I joined ASSAI (After School Sports and Art Initiative) after finishing the first semester of the education program in December. I had finished up with my last days of practicum and thought that those moments of being in the classroom were the most educational and influential moments I have had since joining the program and I didn’t want to wait until April before I got to be back in the classroom. I was also nervous that all the improvements I had made in being able to effectively communicate ideas to students and being comfortable at the front of a classroom would diminish in the time between practicums. So when I got offered the chance to assist in an art program after school, I jumped at the opportunity. It is usually only a once-a-week opportunity for me, but it is with the same students every week, so I did get the chance to do some relationship building which is vital to teaching. It also tends to focus on children who wouldn’t regularly get the opportunities to join after-school programs, whether that be for financial or circumstantial reasons, so there tend to be a lot of students with behavioural difficulties.
My job is titled PoR (person of rapport) so I spend most of my time building bonds with the students and it is awesome to see how much easier it is to get a classroom to listen and behave when you have spent time to make those connections and build the trust and understand what the students need to be more effective in their work time. Sometimes that could mean we go outside and they play on the playground for a bit, or it could mean they need to walk around the room, or spend some time sharing their ideas or projects with me or the rest of the class.