Perhaps you’ve heard of him. His name is Raffi. 

Spritely at 75, Raffi will return to Seattle September 23, where the beloved songwriter will perform for a sold-out audience at the Paramount Theatre.

Raffi has been dubbed “the Beatles of kids’ music” and the “most popular children’s singer in the English-speaking world.” He’s performed for at least one U.S. president and the Dalai Lama. And, in a moment seared in his memory, he sang for Nelson Mandala. 

“That was quite something, singing for him,” Raffi said of the latter experience. “He stood up and he shook my hand. I thought I was going to faint. It was so beautiful.”

Raffi’s authenticity radiated through the phone (a real one, not a “bananaphone”) when I recently spoke with him. He was at his home on serene Salt Spring Island, the largest of the Gulf Islands off the Vancouver, B.C. coast. He lives there with his 7-year-old “fur baby” Luna — the canine inspiration for 2018’s ‘Luna’s Song.”

Despite his immense fame, Raffi has no illusions of grandeur or inflated ego. His first order of business in our conversation was to ask the names and ages of my children, followed by thoughtful questions about them and me. “We’ll dedicate this little interview to them,” he said, when the picture of our lives had been sufficiently painted. 

A world of Beluga grads

It is this simple, but important, connection to the millions who listen to his music that says all there is to say about Raffi. He cares about the mark he leaves on the world, not accolades.

“Beluga Grads often tell me that my music was the soundtrack of their childhood,” Raffi said. “That’s a tremendous honor. I know that when music is near and dear to us as young kids, we generally won’t lose that feeling. I’m just very grateful to know that my music has an enduring presence in people’s lives.”

If you hadn’t heard it before, the title “Beluga Grad” applies to anyone who listened to Raffi as a kid – folks who know the crazy things that happen “Down By the Bay” or the precise method to “Shake Your Sillies Out.” That means Beluga Grads span from Baby Boomers to Generation Alpha. Though impossible to fully quantify, Raffi estimates that there are “tens of millions” (that’s five generations) of Beluga Grads. 

The Children’s Troubadour

Raffi was born Raffi Cavoukian to an Armenian family in Cairo, Egypt. When he was 10, his family relocated to Toronto, Canada. In 1974, Raffi stumbled into his first gig, a favor to his mother-in-law who asked that he perform at the nursery school she ran.

“There was no market approaching me,” Raffi said, when I asked how performing for children became his career. “Those words don’t really apply. It just sort of emerged. Saying ‘yes’ to an invitation 49 years ago. It grew from there.”

Since that fateful performance, Raffi has released 26 albums, some of which reached gold and platinum status in North America. He’s been nominated for three Grammys, holds four honorary degrees, and received the Order of Canada, the nation’s second-highest honor granted to its notable citizens. 

Raffi’s first — and still most popular — album, Singable Songs for the Very Young, was recorded in a friend’s basement for a few thousand dollars and released in 1976. The singles from that album alone read like the “top five” of children’s hits, even now in 2023, and include kid classics “The More We Get Together”, “Down By the Bay”, “Bumping Up and Down”, “Willoughby Wallaby Woo” and “Mr. Sun”.

“I get the best fan mail,” Raffi said. “They’re usually drawings from young kids, but also parents send me wonderful notes. I just love my fans. I’m so privileged to do this work.”

The song “Baby Beluga,” from the 1980 album of the same name, is perhaps the singer’s most renowned. He was inspired to write the tune in 1979 after an unforgettable encounter with Kavna, a young beluga whale who lived, not in the “deep blue sea”, but at the Vancouver Aquarium until her death in 2012. When asked if he ever tires of singing it, 43 years after its release, his answer was immediate and firm:

“No, I don’t. It’s always a joy,” he said. During the upcoming Seattle concert, he adds, “we’re going to be raising our voices to that beautiful creature once again.”

A Greater Purpose

Raffi has said in the past that “Baby Beluga” was a way to set Kavna free. It was also a way to explore his growing concern for the environment. Raffi has been an active climate change advocate since 1989 when he really began using his remarkable song-writing ability and telltale folk sound to spread a deeper, more pressing message, one that strayed from his light, “singable” songs meant for children. In 1990, the musical artist who taught troves of children to “Brush Your Teeth,” released his first album geared towards adults and climate advocacy: “Evergreen, Everblue.” And, in 2019, he released a song called “Young People Marching” which he dedicated to Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmental activist who grabbed the world’s attention with her impassioned plea for climate change mitigation.

“We need climate action commensurate to the feel of the threat,” Raffi said. “Every family that cares, every parent that cares to secure the future for our children, we need to be active. People ask me if I’m hopeful. My answer to them is, ‘I’m active.’ That’s the point.”

The life of a children’s troubadour

In 1999, Raffi released his autobiography. “The Life of a Children’s Troubadour“ recounts the highs and lows of his life and career. The book also reiterates his most valued beliefs about the role we must play in protecting his core audience: children. 

