Illustration Essay

Callie Faber
English 101
Balaskovits
September 20, 2014
A Walk in the World with Children My grandmother always said, “Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.” I never knew where that quote came from, or why she said that to me until I began working with children. Working with children is the best job experience anyone can have, especially if you are obsessed with younger children. Children have always brought a sense of joy, imagination and responsibility into my life. Being with children removes my worries from the real world around me and puts me into a world of imagination. Working with a group of kindergarteners, has given me the best job experience each day I come back to work. My younger brother was just starting elementary school when I took an interest upon receiving a job working with children. It was when he began attending the Extended Day Program at Brook Glenn Elementary when I really saw my chance, although at the time I was too young. As a freshmen in high school, I volunteered at this program to see what working with children was like. Immediately, I was amazed by all of the children and each of them with very diverse backgrounds. A year after volunteering, the director of the program offered me a job and I did not think twice about accepting it. My job literally consisted of helping kindergarten through first grade with homework and the rest of the time was spent playing with the children and doing different activities. After two years of working in the program, it was around my junior year in high school when we decided to split all of the children into smaller groups for homework. My boss decided she would split them by grade, and I was excited to be assigned kindergarten. I had around 7 different students. There was Luke, Brayden, and Kenzie who I later called my “troublesome three.” The three of them were a little love triangle, Luke and Brayden had the biggest crush on Kenzie, in return she only liked Luke. I was sad for Brayden but Kenzie never excluded him from any of the trouble they got into. Camila was in K4, but in the program she was the only 4 year old. Camila was always attached to me at the hip, on my back, or in my arms. Whenever we would watch movies or she would sit on my lap outside, she would fall asleep. Although as an employee, we weren’t supposed to let the children sleep. When you are 4 years old and you are at the after school program for 4 hours, in addition to 8 hours of school, 12 hours is typically a really long day without sleep. There were many days where we made an acceptation to her. Camila also spoke very little English, luckily I took 3 years of Spanish in high school so communicating with a Latino child was not extremely difficult. Tytus, Tobias, and Liberty were triplets! They are the only triplets I have ever encountered, and they left their mark on my heart forever. Tobias had the biggest crush on me and would write me love letters, and draw me pictures all of the time. Whenever Tytus and Liberty would draw me pictures, he became so jealous. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen. The kindergartners and I had a very strict routine at the beginning of our day. As soon as school was dismissed, they reported to the Cafeteria. Cafeteria was where we ate snack and dispersed into smaller groups, by grade, in order to complete homework. My kindergarteners came in, grabbed their snack, and sat down. The problem I had with kindergarten very early on, was that they never wanted to sit down and be still, or use their inside voices. I remember one day, they pretended to sit quietly and eat their snacks, but as I walked away I heard their voices from across the cafeteria. I turned around for one second, and Luke and Brayden were already dancing on the table. My boss and I found this very amusing, so of course, they continued. I remember as I walked toward them they jumped down and sat in their seat quietly for the second time and just

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