The Other Side of the World

I am writing this while feeling exhausted after a long day’s work.

After almost two weeks at my new job as a teaching assistant I have found a doorway into a different world and it was within my own hometown. It is very bizarre and very intriguing- as though I have stepped out into a parallel reality where everything is the same... but not quite.

My town is affluent and middleclass- a place that seems to collect old-folks homes and where the old people that cannot live here come to visit... it is a place well known for its private college (not the place where I work) and an old fashioned tea shop. Although I have lived here, in a relatively small town, for my whole life and attended the school where I now work I was largely unaware of other people who, although living in the same area- geographically, have very different experiences of living here.

First of all, when applying for a job, I realised that I had never been in a classroom with a teaching assistant and had little idea of the kind of work they had to do to help pupils at the school. As most of the school’s lessons are divided by ability, by being in the top set you become separated from pupils who do not find academia as easy. Coming into this job I had little idea of how hard it is for someone to sit in a lesson and not have a clue of what a teacher is trying to tell them, to be unable to read or write easily or even simply not to have the attention span to sit still and remain relatively focused for the 50 minute duration of each lesson.

I suppose that I have lived in a little bubble for much of my life because I didn't appreciate that some people in the town are neither affluent nor middleclass or that there could be children being dragged up anyway they can be in difficult situations.

So aside from the academic differences unfortunately some children experience different backgrounds too. I believe it was said (from a training session on Monday about safeguarding) that approximately 10% of children in the school will be targets of some form of abuse. Again, this is something I cannot imagine- didn't even envisage in my picture-perfect view of my home town.

I suppose, what I am trying to say is that I've discovered that this job is not just about me helping some children to read and write but also about them helping me to understand a bit more about life- one without the luxury of rose-coloured spectacles.

Of course I appreciate that although I am trying to understand what it is like for them it is impossible for me to know just how difficult some of their lives are or what it really feels like to be in that sort of situation. However, a little dose of understanding goes a long way and I have become shocked at my own naivety. Part of me wishes I could take some of my own innocence and give it to some of those children. 11 years old is far too young to be forced to know just how difficult life can get.

So, although we might live within a mile of one another in many ways I could be living on the other side of the world as the similarities between me and some of these children stop at the name of our shared hometown.