Thank You, Teachers!

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.