Describing an extracurricular activity?

Pre-College Issues Home Schooling and College
1

<p>I need some help in how to describe my daughter's new extracurricular activity.</p>

<p>A little background is in order first!</p>

<p>My daughter has had her heart set on a career in Biology (and possibly even pre-med) for as long as I can remember, but now is planning on a full circle change.</p>

<p>Our youngest daughter - age 4 - has autism and is in an early childhood special education classroom at our local public school. Her teacher makes home visits every two weeks and is <em>so</em> impressed with how well our oldest daughter works with our autistic 4 year old that she's asked her to come into the classroom, on a daily basis, and work with not only her little sister, but with the other students in classroom. It would be, basically, a full-time, yet volunteer, job.</p>

<p>She'd be working with the children with language skills, social skills, play skills, etc. as well as helping to use the PECS (picture language) program and doing a whole host of other activities.</p>

<p>My daughter is over the moon at the opportunity and now wants to major in special education and I think that this job is <em>quite</em> an honor, considering the fact that my daughter is 14! (She'll be 15 next month).</p>

<p>But I'm not sure how to word the job. Does 'classroom aide' describe it appropriately? Or should I use 'teaching assistant'? How in-depth should I be with the description?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

<p>Kelly</p>

2

<p>If you're talking about describing this position in your daughter's transcript or portfolio, don't get too hung up on the wording at this point. You can always adjust your language down the road. The important thing is to keep a good record of things like how much time she spends at it, what skills she develops, what resources she uses, and what impact she has on students.</p>

<p>That said, "teaching assistant in an early childhood special education classroom" sounds good to me.</p>

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<p>Thank you so much, Nan! (You always have such good advice!)</p>

<p>I want to make sure that I describe it effectively, I suppose. I want to make sure that it doesn't look as if she was only there to provide snacks or something, since she'll be basically doing what she'd do, once she became a special education teacher herself. Sort of 'on the job training' as it were.</p>

<p>I'm starting to keep a 'portfolio' of her experiences and hope to send it along with her applications.</p>

<p>Kelly</p>

4

<p>Since this is your daughter's career interest, describing her experiences could make for a good essay topic for college applications.</p>

<p>We took the portfolio approach to college admissions (course descriptions, reading list, etc.). There was one page in there describing my daughter's extracurriculars in more detail.</p>