I'm glad to hear you want to help!

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Home : 2002 : March : 2

I'm glad to hear you want to help!
By Carolyn

I am glad that you really want to help kids, not just the teacher. What I would seriously look into is your distict's or school's policy about your job duties. I worked with an assistant in my classroom one year, and all
the assistant WANTED to do was correct papers. I saw things differently, so I spoke up with both him and the principal. I wanted him to circulate and help the kids with math and reading. I didn't want him to just sit there and grade papers while there were kids who were below grade level just sitting there and struggling.
If you speak with your principal about this, she/he may very

well tell you that you need to be working with kids, not as the teacher's slave. You should be there to serve kids. I sympathize with her need to have you correct papers, but this is her responsibility, too. Consider that all of us have to take college classes for recertification, but we still manage to get our schoolwork done. I took a computer class AND still managed to get everything else done. I think this teacher is taking advantage of you.

Most principals I have known want assistants to help the kids. They may take a small group of kids aside to help individualize instruction within the classroom. This is what our assistants do. As far as I am concerned, an assistant's time is just too valuable to be sitting at a desk correcting papers.