As it turns out, his music is only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the shiny, engaging melodies has always been the generous, respectful thinking that has guided Raffi through his nearly five decades in children’s entertainment. 

Covenant for Honoring Children

Raffi’s 1999 autobiography, “The Life of a Children’s Troubadour,” recounts the highs and lows of his life and career and outlines the artist’s vision for protecting children. He also founded The Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring after “nothing short of a vision” woke the artist from a sound sleep. 

“I knew in that luminous moment that that was the name of a unique social change revolution with the universal child at the heart of it,” Raffi said. “The infant of every culture is the same physiological being regardless of skin color, ethnicity, the family’s social standing, economic conditions. Isn’t that the most marvelous and uniting news ever? It should be sung from the rooftops!” The organization offers online courses and resources for parents, caregivers, educators, or anyone inspired by Raffi’s “Covenant for Honoring Children.” 

Unlike most people who find success, Raffi never “sold out”. He refused to sign advertising deals and never peddled merchandise. His vision for a better world meant he would not commercially or financially exploit children for profit. 

“Why would I ever sell out?

To put things in perspective, at the height of “Baby Beluga”, which intersected with the rise of children’s programming, toy marketing and 80s extravagant consumerism, Raffi turned down all offers – lucrative ones at that – to commercialize his incredibly popular song. There was no “Baby Beluga” film franchise or television show for no reason other than Raffi was morally and ethically opposed to direct advertising to children. 

“My work is rooted in love and respect for young children,” Raffi said. “Why would I ever sell out? It wasn’t even a choice. If you’re doing really well with your music, doesn’t that behoove one to stick with one’s principles? It goes with respect and love.”

A hero’s mark

Not all heroes wear capes. Instead, some live in remote parts of Canada with their canine companions. They live the life they preach. And they live in the hearts and memories of those who have loved them and listened to their message. 

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The post My bananaphone moment: An interview with Raffi appeared first on Seattle's Child.

“You need a second income,” she says, “either from a partner or another job.” 

We are all educators

To make ends meet when her kids were younger, Marla worked as many as three jobs at once. “One day a week, I cleaned a house for an extra $25. I’ve mowed lawns to cover rent. I did inventory at Costco.”

In her current role as the union president for paraprofessional leadership within the Seattle Education Association, Marla says, “My push is for people to understand that this is a career choice.” She seeks to ensure that paraprofessionals are compensated fairly and that they receive training to help them thrive at work. 

“Without paraprofessionals in our schools, they won’t function. Teachers wouldn’t be able to teach. Students wouldn’t be able to learn. It’s a profession that needs to be honored. We’re all educators.”

Like mother like daughter

In fact, a 2016 study showed just how much impact teaching assistants have. Not only did their presence in schools help academically – boosting math and reading scores, especially among students of color – but they also improved behavior, reducing both absentee rates and tardiness.

Alisha Rasmussen followed in her mother’s footsteps and works as a paraprofessional at a junior high in the Puyallup School District. At $27 per hour, her salary is on the higher end of the pay scale (pay is variable depending on education, experience and the requirements of the position). 

Even as Alisha supports her mother’s endeavors to improve the profession, she is training to become a teacher. “I love being a para, but I also would love to generate change,” Alisha Rasmussen says. In her experience, while paraprofessionals can create change in a classroom or with individual students, they “face roadblocks” when making systemic changes. 

A hopeful change-agent

Alisha has pushed to bring more trauma-informed practices into the classrooms and increase the use of assistive technology to promote student independence.

“Our voices aren’t heard at the district level. We get a lot of, ‘Oh, why don’t you check in with your teacher about that,” she says. “I would love to see a joint effort between paraprofessionals and classroom teachers to advocate and create change, since paraprofessionals are too often overlooked in a hierarchical system that claims to see us as equals in education.”

Increasing need, increasing burnout

Over the years, the Rasmussens have also observed an increase in behavioral issues among students, which affects paraprofessionals in terms of both physical safety and burnout. 

“We’re talking students who are easily escalated, throwing chairs, hurting other people, hurting themselves,” says Marla. “It is not unusual for our staff to be punched in the face.” She adds that staff being harmed was rare when she first started working. “Now, it’s an everyday occurrence.”

Despite the significant difficulties that come with the role, both mother and daughter say that the bonds they’ve formed with their students make the job worthwhile. 

Helping kids find their voice

Once, Marla was asked to support a high schooler who was selectively mute. 

“I was supposed to be his voice in the classroom,” she says. As she worked with him, however, she discovered that all he needed was time. When asked a question, his face remained blank, so peers and teachers assumed that he couldn’t respond or didn’t understand. 

But Marla noticed that if given a few minutes to process, “His whole face would change. It would just light up. Then he would tell you about his interests and his passions. I wasn’t there to speak for him, but to make sure others gave him that space.”

