Name of your host: Leena
Relationship with you: Mother
Interview with Host
What is your job title: Education Assistant
What is your job description: EA works with teachers to support students with diverse learning challenges and special needs.
What duties and or tasks to you perform at your job: Supervision, class preparation, behavioral monitoring, helping children who need support to complete tasks.
What qualifications do you need for this job?
a) training: 1 year special education assistant diplomat
b) education: college
c) experience: 8 weeks of practicum in a school setting
d) skills and attributes (personality attributes): responsibility, communication abilities, patience and creativity
What are some things you like about your job: Seeing special needs students achieve like any other typical student.
What are some things you dislike about your job: Some students can be violent, we can get physically hurt.
How do you anticipate this job changing in the next 5 years: I think everyone will have their own tablets and there will be more advance technology to help the kids.
Student Reflection
Give three reasons why you would like this job:
a) You know that you are making a difference and helping students.
b) It’s not a job that can get boring something new is happening all the time. You are always moving and it is very interactive.
c) It’s interesting to work kids who have special needs and you learn new things everyday. By working with them you are put in a whole new perspective.
Give three reasons why you would not like this job:
a) It can get really stressful because the child is you responsibility and people are putting their trust on you to make sure that they are get the proper education and necessities.
b) It can be physically tiring because you have to physically help them, make sure they are behaving. Sometimes they might run away.
c) Sometimes it may be hard to see where the kids are coming from because they have a different point of view and it will be hard to understand them.
Is this job for you. Why or why not: This job is not for me because I am not a people’s person and I don’t have good communication and social skills. I think I would work better in a environment that has a stable routine. Not only am I not very talkative, I’m not very good with kids.
Explain the value of the TOKTW experience in relation to your ideas about your post secondary (after high school) plans (education?, training?, travel?, work?):
I think that it helped me with realizing my strengths and weaknesses and what I enjoy and what I don’t. The experience helped me realize I`m not the most comfortable in this field, with teaching and kids. It got me a step further to finding my future career.
