Today I volunteered to help in my son's kindergarten class, which is in a
public school in a wealthy district. A volunteer is needed daily to
make sure that the teacher can focus on a group of 4 kids who are
working on reading. The parent volunteer helps three other groups of 4
kids work on writing or math skills, while yet another group of 4 goes
to a different room to work on an art project with yet another teacher.
So, that means, for about 40 minutes, the volunteer is responsible for
helping 12 of the 20 kids. Only 12.
When I returned to my
office, I announced to everyone that they should be glad they have it so
easy! I am exhausted from trying to give each of those 12 kids
sufficient attention. I cannot fathom having to do that with 20 kids
even once, let alone every day. I know everything seems more complicated
when you don't do it all of the time, but still--all I could think
about was the school or the district without the extra art teacher, or
without enough available parents to have a volunteer there EVERY day.
What about those kids?
Anyway, it was eye-opening indeed. I actually
don't think the pay could be high enough for me to sign up for the same
reason I would never go to medical school: the risks of being bad at it
are too great.
