The Best is Yet to Come
A reflection upon nearing the end of my first year as an educational assistant
I’ve been wanting to write a post about my job as an educational assistant for awhile now. Sometimes people in real life ask me about my job- how it’s going, what I really do, etc., and I always struggle to put words to what it is like to be an educational assistant. My verbal answers never reflect the depth of my feelings for this job. I’m writing this partly for myself, as an exercise in pulling together my thoughts about this job and a way of documenting who I am as an EA approaching the end of my first full school year in this role, and partly for the people in my life who care about how I spend my days but don’t get in-depth answers when they ask me about it. The rest of you just get to listen in if you’re interested, I guess. 😊
Like I said, I’ve been wanting to write this post for awhile. Part of what was holding me back was just a feeling of deep wariness at the thought of really diving into my feelings about myself as an educational assistant. Back in 2021, on my first full day of college (in an Educational Support program), I cried and told Ricky that I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for this job. I have said the exact same thing to Ricky on an almost daily basis since then. (Although I occasionally mix it up a bit by fervently declaring that I am DEFINITELY not cut out for this job.) It has been a hard and humbling journey.
But…
I finally seem to be feeling ready to dive in and write about it! I’m grateful to be at this point.
I’m going to break this post into the following categories: an explanation of what the job actually is, the kind of EA (educational assistant) I want to be, what I find difficult about the role, and some things I’ve learned along the way so far. Hopefully, woven throughout will be all the indescribably beautiful privileges that also exist in this crazy space that I inhabit.
Explanation of job
Where to begin?
Well, basically, an educational assistant is there to offer whatever additional support students may need- whether that need is physical (e.g. toileting, feeding, or transfers between mobility aids), academic, or behavioural. The classroom teacher sets goals for the students, and the educational assistant does their best to help the students reach those goals. As an educational assistant, I am never in charge of an entire class. It is more of a “one-on-one” role, although there is always more than one student who needs support and there is never enough support for everyone.
I am told that in the past, the role of the educational assistant was mostly to provide academic support. Now it seems that the behavioural needs define our role. The students that I spend most of my time with are on the autistic spectrum. I split my time between two kindergarten rooms, so you can go ahead and picture very adorable and very spunky little ones. Before this job, I hardly knew what autism looked like. In many ways, it’s still a mystery to me. I get the sense that my students are literally experiencing a different reality than I am and I’m so very curious about how they see the world. The four students who require the most support from me are mainly non-speaking and it blows my mind to think that I have never had a back and fourth conversation with these little friends. Despite this, I feel like we know each other so very well. I can often anticipate what’s about to happen with them, and they seem to always be able to read me.
They have my whole heart.
What do I actually do in a day?
I do my best to enable my little friends to be as independent as possible.
I meet them at the bus when they arrive.
I support them as they move through their routines and join in with classroom activities as they are able to. We move through their work using the first/then approach- “First work, then reward!”
I support them with eating, toileting, dressing/undressing for outdoors, and transitioning between activities and between locations in the school.
These things sound basic, but do you know how long a hallway can feel when it leads to a place a student is hesitant to go to? Picture little planted feet, crying, genuine distress, and an EA who feels uncertain about whether this is a time to be persistent and help the student overcome their hesitancy or a time to turn around and head back to a preferred location.
Sometimes we get where we are going, and other times we never arrive. And I’m learning to be okay with that.
Seemingly small things can be very difficult, and my job is to be there in those moments.
On the other hand, I also get to be there for the triumphant moments- finally being able to enter the bathroom, finally being willing to try eating from a yogurt tube, finally putting on their own shoes, finally saying “hi!” in response to my greeting. Those moments are worth so much.
Through all this, my goal is connection- a relationship where they sense warmth from me and understand that I’m on their team.
The kind of EA I want to be
At this point, I’ve been able to observe quite a few different educational assistants at work. There are so many wonderful, loving, patient humans filling this role, and I have begun to catch a vision of the sort of EA I would like to be.
I want to be an EA who enjoys the children around me.
I want to be an EA who is able to be calm in chaotic situations.
I want to be an EA who consistently provides her students with opportunities to learn and grow, with gentleness and persistence.
I want to be an EA who sees the quiet students who sometimes get a little lost in the loudness.
I want to be an EA who thinks outside the box and searches out creative solutions to difficult scenarios.
I want to be an EA who asks for help instead of drowning in my uncertainties.
I want to be an EA who hopes- hopes that growth will take place, hopes that things will get easier, hopes that connection will happen.
In this job where things can sometimes go haywire and feel personal, this quote describes how I want to be:
“You can tell when someone has been putting in the work because of their clear eyes, deep connection to the moment, and the feeling of expansive openness that flows from them.”
-Cory Allen
I want those clear eyes, that presence, and that openness.
What I find difficult as I do this job
Hmmm… what is difficult about this job?
Admittedly, I seem to be a bit of a struggler, who finds a lot of things to be difficult, even when they wouldn’t have to be. But I think this job might actually be… difficult. I never know how to discuss the difficult things, because I want to respect the students I work with. I don’t want to sensationalize the difficulties that they face. But for the sake of sharing some situations that make my heart race on a regular basis, here are some generalized difficulties.
How about…
The student won’t leave their clothes on.
The student puts everything in their mouth.
The student tries to run out of the classroom anytime they sense my attention is elsewhere.
The student turns into a torpedo every time we go into the library.
The student desperately wants to put their head in the toilet while it flushes.
The student cries as though their heart is breaking when told no.
The student goes around pushing other students.