For the Rasmussens, being a paraprofessional is about education, yes, but also about transformation. That highschooler? Marla smiles. “People saw him as a new person.” 

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The post Helping students find their voices: Marla & Alisha Rasmussen appeared first on Seattle's Child.

“Ben was in our program, but he was not on my schedule, and somebody walked him up to me by the hand. He was just sobbing uncontrollably.” Ben didn’t know Roll, and she hadn’t interacted with him before. 

“I don’t know why he’s crying. Nobody knows why he’s crying,” she recalls. “The person who brought him to me just said, ‘He’s in your program. Do your thing.’” 

Doing her ‘thing’

She started to do her thing — to understand Ben’s needs and address them. “I’m just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. I’m trying blowing bubbles, breathing exercises, and funny jokes. And then, eventually, I start counting 1, 2, 3 . . . I get to about 17 and realize he has started counting with me. I am thinking fast — he has stopped crying. We’re counting. We’re getting into the 20s. We’re getting to the 30s; I drop out, and he counts all the way to 100.”

Ben is just one example of why Roll loves her work as a paraeducator. 

“I learned several things that day,” says Roll. “One is that the predictability and the pattern were really helpful for Ben. Two, he could count high. And three, I had his attention. We went on and did a little talking; we tried a little drawing, which devolved into him throwing a bunch of things and becoming very upset. 

Looking for the ah-ha!

“And that’s when I realized, Oh! The fine motor skills were not there, which was very frustrating for this child. Over the course of the year, he spent more and more time on my schedule. The fine motor was frustrating him, and I just loved finding ways for him to express himself. I knew he was smart and I wanted him to feel smart. I’d say ‘You can spell with Scrabble tiles, or magnet letters. Let’s find ways that you can do this without hitting that frustration wall.”

Roll resists the reference to paraeducators as the “unsung heroes” of school, although her description of the job sounds heroic.

“Our job is important because we are accessibility experts or inclusionary coaches,” she says. “Understanding how to make classrooms accessible to ALL students is what our job is all about. 

An expansive, critical role

“Generally speaking, the more difficulty a child has with the general education setting, the more time that child spends with a paraprofessional,” she adds. “We teach kids strategies to succeed at school and work with teachers on how a child could best be present in the room. We work with special education teachers, general education teachers, administrators, nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, and others. 

“We take in all this information, know the child’s individual education plan and behavioral plans, evaluate the child and the situation in front of us, and constantly finesse how we support each child,” Roll continues. “We need to think on our feet, quickly, all day long, about what each kid is capable of and how to best support them in all settings at school.” 

The teacher paradox

Roll came to the paraeducator field already well-versed in the workings of a classroom. She was a high school teacher in Chicago, then worked in San Diego with the juvenile court and community schools as a long-term substitute before stepping back from education for a time. As a teacher, she felt frustrated that she couldn’t spend more time one-on-one with kids who needed extra help. 

“I knew if I could work with those kids, they could make more progress,” Roll says. “They are really struggling, but you could never spend a sufficient amount of time with them because there were always so many other kids in the room.”

She was unfamiliar with the paraeducator role in her previous positions, but a special education teacher and friend at Whittier Elementary knew about her educational background and described the job.

A perfect fit

“I thought, oh my gosh, that’s perfect. That’s exactly what I like to do— to be with the kids who are having trouble academically, socially, whatever their trouble is in the school setting, and really be able to work with one child. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to sit and spend time and work on what the kid needs to work on instead of, here’s the curriculum, and I must get it into as many of these kids as I can as efficiently as I can.”

Roll says the biggest challenge of her work is not the kids but the staffing.

“When we are low on staff, we aren’t able to put in as much of the important preventative work; we are putting out fires. We simply don’t have the people to do the work as well as we can when we are properly staffed,” she says. “To do inclusion right, more paraprofessionals, not fewer, are needed.”

Never bored

Still, she says she has never had a dull day as a paraeducator.

“When we are appropriately staffed and working with a plan in place, it is hard to imagine a more rewarding job. The students are the center of the para universe. I get to spend each day with fun, curious, intelligent, energetic, and silly kids. Every child I have met has passions and personality traits that are engaging and charming, and joyful. 

To be a special education assistant, says Roll, you must love kids. 

“I’m flooded with the combined memories of many kids,” she says. It can be really emotional to watch how hard these kids work and how much they can accomplish.”

The joy of watching a child bloom

She cherishes the memories of watching Ben progress from being shy, frustrated, and overstimulated to being more confident, open, and communicating. 

“He was so great to work with because he was intensely interesting,” Roll says. “I’m not going to say everything was hunky dory after that, but there were just those kinds of lovely moments where I witnessed a child enjoying learning because their needs were being considered and we were finding ways that he could shine. 

