The Story of a Teaching Assistant: Part Two

Part One

Was I a student or a teacher? Should I answer questions or only respond to orders? Should I listen to the lectures or do work for other classes? I was in the middle of everything, being displaced from any true center. My seat was still at a table, but it was in the top corner where no one else sat. As I looked at my class for the first day I realized that the students might think I am just another kid taking the class whom they do not happen to know. Stiffness filled my motions until I became an obedient statue with one eye trained on the teacher, and the other on the students. In only a few seconds since entering the room and sitting down I had become the outsider.

Mrs. Shopiro asked if I wanted to introduce myself, which only once nudged again did I actually do. My awkward statement and short ramble did not do me any good and I sat down with a haze covering me. One of the responsibilities Mrs. Shopiro had given me in our meeting prior, was to write down the agenda, any homework, and any absentees on yellow pieces of paper which were then placed in a binder. This mundane job became the annoying mosquito which never died, from the windy fall, to the cold winter, to the blooming spring it lived. Names were flowing in the first few minutes of class and keeping up with any actual correctness became unseasonable. The class came to an end with little having been accomplished, the one thing students loved about the first day back.

The kids were stretched on a wide range of sociability. There was the pair of girls who were already best friends, the popular boy and girl coed group, the separate boy and girl group that was made up of those who did not know anyone, and the few loners who would scramble to find a partner when group work was called. To my own amusement, I became intimidated by my self-described popular group, who never showed any actions of disrespect to me, but for some reason, I did not feel like I had any influence on. I initially gravitated to a few different students, there was the excited learner who reminded me of the best parts of a student, the interesting best friends who would be fun to chit-chat with, and then the students who would become my friends in class.

As a student teacher, I had a degree of doubt in my own ability. I was scared that I would not remember the information I needed for the course, and would look a fool to those all around me. Thankfully though, this doubt was one of the first things to go away in the year. On the first real assignment I was able to correctly answer the question in front of Mrs. Shopiro, and then I was sent to help the masses. I had proven myself to myself, that I could do this. An itch was satisfied each time I got to help a student answer a question. On the quiet days, as the students studiously did their work with little problem, I felt a strand of uselessness and disappointment. I wanted to be the hero to save them from their problem before it was whisked away as they left class. When I was asked a question that I could not answer, I felt a slight embarrassment, and would often play it off with a quick joke, and then tell them I would ask the teacher, Mrs. Shopiro, or my phone at times.

Throughout the year I learned many skills. Skills not just in the teaching department, but some pure life skills. Some of the most useful, and insightful things I learned were how to use tools like a copier. I ended up copying many papers, and was met with scold from the house administrator more than once for using too much paper. On those walks from the classroom, to South House, I would feel my outside status wash over me again. I had the power to not be in class directly, but if I did not show up, it would be counted as cutting. I was in the class, but I was not part of the class.

As days passed, I started to break from my shell, and interact with the kids not just on a question and answer level. I started to learn where certain students were at. I started to hover at times when I knew a question was incoming. I would make small talk in periods of intermittency, and learn about individual's lives outside of the classroom. As I gained my flow, so did a sense of enjoyment enter my body. Getting to talk to the kids on a personal level felt awesome, being able to connect with them, to learn about them, to try to help them was more fulfillment then any course I could take. Looking at Mrs. Shopiro, I realized how much of this she must miss. She did not have time to make small talk or learn the intricacies of every student's life. Even the best teacher, which in my own esteem she is, did not have the time to connect with every student. I was an outsider, between the teacher and the student, there was a haze around me, but it started to smell nice.

One student had to get up very early for school, and so when they were in block one Biology they would be facing tiredness on all sides. I heard Mrs. Shopiro talk to them about it, to try and find a solution to the problem, and one idea was candy. Despite this, candy was forgotten, not on purpose, but it was lost in the many thoughts of the day. On one particularly hard day for the student, Mrs. Shopiro brought up the candy again, lamenting at the fact that she had forgotten it. She cared, and it pushed me. I had these gummy worms that were delicious. Sitting there, my purpose being for the kids, it was a no-brainer. I got my gummy worms out and gave it to the student. I was an outsider, but I was a teacher. I was not a student, but I was a friend. The haze was there, but it was transparent.