Leaving a great job

I wrote this on Friday, the end of work for the summer:

Today was the last day of ACAP, and I can't help but feel a bit sad. These children were the focus of all my energy and effort for the past several weeks. I shared all their small triumphs and empathized with each tantrum or minor tragedy, whether it was the loss of a toy soldier or a bloody knee. What am I to do with myself now? What do I devote myself to? Munich will provide an outlet and exhaust me again in the best possible way, but for the moment, I am terribly impatient. I did not know I would become so attached this time. Perhaps as I let go of A., I relied more on the affection of the children in my classroom. They were all so eager to be paid attention to, regardless of whether they were being instructed, redirected or adored. Now I am somewhat hollow; lacking in this respet. This year, maybe I needed ACAP almost as much as the kids needed me.

For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, I worked at a summer program for autistic children called ACAP in Portland, Oregon. There were two sites each with four classrooms: Older, Younger, Older High-Functioning and Younger High-Functioning. Our staff to student ratio was always 1:1, or on a crowded day, 1:2 with the more mellow kids. ACAP is a non-profit organization and only runs two months a year, but we provided a great deal of relief to parents who work year-round.

The way the classrooms worked was by including several teaching assistants and one main teacher per room. Every day we went on field trips in the community (swimming, Children’s Museum, the zoo) and had classroom time with both play and learning activities. I also work with neurotypical children outside of this program, and I find it hard enough to be outnumbered by children, and so the key part of ACAP is that the kids do get the complete attention of an adult and are encouraged to socialize with other children (both autistic children within the program and neurotypical ones in the community).