“I remember most the first time when he played with a friend on the playground. Just watching him play with a friend, I was like, ‘Oh my god, look at that! That’s friendship, and what a beautiful, beautiful thing.'”

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The post Hard to imagine a more rewarding job appeared first on Seattle's Child.

Paraeducators provide many kinds of support to students. Gaayte started his career with SPS 12 years ago as an instructional assistant (IA) before transitioning into his current position as a multilingual family advocate. It’s a role for which he seems ideally suited. Originally from Somalia, he speaks three languages fluently: Af-Soomaali, Arabic, and English. Additionally, with the help of some elementary students, he’s actively learning Spanish. 

“The kids are keen to correct me,” he says. “That’s one of the benefits of being young—they have no problem telling me when I’m saying something wrong.”

Mahamoud Gaayte, a Somali student and family advocate in Seattle. Photo by Joshua Huston

More than a translator

Working out of the SPS central office, Gaayte serves K-8 students in multiple Seattle schools. He’s much more than a translator for immigrant and refugee students. Multilingual family advocates often serve as de facto social workers, connecting students and their families to support within the school district and the community. 

Of course, they also provide critical translation of documents into families’ native languages. In addition, multilingual family advocates may serve as everything from role models to surrogate parents for students with common language and cultural backgrounds. 

The oldest of seven siblings, Gaayte has lived in Seattle since 2009. While his father still lives in Somalia, the other members of his family live on every continent except South America and Antarctica. After helping with the summer school session, Gaayte and his family traveled to Turkey to visit family there, including a sister and a cousin who attends college. He enjoys visiting new places and immersion in different cultures.

Taking only enough

One of the significant perks Gaayte has found about living in Seattle is access to cuisine from around the world. He loves eating South Asian food, especially Vietnamese Pho, teriyaki, Thai, and Japanese cuisine. And he will always splurge on dark chocolate.

A proponent of minimalism, he encourages folks to “take enough to sustain you.” Still, he’s not averse to creature comforts. Besides the aforementioned dark chocolate, if he were chosen to compete on a TV show like Survivor, the one luxury item he’d take is a good pillow. 

When he’s not working, you might find Gaayte riding his bicycle or using his advocacy skills to connect members of his community with his passion for bicycling and bike safety. He loves all things nature and spends much time outdoors, enjoying activities like camping with his wife and 4th grade son. He walks his son to school each day before heading to work.  

A love of language — and kids

An avid Star Wars fan, Mahamoud’s favorite character is, fittingly, Yoda —he admires the lovable, little green character’s use of language. 

If he had just one opportunity to give a child advice, he’d tell them:

“Be kind, and don’t be shy to ask for help. Students might be afraid to ask questions because they don’t want to look silly or be embarrassed, but they need to ask. Kids also need to say their names the way their families say them—don’t be afraid to correct people’s pronunciation until they learn your name.”

Language learning tips

Gaayte wishes the school district would expand language offerings, making more languages available to students at earlier ages. He has some tips for learning new languages:

• Bring determination.
• Bring passion.
• Bring listening skills. 
• Listen to podcasts and music in the language you are learning.
• Find, listen to, and talk with native speakers.

And most important, Gaayte encourages new language learners to take risks and be willing to make mistakes.

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The post For the love of language: Paraeducator Mahamoud Gaayte appeared first on Seattle's Child.

Golden delivers an array of services mandated by the federal government and written into a child’s education plan or “504 plan,” which outlines how a student’s special needs can be met with accommodations, modification and other services. Golden’s goal: remove any barriers to learning.

Customer service is key

Golden believes in providing excellent “customer service” and likes to go above and beyond for students. That perspective makes sense – his past experience is in sales. It’s why Golden thinks of the students he works with as his customers. He works, he says, to keep his customers happy. 

“If my customer is happy and my customer’s parents are happy, then everybody’s happy,” says Golden.

The students with whom Golden works may have physical disabilities, but they may face other challenges as well: “Because something in their outside life has made them fall behind,” says Golden. “Now they need individual help.”

A vital role

Nowadays, Golden regularly reminds himself – and other educators – that their roles in school are particularly vital in light of the social-emotional loss students suffered during the pandemic. 

The first person a student often sees is their bus driver and the last may be the school custodian or other paraprofessional employee. Certified teachers are often the third or fourth person a student encounters in their school day. The non-certified paraprofessional staff that help a student arrive at the classroom with a smile on their face helps everyone, including the teacher. That driver and custodian, Golden stresses, may have as much impact on the students as their instructional assistants and teachers do. 

Making their day easier

“It is our job to make sure that the students start out with the best day and end with the best day,” says Golden. “We like to say we start the day for the teachers, because if we do a good job in the mornings and the afternoons when the kids see the teachers, their day is a lot easier.” 

