Pros
-My school's staff was awesome and laid back, thank god!! The kids were fun and nice, sure there were behavior problems and it was stressful but that's kinda expected when working with kids. I think this is a good starting point if you're fresh out of college or wanna build up work experience because while I don't think I truly gained any substantive skills, I can certainly pretend I did for future job applications. It provides you with a network (supervisors, coworkers etc.) so you can have recommendations for future jobs, or, if you're interested in working in education you could certainly get your foot in the door through who you meet at the school. They also usually have really great catering for their very long training sessions.
Cons
The pay is horrible and the hours are long. They do warn you of that though, but being the naive college kid I was, I thought I somehow would be able to live off that. I managed because I had roommates, but be prepared to live extremely frugally (as in, want therapy? okay maybe once a month! wanna go to the doctor? be careful because a lot because those co-pays add up! have a sudden emergency? better have savings prior to starting this job! enjoy eating mostly rice and beans for every meal? Perfect!) My mental health fell apart from burnout. No amount of free counselors can fix being socially and emotionally drained and physically exhausted. Additionally, while I agree with a lot of the virtues and sentiments of the literacy lab, just know that this is an extremely ideological organization, so if that's not your cup of tea, you've been warned! most people are coming from a good place, but you do run across the somewhat condescending white savior complex types. The trainings are redundant and time consuming. The supervisors are doing their best and they're usually awesome, but they do talk to you like you're a kindergartner and they do force you to do a bunch of group activities where everyone in the group bonds over mutual hatred for whatever icebreaker or group activity are assigned to you. Really most of the stuff is easier to learn on your own or on the job. But I get it's corporate protocol. On top of being drained all the time, you are expected to attain a certain amount of hours to qualify for the education grant. So be sure to get enough hours at your school or have fun doing more work outside of your working hours.
