First Time Being a TA in an All-English Kids Camp…
It was the moment I saw “$1940/day” that I signed up for the job immediately. After going through an interview and a 2-day TA training, I was finally qualified as an official TA of an all-English camp for elementary school students from July 31th to August 10th. It was a big challenge for me since I had zero interest in teaching and had never done any jobs alike before. Not even two days into the camp, I totally realized why the daily wage was this high. The TAs not only had to assist the foreign teachers while they were teaching, but also were asked to do all other random tasks such as cleaning, taking 200 photos a day, making props, and learning dances and chants to teach the kids.
I was assigned to lead the youngest class there (their age are mostly 6-7). They are MONSTERS.
(me with Nate, Anson, and Susie)
cute but still monsters
The toughest task was taking photos since the requirements were: Non-blurry, 200 photos at least, each kid’s full face should be included, both individual and group photos were necessary. Photography itself is fun for sure, but having so many standards while doing all the chores in class is insanely difficult, especially for me, who is not good at multitasking at all. Besides, the actual working hours were from 7:30 am to 7:00 pm, with no break time at all. During class time, playtime, lunch break, after school time, etc., none of the time periods above could I rest for more than 30 seconds. I know kids are a handful and need to be supervised all the time, but I was even told to keep walking around the classroom to check on every student non-stop while having my lunch.
Maybe it’s because I couldn’t handle stress well or I wasn’t familiar with this working pattern, but here’s what really got me: the situation that I got picked on by the camp director only got worse day by day. I thought I was being too sensitive when I first noticed she had a double standard for me compared to other TAs; for example, yelling at me for something that other TAs did too (but they didn’t get scolded). However, one day during the breaktime, a foreign teacher came to me and told me he had spotted that the camp director was treating me differently in a passive aggressive way. He then comforted me by saying he knew I was trying my best. I started sobbing uncontrollably after he left, also turning my face to the wall so that the kids wouldn’t see. There were countless times that I felt like I was going to have a mental breakdown because of the camp director’s harsh words and behavior towards me.
*me crying in class while hoping the kids didn't see
(this is me and Susie)
Despite all the difficulty, there was still some fun though. I never realized how kids could bring so much happiness until I spent time with 24 kids for 10 days. The best thing about kids is their genuineness. Sometimes my doom and gloom just got swept away when I was with them.
My favorite kid in the class is Susie. I love the way she always tried so hard to use simple words to talk in English (no one is allowed to speak Chinese in the camp). She likes chatting with me a lot, particularly explaining each of her drawings to me in detail. She's just so precious and cute.
This TA experience is indeed a big part of my 2023 summer vacation memories. There were so many times that I thought about quitting for sure, but there were also moments that I laughed out loud and had so much fun. Long story short, I survived.