Golden grew up in Seattle’s south end and attended Seattle Public Schools. He was bused to Ingraham High School during SPS’s mandatory busing program in the late 1970s. He’s been working for SPS for six years and is the Pacific Region Coordinator for the National Education Association Democratic Caucus, where he coordinates state captains in their legislative work, helps organize candidates and assists in other ways.

A family of educators

His wife has worked for the district for more than 16 years. That, says Golden, puts him at an advantage over other paras. He does not need a second job to make ends meet, as many instructional assistants do.

“Making what instructional assistants make and not having a second job is rare. If it was just me or my wife hadn’t been working as long and making what she makes, then, yeah, I would literally have a second job because there’s no way I could possibly live,” says Golden, who, along with a pay increase, wants to see paraeducators paid for 8-hour work days and receive healthcare benefits.

A call for equity

In many districts sick and personal leave for paraprofessionals is generated based on the number of hours worked, and a para who experiences a health issue may run out of leave. According to Golden, if paraprofessionals worked eight-hour days, just 30 minutes more before and after the bell, they would accrue more sick and personal leave. 

“When I had hip surgery,” Golden says, “I ran out of leave before I was actually able to go back to work and that’s simply because we only work so many days out of the year. If we had a full day we would get the extra benefits to last us throughout a regular school year.”

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The post It’s all about customer service: Paraeducator Otis Golden III appeared first on Seattle's Child.

The secret to his success? He was once just like them. He credits his success with students deemed “challenging” to his willingness to share his own experiences: “I’ve been those kids,” McThomas says.

A music dream 

When McThomas was in high school, he and his brother were sure they would be famous. The music they made played on Seattle’s radio stations alongside talents like Sir Mix-a-Lot, and they were headed for the big time. School took a backseat to that dream, but McThomas completed all credits needed to graduate, save half of one credit. Still, he almost didn’t graduate due to an abysmal senior-year attendance record.

Only by the skin of his teeth, with the threat of his mother, and the grace of his biology teacher—who allowed McThomas to make up a semester’s worth of work in two weeks—did he walk across the stage with his class at graduation. He remembers that day as one of triumph over tragedy.

Ronnue McThomas has a passion for fashion, music and the students he serves. Photo by Joshua Huston

Rough times

When things didn’t go as hoped with music, McThomas moved from Seattle to Atlanta. While on the east coast, he owned a business and continued following his passion for making music. When the economy changed during the 2008-2010 recession, McThomas’s business flagged. He returned to Seattle, where he briefly experienced homelessness. 

After spending approximately four months unhoused, he returned to school—first to earn his associate degree. McThomas credits his return to school with helping him turn his life around. It led him into the classroom as a paraeducator. 

Desire to be a change agent

His ability to relate to kids’ challenges led McThomas back to school. He’s currently working to complete his bachelor’s in early childhood education. He plans to get a master’s degree, which he hopes to use to create positive change in the education system.

One thing he’d change is the length of time spent teaching. 

“We live in a soundbite society. Kids are on Snapchat and TikTok. Their attention spans have gotten shorter. People are processing information faster, and we spend way too long expecting kids to listen to a teacher for an hour,” McThomas says. 

In college, McThomas learned a better way to teach: spend 15 minutes presenting new material, followed by 10 minutes off for kids to process that material. 

Cellphone conundrum

McThomas is also interested in the impact of physical movement on learning. “People in general learn better when they’re moving,” he says. “I’d like to see how combining physical activity with teaching traditional subjects might help kids learn better.”

One of the main battles he sees facing teachers is the need to compete with students’ cellphone use in class. Schools are not empowered to intervene or enforce rules and regulations around students’ phones, leaving students free to remain glued to their devices. 

“If I had my way, the legislature would pass a law so parents could limit phones to only calling or texting parents during school hours, in case of emergency,” he says. He recognizes the potential for danger in schools, especially considering the nationwide escalation of school gun violence. Phones are a necessary evil, but he firmly believes limitations would improve kids’ engagement in the classroom.

Always a music man 

McThomas’s passion for making music has never waned. Independent music awards have recognized several of his recordings, and his Spotify channel has over a million listeners. His style combines R&B, funk, and hip-hop and is uniquely McThomas. Depending on which of his tracks you listen to—including those on his latest 2023 release titled R&B is Not Dead—you might think you’re hearing Eric B. & Rakim back in the day, or perhaps Bizarre, or maybe John Legend, or any number of artists whose names and music are standard fare on the radio. And although you may hear the influence of other artists in his music, it’s impossible to confine McThomas, whose artist name is Ronnue, to any one genre. 

“You might find me writing country, old school, rap—I love it all. It just depends on what’s in my mind,” he says.

Seeing the unique potential in every student

When not working at Interagency or doing his own schoolwork, you’ll find McThomas in the recording studio, playing a gig anywhere from Seattle to Atlanta, or procuring fashion items. In music, clothing, and life, McThomas’s style is all his own.

