistant. Last year, in biology, my class had a teaching assistant, and in my freshman year, my rock climbing class even had a teaching assistant. Despite these past experiences, when I thought about teaching assistants, I was always dogged by my own perspective of my teaching assistants, who often looked like they had nothing to do as the teacher just ran the class. My biology teaching assistant would often just do homework for other classes while sitting in the corner as the teacher lectured. Sometimes she would be able to come help check work, but a majority of the actual biology work she did in the class was passing out papers. None the less, I really did not want to take my game programming elective, and so the night before the first day of school for the freshman, I looked up teacher's schedules to find any teacher I knew who had a class block one. When thinking of teachers, I started to think about how a student could ever be a teaching assistant for an English or history class. The class structure felt like it would be horribly acclimated to another teacher walking around spouting additional information, as so much of it was based on the students talking in Socratic groups. With these two subjects narrowed down, I had math, science, and German as possible classes to assist in. German was out as I felt some of the students in that class might end up knowing more then I did halfway through the year. With math and science left as choices, I looked at my options. I loved earth science in freshman year, but it was such a large subject, which made me feel I would not know enough information to be a true asset for the aspiring freshman. Looking at possible math classes I could help in was a road to nowhere, as none of the teachers I knew, had a class during the block I could be a teaching assistant in. This left biology. My biology teacher actually did not have a class the right block for me, but a teacher who I vaguely knew, because of biology club did have a class then. This teacher, Mrs. S., helped supply the club, and I had interacted with her a few times. This led me to email her about any opportunities to be a teaching assistant in her class. She sent an excited email back that stated there definitely was an opportunity, and that she wanted to meet up with me the next day. I replied with a similarly cheery message, and so got about to getting to school to meet with her. I rode my bike to school, bringing with me some papers I needed signed to be a teaching assistant. When I got to school, there was already a swarm of freshman as this was their orientation day. While at school I traveled the halls looking for my counselor and previous biology teach to the application for being a teaching assistant filled out. Both my counselor and biology teach were on the same floor, making this trip quick and efficient. With these forms in hand, I was able to meet up with Mrs. S. and talk to her about the opportunity to be a teaching assistant. She bubbled with excitement and I loved it. Mrs. S is one of the most passionate teachers I have ever gotten the opportunity to meet. We instantly got to talking, and what she said dazzled my highest expectations. From her talk, me being a teaching assistant sounded like I would actually be involved in helping to teach, doing work, and overall just having responsibilities. She talked about how we would have to find a time each week to meet up so she could prep me on the plans for the coming week, and how I could help present some topics. As I left her office I was a little scared, but a whole happier with my lot then when I came in. My schedules initial bites had gotten one strong biological remedy. I entered the room for my first class of the year, taking a seat in the upper corner, alienating myself from the rest of the group. TBC