In May, I graduated from Ball State with a creative writing degree and this plan in mind:\u00a0 I\u2019d take a year off from school to work, then start grad school to work toward an MFA in creative writing, specifically poetry.\u00a0 Bam.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019d just have to find a job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And finding a job, any job, happened quickly enough \u2013 I got hired at The Gap, that quintessential place of employment for fresh-out-of-the-oven liberal arts graduates in a bad job market \u2013 but minimal scheduled part-time hours plus the occasional \u201ccan you cover my Sat. shift? seein Britney in concert. thx\u201d text weren\u2019t gonna cut it past summer.\u00a0 Thankfully, through a connection I got hired as a migrant school aide for Alexandria-Monroe High School to work with kids from seventh through twelfth grade, concentrating on the junior high kids.<\/p>\n
So you\u2019re probably wondering a couple things, such as:\u00a0 what do you mean by \u201cmigrant school?\u201d\u00a0 And what is it that you actually do?<\/em><\/p>\n First, to explain migrant school:\u00a0 a Red Gold tomato processing plant located in Orestes, Indiana and G&G Peppers in Gaston, Indiana provide a lot of seasonal factory and harvesting jobs, respectively, for migrant workers that come here for parts of summer and fall from Texas and Florida.\u00a0 For workers with children, Alexandria\u2019s migrant school program \u2013 the largest in the state of Indiana \u2013 provides a way for those kids to go to school while not living in their home states, with extra supplemental resources and credit accrual opportunities to help them not fall behind in school, which migrant students often struggle with due to the mid-year move back to their home states around late October.<\/p>\n And what do I do?\u00a0 I\u2019m one of those \u201csupplemental resources\u201d I mentioned.\u00a0 I work with a certified teacher in a migrant homeroom of sorts, a place where the seventh through twelfth graders can come during scheduled periods to get help on homework and work on modules for credit.\u00a0 In the day-to-day, for me that means helping my 11th<\/sup> an 12th<\/sup> graders with pre-calculus a lot<\/em>, because hey, it isn\u2019t easy \u2013 for them or my English major brain relearning math I haven\u2019t done since I was picking out prom dresses.\u00a0 And explaining to a couple of my eighth grade girls wanting help with biology, with giddiness for the subject that made them laugh nearly to tears, why science is not a static collection of facts.\u00a0 And being asked by one of my sweet, quiet freshman girls to read her short memoir and make sure she had all the necessary parts of Freytag\u2019s triangle, finding out she likes poetry, lending her Mary Oliver\u2019s New and Selected Poems<\/em>, and generally having my lit nerd heart burst forth with puppies and rainbow-winged butterflies.<\/p>\n Working as a migrant aide is hands down the most rewarding job I\u2019ve had; I get to help kids learn, and I get to know the kids \u2013 clever, rambunctious, thoughtful, rowdy, hilarious kids that make a typical seven-hour school day seem much shorter.\u00a0 Even on days when they seem intent on graying my hair before my twenty-fifth birthday, there\u2019s always one who asks how I am or cracks a good joke or tells me they like my hair, something that reminds me why I\u2019m happy spending a good chunk of my day in their presence.<\/p>\n One reason I want to earn an MFA is to eventually teach creative writing at the university level \u2013 in no small part because I\u2019ve been so supported and encouraged as a writer and person by the creative writing faculty at Ball State \u2013 and knowing that I so enjoy helping kids learn in a classroom situation period, let alone a subject about which I\u2019m passionate, is reaffirming.\u00a0 I know for someone like me who wants to teach, any classroom experience is valuable \u2013 and I feel grateful to get this experience with the students I have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In May, I graduated from Ball State with a creative writing degree and this plan in mind:\u00a0 I\u2019d take a year off from school to work, then start grad school to work toward an MFA in creative writing, specifically poetry.\u00a0 Bam. Now I\u2019d just have to find a job.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":17209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1973],"tags":[158,904],"class_list":["post-1412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardinal-directions","tag-ball-state-english-department","tag-layne-ransom-migrant-school-aide-creative-writing"],"yoast_head":"\n