Meant To Be

When I first started working for the school district, I had no idea what I was getting into. I’d been laid off for the first time about a month earlier, and I was just trying to get a new job. I got hired to be a teaching assistant for the junior high class for the at-risk and state custody program in the school district. It was going to be more of a transitional job, and I was only planning on being there until I could find a ‘real’ job. I had been a nanny before, so I knew I could work with kids. I thought I was ready.

Wow, was I wrong. I had absolutely no experience with this demographic. They weren’t allowed to be unsupervised at any point, so I walked a kid down to the bathroom on my very first day. It was a bit of a baptism by fire when he got into a fight in the bathroom. I had no idea what to do. When I came back the next day, the teacher told me that she didn’t think I’d be back. I didn’t really know what to say. This was my job now, and it never occurred to me to quit after one day.

I was only twenty when I started. I had no idea how to be an authority figure for anyone older than six. But here I was, telling teenagers to get to work, to leave that kid alone, to stay in sightline, to go back to the classroom for lunch detention. I wasn’t planning on going back after summer break, but when I didn’t find a new job before the fall, I found myself asking to come back.

It was never meant to be a long-term position. But I ended up staying for six years.

I never would have been able to guess what I would get out of this job. I found lifelong friends in my coworkers, despite being the longest standing teaching assistant. In my classroom alone, we went through eight other TAs while I was there. I learned how much I could love a kid who wasn’t mine. This was a lesson I learned over and over again, and it surprised me every time. I was willing to go to bat, to go to the mat, to defend some of these kids with everything I had.

Teachers always talk about how rewarding it is to work with kids. Despite that, I never planned to be a teacher. But it is rewarding. Don’t get me wrong: I had some of my hardest days in that job too. I had days where I got into my car at the end of the day and screamed, and cried, and raged. But I also had days where I could see the light go on in a kid’s eyes when they finally understood a concept. Days where I would tell a kid that they were smart, that they could do it, and they looked at me like I was the first person to ever believe in them. Sometimes, I knew that I probably was.

Some of these kids were so lost when they came to us. They had been in and out of foster homes, in and out of schools, in and out of juvie. Their parents were drug users, they were involved in a gang, whatever it was. I saw kids jump three grade levels in reading or math, getting close to where they should be. It’s amazing what a kid can achieve when they’re not solely focused on survival. It hurt my heart to see what they had to go through, but it also made me all the more determined to give them a safe space at school.

Graduation at the end of every year was a special thing. Most of the students who graduated never expected to be there. Some of them were the first in their families to graduate high school. Some of them were able to graduate early. Some of them even let themselves plan for college the next year. I was there long enough that I was able to see some of my own kiddos graduate. Hearing the speeches from students at graduation often brought me to tears. We were changing lives.

They were changing mine too. Honestly, I think I found myself at this job. I know that that sounds cliche to say, but it’s true. I grew up in this job. I was twenty when I started; basically a kid myself. Working so hard to give these kids a safe space to grow gave me the same. A job that I never intended to stay at for any extended length of time became the job that allowed me the most growth.

Coming to the real end of my time there gave me a lot of conflicting emotions. My job with the school district didn’t allow for upward movement, and couldn’t be more than part time. Once I finished my college degree, I wanted a chance to find a full time job in my field, that would give me benefits and upward mobility. So I told my supervisor not to plan on me coming back the next school year. I had major anxiety over this decision, but I knew I would stay if I let myself. And I needed something new.

Graduation that year affected me more than usual. I felt like I was graduating along with these kids. We were all moving on to the next phase of our lives. And I knew that working in this job helped me get ready for that next phase. And I couldn’t wait to see what came next.