#thats an important and un-ignorable responsibility of mine

[mosrael]

Like...I’m frustrated in my job, like really extremely frustrated, but I love the kids I work with, I love the people on my team at my site, and I love the families that we work so hard for.  These people make such a frustrating job really worthwhile...Working with kids is batshit bananas every single day, but somehow, despite all the weirdness, kid drama, and absolute inability to spell or multiply, they really grow on you...

Like, getting little notes from them and listening to their weird little stories...they feel like small things but the fact that they trust and like me enough to want to share those things with me is really heartwarming.

OK GUYS,  WARNING THIS IS A REALLY LONG POST  I AM SO SORRY - I HAD WAY MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS THAN I THOUGHT I DID, PHEW...

Yesterday I was at a doctors appointment for the first part of program so my boss covered for me till I got back and she could leave. When I got back, I just barely peeped my head in the door they LITERALLY screamed and ran and mobbed me at the door and nearly knocked me over trying to give me hugs and to tell me whatever crazy stories they had of things that had happened in the WHOLE two hours that I was gone, hahaha!  And yes, it was chaotic, but it was just so sweet and heartwarming, I just....these students are my kIDS, MAN, MY KIDS. They did the same thing today when I left for like 20 minutes to go get more icing for their gingerbread houses and it just blows my mind every single time. This one little girl who ALWAYS has an attitude told me she’d miss me over break like five or six times before she left today, and gave me a bunch of hugs and kept waving as she walked out the door, and there are kids that do that every day, but this time with her, it was just kind of...a strange moment? because i could tell how much she was growing as a person, becoming more positive and confident and open and slower to catch an attitude like she was forever doing when i first started. I get the same warm fuzzies when they come to program all excited and out of breath waving around a crumply piece of paper that turns out to be a quiz or a test that they did so well on that they ad to RUN to program to show me. It’s nice to see them succeed, and be happy and proud of themselves, it’s just a really promising thing to see, and I can’t exactly explain it. Over the summer the kids who walked from a bus stop to program would bring me flowers (pretty sure they “found” them in someone’s garden so I had to shut that down hella fast but STILL). They tell new poop jokes literally every day like it’s the best shit on the planet (see what I did there HAH). I guess it’s refreshing that kids can be so...upfront and weird and honest... its endearing! lol they’re the weirdest little gremlins, but hey we’re a team of gremlins and i’m the gremlin queen so i guess i’m gonna lead these gremlin troops to their glory if it is the last thing i do lol.

I mean, there are just so many examples I could give and I have only worked here for a couple years....I can’t even imagine the weird, ridiculous, great and awful things that teachers that have been in the line of work for DECADES have seen. Jfc...

Like, interacting with kids so much though, and spending more time in the teacher role rather than a student role in a school environment, I really find myself wondering what is the norm, or even if there is one. Sucks that I can really only speak to my own experience and that’s all I can go by, especially because even my own memories of my own experiences aren’t entirely reliable. I definitely know that I don’t remember being like these kids are when I was a kid? Affectionate with teachers, or attached to them, I mean, specifically, because of course there’s a ton of similarity I can see in them compared to the way I was coming up, in some things here and there. But I’d never go out of my way to hang around a teacher, or to like...draw them a picture or write them a letter, or tell them a joke or ask to sit next to them on the bus rides to field trips and stuff. That’s where the greatest difference is, at least comparing to my own experience in school. I had a couple teachers that sort of inspired me, but I didn’t have casual conversations with them, and I didn’t like...want them to play tag or four square or anything with my friends and I, and I didn’t try and show them funny jokes or tell them what was going on in my little weird kid life. But the kids I work with do all those things. I know that there are probably loads of reasons why this is the case, and that it’s unrealistic for me to try and pinpoint what causes that kind of difference, especially since when it comes down to it all these kids are individuals and can’t be expected to behave like I did, or like my friends did at their age, because every individual’s experience is just that...individual. But I find myself wondering at the reasons why they are the way they are regardless. Maybe it’s different because really, I’m not a teacher, since this is a nonprofit after school program, no matter how closely integrated we are with the area schools. I guess in a way, that makes it easier to connect with families in a more personal way, but still...I know that’s probably a piece of it, but it isn’t the reason. I can’t imagine an entire group of 8 year olds would base their behaviors towards someone they consider a teacher on what exactly the status of the program is, especially when they have slime to make and fidget spinners and beyblades to trade and break and lose and argue about. There have got to be a lot of reasons, and no matter how much I know in my head that it’s unrealistic of me to try and pin down all the exact reasons, and that there’s really no point or value to trying to track them down, I still find myself heading down this train of thought pretty frequently. Not as frequently as I think about how shitty Ella from Ella Enchanted’s life would be if she lived in our society, but still pretty frequently nonetheless. I mean, some of these kids are like “Bye Gabby love you!” when they leave, even if I scolded them earlier that same day and dealt with the subsequent attitude that scolding a kid inevitably gets you sometimes. They’re always giving me hugs and trying to sit in my office with me and to organize my office (but NEVER the library or their own cubbies, that would be TOO MUCH TO ASK) or asking to try what I’m eating, or how my sister and her chinchilla are doing, or trying to make me try some food or other they brought me, or trying to force feed me broccoli because they know I hate it and they think that’s HILARIOUS, or telling me that we HAVE to get the class fish a gift for christmas and that his last name is the same as my last name and ew I’m married to the class fish and the list just goes on and on and on....Their candor extends to their families too, truthfully. The families for the most part are really warm and welcoming and kind, too...The parents bring me meals sometimes and even invite me and the team at my site to their get togethers...

