By Cassie Gay
I must love being an aide at Ohlone because I have been one here for over thirty years! As I pondered what to include in this piece, I realized that the experience of each aide who works here is unique, just as each teacher's classroom has its own flavor and tone. The one quality I think that all the best aides share is their ability to focus on serving the needs of the teacher and the students in the classroom as opposed to meeting their own agendas. I have gone into the classroom each day asking myself "What interesting event is happening right now? What can I do to enhance this teaching moment? Who needs help? Does the teacher need assistance with materials preparation or instruction of one particular group? Does each of the students understand the material presented, or might a little one on one time help point him or her in the right direction? I try to make a point of touching base with the teacher briefly so that I can be on the right track and use the short amount of time I have in the classroom most efficiently.
Maybe if I share a little about some of the many things I have done as an aide it will begin to give you a picture of the history of our jobs. My first day as an aide in Jeannette Wei's class of 6 and 7 year olds was also my first child's first day of kindergarten. After the kindergarten teacher untangled my son's fingers from my hair and pried me from his death grip, I proceeded to Room 4 at the original site of the school on Charleston Road. Jim Mathiott, the principal who was part of the team that created Ohlone, had hired me to work with Jeannette at the last minute, as her aide had to leave unexpectedly. Jeannette and I met for the first time that day and worked together in a great partnership for 15 years. She had just come back from China and I soon realized I had the honor of working with an exceptional person. She had also been in the group of original Ohlone teachers and she bought much more to the table. She was working on a counseling degree in San Francisco, had studied working with gifted children, was skilled in the art of Chi Gong and could play the piano. I knew that I could learn so much as an aide and as a parent.
When I first started working, the class size was larger and we sometimes had over 30 students in a room. Trying to make the split grades work with so many children was difficult. One of the strategies Jeannette used was to have me instruct some of the class in art in one part of the room while she taught in another. I was studying art at the time and I found it very interesting to develop art lessons that all the kids could accomplish successfully. I used the resources of the Art Education Department which had creative training sessions and additional materials to borrow.
I worked four mornings a week at that time, whereas now I am limited to less than 5 hours a week. I want to emphasize, however, that as a parent and as teacher (because, let's face it both parents and aides do help teach at Ohlone) class size reduction was the single most valuable educational reform in the recent past, even though I regretted that it meant that my job hours were reduced. It is very clear to me that classes of 20 to 22 prevent kids from "falling through the cracks" and also helps prevent teacher burn out, among many other benefits.
There were other reasons for our work time to be curtailed. There have been 2 recessions since I started. At first, my salary was paid by Site Improvement funding, then by the PTA. After the PTA realized that paying for instruction was not in their mandate, there may have been some school wide fundraising for aides and when individual school fundraising was changed to district-wide fundraising in an attempt to be more fair I think the Foundation for Education was the means by which we were paid. As you can see by all the attempts to fund our positions, Ohlone has always felt that aides were a very important part of its program. I remember Jim Mathiott telling me he shared that view, and I have often heard the teachers say that, in a two grade instructional model such as ours, aides are an invaluable asset.
My job at that site lasted for one year, then the school district, in a short-sighted attempt to save money, decided to sell off what it considered superfluous school sites. This resulted in one of the most ill-considered and divisive educational battles this district and city have ever seen. Committee meetings to chose the sites to be closed met til midnight many nights. Children didn't see their parents for weeks on end. Neighbor refused to talk to neighbor and the two alternative schools were caught in the middle as we often are when money becomes tight and people see us as a threat to their neighborhood schools. Our stellar parent volunteers and staff weathered this storm as they have so many, and the upshot was that we had to move (so we could "share the pain" of the closures). There was really no good reason for the move, but we did as we were told, packing up our whole school, including the play structure, and moving to our current beautiful site. We still had our beloved school, and that was what mattered the most.
After Jeanette retired, I went on to work with Monica Lynch when she started to work at Ohlone in Room 10, a classroom of 7 and 8 year olds. It was an interesting pairing, as Monica and Jeanette were both originally from Shanghai, China. It turned out to be another great team, and I worked hard to help her get acclimated to her new position. I'll never forget walking into her room and seeing nothing but chairs and desks! As a new teacher, she hadn't yet acquired the wealth of teaching materials she now has. It was a new situation for me as well. I had loved working with 6 and 7 year olds, helping them learn how to read, write and figure out all the different ways to make 10 (i.e. 4+ 6), watching as their worlds grew bigger and bigger. To my surprise, I loved working with the slightly older group just as much! They already could read and write quite a bit and were ready to take on new challenges and explore new worlds. Monica is an amazing teacher, with the ability to instantly connect with the children in such a way that they are inspired to do their best. She has an enormous amount of respect and trust in their abilities, and, consequently, they continually surpass expectations. Again, I was learning. We have also put on a musical each year, as we did in Jeannette's room, and my art background came in handy as we invented costumes and sets with little money but a lot of ingenuity. Due to my reduced hours, Monica used me for enrichment activities as well as art instruction. We continue to work together and each year brings something new. When I first started working here, for example, I never would have imagined we would have a language immersion program, yet we do now!
So, I guess I would have to say that I'm not ready to move on from Ohlone, though I have considered it from time to time. After all, how long should a person stay in third grade, really?I suppose that the answer is, as long as she is still learning something new each day. That, and the answer to 7 x 8. I never can seem to remember that one.
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