Jarman 1

Rodes Jarman

Shiela Fielding

Writing 103

January 26, 2018

In the Gym

I walked into the office with a bad feeling in my stomach and worry on my mind. I

was to meet with the head of school to decide on what class I was going to take as an elective

for my last year of high school. The rest of my academic schedule was already set and it

seemed like my senior year was going to be the most difficult one yet. Knowing this, I was

hoping I could find a class that I would actually enjoy and find engaging. After ten minutes of

discussing course options with the head of school, my sense of hope for an interesting class

had almost completely disappeared. I asked if there were any alternate options and the head of

school mentioned that there was an opening for an internship as a teacher assistant for a 5​th

grade P.E. Class. An internship is where someone works with an organization to develop skills

in a professional setting without being a full-time employee (Burton). This immediately grabbed

my attention as something that would be a positive and rewarding experience. After the

meeting, I headed straight to my college advisor to see if this would be the right choice from a

college application perspective. She loved the idea as it would look great for potential colleges

and suggested that I take the opportunity. Seeing that it could be a unique chance to learn and

work with many different people, I decided to commit to the internship. I didn’t know it then, but

this internship would define myself as a leader in my school and teach me leadership skills that I

would use through all aspects of my life.

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As the beginning of my senior year approached, I began to have some doubts about whether I

chose the right internship. Feeling stressed, I reached out to my school athletic director, who

also happened to be my longtime lacrosse coach and a person I considered a father figure. We

sat down and I voiced my concerns about whether the internship would be the right fit for my

schedule and ability as a leader. He told me that although this would be something new for me

in a school setting, it was nothing I hadn’t done before, and he was right. The last three

summers I worked at a summer camp for children from kindergarten through eighth grade.

There, I operated as a teachers assistant for multiple arts and crafts classes with children

around the age of fifth grade, the same age as the students I would be working with during the

internship. More importantly, I also worked as a counselor for the basketball program at the

summer camp where I assisted children in learning and developing their basketball skills.

Talking to my athletic director not only made me feel confident in my ability to go through with

the internship, but it actually made me excited for the challenge.

My energy for the class lasted from the end of that meeting until about ten minutes after I

arrived for the first class of the internship. The class began with free play for the entire fifth

grade, which consisted of twenty five kids who had been stuck in school all day and were fully

charged with energy. The gym was taken over by balls flying this way and that, multiple games

being played in the same space, and of course, the overwhelmingly loud voices and screams of

kids having the best time of their day. The gym was a stage of fifth grade anarchy, and the

teacher, Avis, realized this. She quickly rounded the class, sat everyone down, and began

sharing her expectations for each of the students. Looking back, Avis may have taught me more

than the class itself.

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Throughout the year, I learned one vital life lesson from her which was finding a balance. Avis

showed me this concept through the way she enforced her authority over the students. She

began every class with ten minutes of free play where the kids could play and do what they

wanted, within reason, while she met with the athletic director. During this time I would be

responsible for overseeing the students, and if anything came up, I would handle the problem. I

found free play to be my favorite part of class for multiple reasons. First of all, it gave me a

chance to practice and improve at being a responsible leader, which was exactly what the

internship was supposed to be for me. Also, the kids were generally happy because they were

able to play what they wanted instead of doing a set activity for the entire class. And finally, it

allowed me to interact with the students and get to know them on a personal level, something

that many great leaders constantly practice. During the following months, free play became the

time where I was able to start making my mark on the class as not only a leader, but a friend

that they could look up to and communicate with.

One of the greatest challenges of leading a class was making sure that everyone was involved.

Leadership, by definition, is moving followers toward reaching a common goal (Sills). This

becomes difficult when certain followers, or fifth graders, are not cooperative or not expressing

the right attitude that is needed of them. Each class after freeplay we would focus on a sport for

the rest of the time we had. As the sport would change everyday, conflicts would arise from

students who didn’t want to participate. Being a leader in the class, I had to figure out how to

make a sport enjoyable to kids who had no interest in it. Through trial and error, I found ways to

encourage the students, such as putting them on the team with their close friends or talk to

them about why they were having a bad day and didn’t want to play. I found communication to

be essential for the class to operate at its best.

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However, not everything could be solved easily. Sometimes kids attitudes would not budge

which required me to use authority to move past the conflict. Through the first couple months I

struggled with this aspect of leadership. Fortunately for me, Avis was a great example of how to

use authority correctly and I quickly picked up on the skill. There were multiple instances when I

had to send a student out of the gym to sit down and talk to them about whatever the issue was,

something that I would have never been comfortable doing if it hadn’t been for the process of

the internship. Besides authority, another skill I developed was patience. Some games, such as

basketball, would be a bit difficult for certain students which would make it hard to have a

smooth game. This was frustrating initially, but over time I learned to be patient and work a bit

extra with these students so that they could play and enjoy the game. Learning patience turned

classes that would be “bad days” into classes that I saw as an opportunity.

Looking back, this internship changed my view on the world. I started to see obstacles and

setbacks as chances to work through a process and truly achieve a goal. I was even able to

take what I learned from being a leader in the class and applied it to my personal life, such as

being captain of the basketball team and dealing with conflicts between teammates. Developing

patience also benefited me when doing anything tedious relating to schoolwork. I was able to

look at something that had to be done and view it as a process rather than an uphill battle. All

doubts I had at the beginning of the internship slowly disappeared as I learned from my

experience everyday. This internship defined myself as a leader in my school and taught me

leadership skills that I use through all aspects of my life.

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During free play every class I would tend to play basketball with a certain group of boys. They

liked playing against me because I was older and they saw it as a challenge. We had so much

fun that this time would often be the highlight of my day. I’m palming the ball in this selfie

because I often used my height against them and kept the ball just out of reach. I would always

let them win, but I never made it easy for them.

From ​Gale Reference​:

“Internships.” ​Encyclopedia of Small Business​, edited by Virgil L. Burton, III, 5th ed., vol. 1,

Gale, 2017, p.p. 611-613. ​Gale Virtual Reference Library,

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http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX6062700320/GVRL?u=viva_jmu&sid=GVRL&xid=d53a6e

43​. Accessed 19 Jan. 2018.

“Leadership.” ​International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences​, edited by David L. Sills, vol. 9,

Macmillan, 1968, p.p. 91-113. ​Gale Virtual Reference Library​,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3045000695/GVRL?u=viva_jmu&sid=GVRL&xid=d0dce3

6f​. Accessed 19 Jan. 2018.