He recognizes that same uniqueness in each of the kids he works with. In sharing his own story, he inspires them not to give up on school, but to use it to advance their dreams.

More at Seattle’s Child:

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The post Their story was his story: Paraprofessional Ronnue McThomas appeared first on Seattle's Child.

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It takes passion to fulfill a role not many people know about or even understand. Rochelle Greenwell is passionate about her position as a paraeducator in the Kent School District. As the President of the Kent Association of Paraeducators and a Learning Assistance Program (LAP) paraeducator in a Title One school, she knows how vital her role is to the classroom and to her students.

A paraeducator for 10 years, Greenwell’s passion is best illustrated in the triumphs of the students she serves. One large triumph involved a student who could write letters, but wrote them backwards. It took a year for Greenwell, working with the classroom teacher, to help that child turn them around. These collaborations, she says, are validation of the power of the paraeducator role.

Kent paraeducator Rochelle Greenwell. Photo by Joshua Huston

The arms and legs of the district body

Each day, Greenwell provides one-on-one instruction to 42 students in four classrooms. She often develops specialized curricula to help students learn in the way that suits them best and provides accommodations to those who need them.

Although she has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, Greenwell decided against becoming a certificated teacher because she felt a calling to support individual students. 

“The certificated teachers may be the heart of any district but paraeducators are the arms that reach out to each student and the legs they stand on,” Greenwell says. 

“No district body can operate without its arms and legs or hands and feet no matter how strong the heart beats,” she says. “We are also educators who work with other educators.” 

Educators “alongside”

Greenwell points out that the prefix, para, means “alongside of” or “beside” and so the title paraeducator describes this role perfectly. Paraeducators work alongside their students and alongside teachers, administration and parents to help students get the best education possible. 

Greenwell says the most rewarding part of her work is when she is able to connect with a student to help them understand and grasp a concept. She says it is the glimmer in a student’s eye and their face lighting up that makes coming to work everyday worthwhile. 

“This is where the creative process of getting them to learn and helping them understand they are capable of all things (makes it all worthwhile),” says Greenwell. “Getting them to see it in themselves is the fun part that makes it enjoyable coming to work.” 

“I want them to see themselves in the job that I do,” Greenwell adds. “No matter the social economic status, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age of the student they are all capable of great things. I enjoy encouraging each one of them, even when they say they can’t do it.’  

Support your school’s paras

Having parent support is also important and having them understand her role in their child’s education is crucial. Greenwell says parents can help support paraeducators by talking to their school district office about providing them a liveable wage, speaking up at school board meetings in support of the para role and acknowledging their impact on teachers and students. 

“Speak to whomever you think would listen,” Greenwell says. ‘Paraeducators are a valuable part of your school.”

When she’s not advocating for students or paraeducators, Greenwell follows one other passion. She says she’s obsessed with cosplay and loves attending Cons (Comic Con, Sakura Con) with her daughter — sometimes in costumes she creates herself. 

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The post ‘They are all capable of great things’ appeared first on Seattle's Child.

The ‘Fireman’

The protagonist of the book is a “fireman” named Guy Montag. His job is to ferret out secret stashes of books in people’s houses, douse them with kerosene and burn them, along with the house as punishment, and the occupants too if they refuse to leave.  His docile acceptance of this work and his grim existence is disrupted when he meets a new neighbor, a teenager named Clarisse, whose subversive ideas about literature and freedom of thought make her a social outcast. When Clarisse is killed under suspicious circumstances, Guy descends into a spiraling personal crisis that eventually ends in his rebellion, his near death, and his liberation.

A cautionary tale

I first read Fahrenheit 451 (named for the temperature at which paper burns) as a high school junior in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was a liberal college town, and the book was pretty much required reading as a cautionary tale about the dangers of censorship and the fundamental importance of freedom of thought. I remember being mesmerized by it, not so much for what it taught me about intellectual liberation, but more for its dystopian pathos. It was The Hunger Games for my generation of teens. Also, Clarisse was kind of a tragic Manic Pixie Dream Girl–and my first fictional crush.

Book banning in 2023

Fast forward to 2023 (roughly the time frame in which Fahrenheit 451 was set), and events that once seemed like a distant dystopian fantasy are now a staple of the daily news. In the first half of the 2022-2023 school year alone, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans cites 1,477 instances of books being removed and forbidden in our schools. The overwhelming majority of these bans were stories about people of color or LGBTQ+ individuals. Some dealt with issues of racism and discrimination or historical accounts of enslavement, but others simply had characters who were identified as belonging to those groups. Apparently, these bans are meant, not only to erase history, but to erase people as well.

The bans were mostly triggered by state legislatures passing censorship bills that threaten school districts with defunding or criminal prosecution. The laws are justified as a means of “protecting” children and parental rights. They go hand-in-hand with other laws, like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill that forbids teachers from even mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom, or the many laws that ban any classroom discussion of systemic racism in the United States as “critical race theory.”