And also…
Seeing other EAs in “more difficult” situations than I am in- with older students who have the tendency to be physically aggressive or verbally abusive or inclined to run off of school property. Knowing that I could find myself in a situation like that at any time, because my current schedule is not guaranteed to stay the same.
Supporting students in difficult moments when there are many other people around. Goodbye, low profile!
Trying to determine the difference between pushing a student in a way that promotes growth versus pushing in a way that just makes them upset.
Being consumed with thoughts of my work all the time- whether something has gone terribly wrong or amazingly well. I really struggle to distance myself from what happens at work.
Comparing myself to other EAs and thinking about how they would probably be so much better at helping my students than I am. Ugh.
Dealing with my own overstimulation- one student is asking me to take them inside so that they can use the bathroom, another runs up crying because they just got hurt, another one is circling us all while loudly singing songs from Frozen, and another is chugging around pretending to be a train, whilst my non-verbal friend is tugging at my hand wanting me to play tag with them. Kindergarten can be a little nuts.
I think that, although the details of these struggles may vary from career to career, the roots are probably similar to things that a lot of people face, both in their work and personal life. Pride, nuance, fear, comparison, overstimulation… we are all familiar with these things. I’ve felt them in other jobs that I’ve had too.
I feel them stronger in my role as an EA though. I think that it has something to do with working so directly with children, some of whom are very vulnerable. To not be able to do this job well feels like a sin to me.
Perhaps the sinniest sin I’ve ever felt.
This responsibility weighs on me very heavily.
I know that making mistakes is different than intentionally doing something to harm someone else in some way. I know that there is abundant grace, from both God and my coworkers and even the children themselves.
I know these things, and yet the weight is still there. I wonder about how sustainable it is for me to carry that weight. I need to learn how to do a better job of managing it.
I think part of what makes it feel so heavy at this point- my first year of working as an EA- is that I don’t always know how to learn from my mistakes. I am aware of what went wrong, but don’t know how to fix it. And the thing is, there often aren’t clear cut answers. Asking for advice from other, more experienced people is helpful, but at the end of the day, it comes down to being willing to do lot of experimenting to find out what works for a student.
The song “Beauty and the Beast” (from the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast) has become a favourite of mine in the past couple months. (I’m serious! Don’t sleep on how meaningful and wise some of those Disney songs become when you are exposed to them as an adult.) I connect with this song in particular, because I feel, as I move through my days, like I am both Beauty and the Beast, and the song gives me all kinds of hope that those two parts of me could learn to dance together in a way that keeps me learning and depending on grace, while celebrating resurrection and love.
“Tale as old as time
Tune as old as song
Bittersweet and strange
Finding you can change
Learning you were wrong
Certain as the sun
Rising in the east
Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the beast”
-Beauty and the Beast
Despite the many things that are difficult about this job, there are also many things that I like about it. I like the hours I work. I like that I don’t need to bring a lot of work home with me (aside from the emotional turmoil, of course). I like summer holidays, Christmas holidays, and March Break. I like that I get to hang out with kids and witness their craziness, creativity, and kindness. I like that I get to build deep relationships with my little people. I like that I get to help (or at least try to). I like being a part of a school community. I love having the privilege of being there when my high needs friends reveal their knowledge and skills- the long words they can spell and their printing skills and the way they can read and count.
What I’ve learned along the way
The learning just goes on and on.
One of the most transformative lessons I have learned is to find a better way. When things are feeling ugly, it’s time to redirect. Change my approach. Figure out whether this is a battle actually worth fighting. And if it is, find a smarter, more creative way than force to fight it.
Another lesson that I’m learning is to not take myself too seriously. The challenges that my little friends present me with are not new ones in the education world at all. My friend escapes from the classroom and is bulleting down the hallway away from me, giggling with glee the whole time? Perhaps, instead of taking it personally, I can smile to myself later about how that is the happiest I’ve ever seen that child. My friend knocks over an entire display of books in the library? Perhaps I can laugh later at how absolutely helpless I felt as I watched all those books topple over, domino-style. A student sprints away from school property in an attempt to avoid having to participate in track and field activities? Perhaps we EAs can laugh together later about the irony of running away from having to run a race. I’m learning to accept the freedom of knowing that these things that go wrong are often not my fault. Sometimes they are, but not always.
A third lesson is that being with my little students ushers heaven into my world. Their eyes, their giggles, their rich inner worlds, their languages, their ferocious love, even their anger and their pain… to have them offer these things generously to me feels like catching a close-up glimpse of God.
The final lesson I will share is this:
The people who are willing to step into the difficult situations that a child brings with them are the ones who also have the privilege of being there for the victories and the growth. In order to experience those highs with a child, you have to have been willing to enter into the lows. It’s hard to do be willing to do that- to enter in again and again. I’m still learning how to be courageous and generous in that way.
In conclusion
All I have left to say is that my index fingers hurt.
They hurt because I have tiny people in my life who instinctively and persistently reach up to hold them as we walk the school halls together. Well, I walk. They dance along beside me, each with their own unique steps and rhythm.
I don’t know what to do with this privilege and this burden.
I feel angry about how I’m stuck in this job that terrifies me because of how deeply I care about the children I work with.
But here I am.
For now.
I’ve been hit and kicked. I’ve dealt with the pee and the poop and the snot. More than once, I’ve helped chase after a student who is running away from the school. I’ve had kids scream at me. I’ve been called stupid. I’ve felt the complications of trying to work well with my co-workers. And so on and so forth…
I’ve had these scary things happen to me (for the first time, and the second time, and the third…), and I’ve grown a lot in the process of working through them.
The worst has already happened, and I think that the best is yet to come.
I catch glimpses of it every single day.