I guess it just really surprises me how welcoming and open the people and kids I work with are. i don’t remember where i was going with this. I have been really irritated with my job lately, to the point where I’m really very seriously considering packing up and moving away to try something new elsewhere. It’s just....working with the kids and the great people on my team at my site really mean a lot to me, and I don’t want to leave them behind like that because we’re a team and the kids and families are a part of that...I don’t know. I’m just really torn. It’s absolutely no doubt that my job is fun sometimes, I mean, literally every day I’m positive that I hear at least one sentence from a kid or a coworker that is so strange that I’m POSITIVE I will never hear it again in my life. And in what other line of work could I experience the excitement and terror of organizing and attending an ice skating field trip with 80 8 - 12 year olds, and hoping and praying that no one gets a finger chopped off by a wayward skate on a kids foot? Where else would I be able to experience falling hard on my butt on the ice and having a bunch of kids try and help you get up just to slip and fall themselves while also trying to stop you laughing co-teachers from taking photos of the admittedly hilarious scenario? Is there another line of work where it’s an entirely reasonable occurance to turn around and see a pair of little kid legs sticking out from beneath your desk, telling him to come out from under there, and having him tell you he can’t because it’s his cucaracha cave and he’s just a cucaracha living in his cucaracha house? It’s really bananas, the whole thing is exhausting and exhilarating and fun and messy and frustrating and annoying but lovable and worthwhile, and I just have to remember all that when all the long hours, frustrating pay, and other awful things that dredge up all my anxieties and fears and concerns happen. It’s literally just like...a rollercoaster of terror. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time, it’s great and it’s also literally killing me, sometimes moreso than others. It’s fun and the kids and families are sweet and my team and site are fabulous and the work we’re doing is always undoubtedly worthwhile, so for now at least, that’s enough to keep me invested for now, I guess. The people who make it worthwhile really do a great job at making it that way. I appreciate them a lot, honestly. My team does so much and I appreciate them like crazy, and my desire to make sure that I’m helping them as much as they help me outweighs my desire to branch out wholeheartedly to find something better because that would mean more work for them and they don’t deserve that, because they’ve been nothing but great. the kids don’t deserve that either, they’ve already had a lot of teachers and coordinators come and go every single year and they’ll feel abandoned and hurt, and that seeps into the families and breeds just...some really bad feelings that the kids don’t deserve and I don’t want to do anything that would cause any of them to even begin to wonder if it’s something that they did that made me leave, or if it’s something about them that makes people come and go so frequently, because that’s absolutely false. i don’t want to risk anything that would jeopardize all the hard work that the kids and the whole team has put into building their confidence in themselves along with their academics. And besides, I’d miss my team and I’d definitely miss the kids....

I don’t really know why I started going into all this, but I’m slowly getting the impression that I’m maybe trying to give myself some pros and cons so that I can have something to reference when I inevitably have to make a real decision about where I’m going to take this whole career thing. I didn’t plan to be where I am now, but now that I’m here, I’m invested and I really do need to think carefully about any moves I make since it’s impossible to ignore the fact that it’ll affect a lot of people, and people I care about and am actively working to build up at that. I think I just...needed to have all of this out in some kind of haphazard organized form and out of my cloudy excuse for a brain where all these things were just kind of frantically flailing around in little half-thoughts. and now I can’t find the read more button thing so it’s just gonna be this long annoying text post on your dash  UPDATE: I FOUND THE READ MORE THING! phew, one problem solved at least! That’s the first time I have ever solved a problem, I think--anyways, i honestly would not fault someone for totally ignoring because WOW this got real long real fast...

if you did read this, thanks. C: it feels good to know that someone out there knows what I’m worrying about and is maybe expending a little bit of energy just thinking about the same thing I’m thinking about. just the possibility of that sort of makes me feel a little bit less alone in this situation. let me know what you think if you feel so inclined! I’ve gotta make a decision here and I know that I don’t really have time to just fool around and pretend that this doesn’t exist...I can’t afford to fuck around and be careless here when there are people I honestly care about (I KNOW! I hate admitting that I CARE about people. gross lol) involved. ugh. balance, what even is that? sounds like fake news, i don’t believe it exists.

uh....anyway, i guess this is the end. i’m sitting here typing away like i don’t have to be an adult and get my car inspected before taking a 3 hour road trip tomorrow. i should be responsible and go to sleep but whatever i’ve done enough responsible things for the day so getting to bed in a timely manner can wait for another day. baby steps, fam, baby steps

#besides im not done shitposting for the evening so i can't go to bed yet #thats an important and un-ignorable responsibility of mine #possibly my very top priority #at least i figured out the read more thing #damn it really has been awhile since i used that