Be scared

This is truly scary stuff. Freedom of thought may not be enshrined in the Constitution, but it’s the foundation for every other freedom that is. Every authoritarian regime that ever existed, from Hitler to Putin, used censorship as page one of its playbook, and as a crucial engine of its ascent to power. If you control which ideas are acceptable, you control how people perceive the world, and you can create any reality you want. These days, if you take that tactic and supercharge it with social media and artificial intelligence, there’s no limit to how far you can distort the truth.

I’ve always been an optimist about the future of humankind. Maybe it’s all those hours I spent as a kid watching “Star Trek,” and the enlightened, multi-racial, multi-species crew of the Enterprise following the Prime Directive from one galaxy to the next. But lately, that optimism has been sorely tested. Ray Bradbury saw this coming 70 years ago, and tried to warn us. His dystopia is now.

Teach children how to think critically

We have to find a way to protect our kids from these people who are claiming to protect them. Our goal should be to teach our children how to think critically for themselves, and we can only do that if we expose them to the full richness of human experience and perspective, rather than deprive them. The banning of books and the ideas they contain is a fever, and the temperature in this country is rising fast. If we don’t do something soon, who knows what will burn down next? 

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Late last June, instructional assistant Steven Alvarez got a message from the mother of a former student.

“In 4th and 5th grades, we worked really hard together on behavior and academics that he really struggled with,” Alvarez says. Now, the boy is headed to high school — and according to his mom, he would be marching in a parade to celebrate the transition. Alvarez didn’t think twice. He showed up on the parade route with a “congratulations” sign to cheer on his former student. 

“It’s been three years since he’s seen me, right? And there he is walking towards me and my sign, and he stops and stares at me like, ‘I can’t place you, but I know you,'” says Alvarez, who gets emotional just thinking about the moment. “I say ‘it’s Mr. Alvarez!’ And his eyes got so big. He’s trying to be this cool 8th-grade kid with his friends, right? But he comes up to me and shakes my hand.” The student’s friends inquired about the man with the sign:

“He told them, ‘This is someone that helped me,'” says Alvarez. “I teared up right there in the street. I was his teacher. I helped him level up. This is why I do what I do.”

Alvarez is known for his ever-changing colored Converse shoes, red glasses and calm. Photo by Joshua Huston

‘My students’

Alvarez, who refers to the students assigned to his care as “my students,” has a lot of memories that illustrate why he left a more lucrative research job to become a Seattle Public Schools paraeducator 17 years ago — and never looked back. There’s the bike-to-school dad who thanked him for greeting his child every day. And the former student he watched stand up from his walker to receive his high school diploma. “I was a sopping mess,” Alvarez says. 

“I absolutely love my job and the kids I work with. I look forward to going to school every single day.” 

The ‘stoic’ tool:

With his bold red spectacles and Converse shoes (he changes shoe color daily), Alvarez is known for his high energy and enthusiasm as he helps students face challenges head-on. He’s also known for his calm in a crisis. 

“When one of my colleagues said, ‘Steven, when a kid is so upset that they’re just yelling at you and screaming and throwing things, you’re just so stoic,’ I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment. But then I thought about it,” says Alvarez. What the colleague saw as stoic is one of Alvarez’s primary teaching tools: modeling. 

“When a kid is dysregulated, I’m purposefully breathing in and out. I really want the student to mimic my breathing and do what I’m doing so they can get regulated,” he explains. “It’s my job to stay really calm and relaxed, to show them what they need to be doing and that they can do it.” Recently he’s noticed more and more of his fellow educators doing “square breathing,” grounding themselves before entering the classroom. 

“It absolutely works,” Alvarez says.

Walking for happiness

Any day during the school year, you might see Alvarez and a student “walking for happiness” around the school. You wouldn’t know it, but a few minutes earlier, that student felt agitated or possibly out of control.

“We take a quick walk down the hallway, skipping sometimes, and talk about anything and everything besides what is upsetting them. We talk about my cats, we talk about their pets, we talk about Legos, whatever,” Alvarez says. “Five minutes later, things have deescalated.”

“A lot of my kids struggle in reading, writing, math, or other areas, and that starts the anxiety that leads to behaviors. They’re stuck, they’re anxious, and they can’t break the cycle,” says Alvarez, who was named the 2020 Educational Support Person of the Year by the Washington Education Association. “But once you get them out of the classroom and chat with them about anything else, you can break the cycle. Then we can have that conversation and work on academics. I can tell them, ‘My friend, I’m here to help you. You’re not alone.” 

Practicing what he preaches

Sometime in the next two years, Alvarez will step down from his position as an instructional assistant and move into the Special Education teacher’s seat. He is currently working on his teaching certification and plans to complete a Master’s in Education. 

