The September Edition of staff spotlight is on Mr. John Devaux, an adult support paraeducator at University High School. Prior to this job, he worked as a carpenter, installing kitchens, and was laid off. His wife was working as a second grade teacher in Hartford Public Schools and told him that they were looking for paraeducators, who at the time were called paraprofessionals. Since they were looking for paraprofessionals, he applied for the position. 

       When asked how he builds a relationship/trust with his students Mr. Devaux said, “Primarily treating students as equals. We are all human beings.” The biggest challenge that he faces in this role is discipline because there’s always a primary emotion which includes anxiety, one person wants to do what they want to do and the other person has to say no because of the conditions, the environment that they are in, because the Hartford Public Schools system has certain expectations that are different from the expectations in other public environments. Mr. DeVaux also said that he does not like the anxiety that it produces. “Anxiety is an emotion that human beings have a tendency to want to avoid,” he said. 

        Before entering the field of education Mr. Devaux did a variety of things, including working on a tomato farm when he was 10 years old, after he graduated from high school he worked as an auto mechanic, joined the air force and worked as an electronics technician. Went to college at the University of Connecticut and majored in German with a minor in linguistics. After he graduated he started out as a laborer and worked his way up to a carpenter. He also went back to school and earned his certification to teach high school English. There were a lot of high school English teachers at that time, so he continued to work as a carpenter. He ran his own business for a little while, went into a partnership for a little while, and after that he went and began installing kitchens. He thought that he would retire with the company installing kitchens, but the company went bankrupt during the recession of 2008. He went to a few different carpenter jobs and then applied to become a paraprofessional in Hartford Public Schools. He worked in that role for seven years, then worked as a special education teacher for two years, and then became a paraeducator. 

     In terms of advice he would give to someone who is considering being a paraeducator, Mr. Devaux said, “You have to be able to adapt to the people around you, and that doesn’t mean conforming to what they want, it means trying to figure out what they need and to provide that to the best of your ability.”