We're Only Human

My first day of Jumpstart session at Sunshine was a pretty memorable one. I spent the night before prepping my book, packing my writing center supplies, and getting psyched about the next morning. And the next morning, I woke up around 10:30 am with maybe 7 or 8 missed phone calls from my teammates. I slept through my first day, and not only was it disappointing, but it was humiliating. I didn’t feel like I let down the kids, though. I felt like I let down my teammates, who are more than capable enough to work around my mistakes and still give our kids a meaningful session.

Like everyone in Jumpstart, I signed on because I was excited to spend time with cute little kids. And I got what I wanted, the most adorable little kids I’ve ever seen who hug me and listen to what I have to say and make my 9:30 am the farthest thing from miserable. What I wasn’t expecting was an opportunity to share this experience with my peers, my teammates. The Jumpstart team is a really special experience I think, and my team (like many others I’m sure) has had a few unexpected opportunities to figure out ways to adapt with inconveniences.

I had never heard of any of the people on my team before we got assigned to each other, and of course there was no way of knowing how compatible we would be. And maybe we’re not always perfectly in-tune, but we all have the same goal going into the classroom: to make the Jumpstart experience the best we can for our kids. We help each other, and we all bring different strengths to the experience, and we each know that we aren’t ever alone in Jumpstart. Having the opportunity to collaborate and to hear everyone’s different perspectives makes each of us better at what we’re doing.

So when I slept through that first day of Jumpstart, my team survived and made it back in one piece to forgive me (at least I think they did). Since then we’ve had other challenges, and we’re still kicking. Hopefully my terrible sleeping habits in some way set the foundation for continued resilience and flexibility. After all, we’re only human, and these kids aren’t going to remember our individual mistakes, they’re going to remember our red Jumpstart shirts.

~Kathryn Gillon

Corps member

Team Learning 2