Although he is torn about ending a role in education that has been fulfilling in countless ways, Alvarez says becoming a certified teacher is the “natural progression, at least for me.” He encourages kids to keep trying to level up in learning. “And I realize I’ve got to practice what I preach!”

Alvarez feels strongly that better pay and job security would help keep paraeducators in their positions, although he says most, like him, “are not doing this for the money. 

What it takes to be a paraeducator

“You have to really love working with kids.” 

As districts around the state struggle to fill open paraeducator positions, Alvarez says he hopes more retired people or those from other professions consider the paraprofessional field — “they have a wealth of experience to bring to the table.”

He also has a tip for those interested in earning an education degree and becoming a certified teacher.

“Any person thinking about a teaching career should become an instruction assistant,” he says. “Before you spend that time, get inside the classroom and see if this is what you want to do. I believe in the apprentice model, and that is what’s missing. You could be learning as you go, see how it all really works.

“And,” says Alvarez. “I think the retention would be there if they knew what they were getting into.”

Once a researcher, always a researcher

Alvarez says he has no regrets about leaving research for education.

In many ways, he’s still a researcher. He’s always looking for ways – new or tried-and-true – to help students reach their full potential in the classroom and beyond. 

More at Seattle’s Child:

Paras: The unsung heroes of public schools

‘I know I make a difference every day’

They walked for me

The post Walking for happiness: It works every time appeared first on Seattle's Child.

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As a child, Carrie Cain would play “teacher.” After all, her mother was a teacher and her grandparents were teachers, too. To no one’s surprise, Cain grew up and went on to teach seventh-grade math, working for more than 20 years in the Riverview School District. 

“I always saw it as a calling,” Cain says.

Shifting times

But then the pandemic hit and something shifted. “Covid broke me,” she says. “I still loved the world of education, I loved my students, but I was becoming disconnected in the classroom. I couldn’t see how to meet students’ needs within the mainstream system as they returned to in-school learning.” 

Even though she knew she was done with teaching, she wasn’t ready to retire. A friend suggested that she might enjoy being an instructional assistant, and Cain soon found a middle school in South Seattle with several openings. While she had robust teaching credentials and had supervised her own teaching aides in the past, she was required to pursue additional training to support students with special educational needs or behavioral challenges, then pass a paraeducator assessment exam.

First order of business: breakfast

In her new role at as a middle school special education assistant, Cain begins her days preparing breakfast for students: applesauce for one, cereal for another, even noodles for a child who prefers a hot meal. Then she heads outside to help her them off the buses and into the classroom. Cain works in what her school district calls a “distinct” classroom. Of the six students in the class, some have Down syndrome, others are on the autism spectrum, and all have significant needs. 

Under the supervision of Josie Stump, a certified special education teacher, she and two other paraeducators support these students to eat, whether that means opening a container of milk or lifting a spoon to a student’s mouth, to use the restroom, or to stay focused on an independent task, such as learning to tie their shoes or matching self-care items (toothpaste, toothbrush, dental floss) to place in the same bag. 

A realization

One surprise since starting the job, however, is how “invisible” paraeducators can be, despite their much-needed presence in classrooms. 

“I myself was guilty of it!” she says. 

When she worked as a teacher supervising a general education classroom of 25 to 30 students, Cain says, “I was unaware of a lot of things, including things that kids needed. I’m not faulting teachers at all. They have so many kids. But paras fill that gap. They’re the safety net.” 

Mom

Within the classroom, however, Cain’s joyful, caring, empowering presence is noticed. Stump says that students adore her.

“I mean, they’ve accidentally called her mom,” Stump says. “Even though she’s a para and that’s a different role than a teacher, I feel like she’s taught me so much.”

Within Seattle Public Schools, pay for an instructional assistant ranges from  $23 and $38 per hour, and Cain, who earns on the higher end of the scale, believes that she is fairly compensated. That said, she has kept in touch with friends who work in other school districts, and is “shocked at the pay discrepancy. $20/hour is ridiculous to me. This is not a light job.”

A powerful career change

It is, however, a job she describes as life-changing. Despite Cain’s two decades as an educator, she speaks about her current group of middle schoolers with both laughter and awe.

One student, a native Mandarin speaker, has learned to read in English. He can now complete an entire beginning reader “Bob Book” on his own.

Another student who had daily meltdowns at the start of the year has transformed into a cheerful presence in the class, able to clearly communicate her needs. Yet another student, upon having to return a leftover birthday cupcake she had quietly smuggled to her desk, pronounced, “Well now I’m sad,” only to be met with cheers and applause for having successfully spoken a four-word sentence. 

“It’s just so joyful to do this work,” Cain says. “I know I make a difference every day.”

More at Seattle’s Child:

Paras: The unsung heroes of public schools

They walked for me

The post ‘I know I make a difference every day’ appeared first on Seattle's Child.