Friday, January 22, 2010
the joy of serving
Last semester, I started volunteering one hour a week through a local non-profit that seeks to support the education system by providing mentors from the community to tutor and build relationships with students in certain public schools. The program I am a part of involves high school seniors and the effort is geared toward increasing students’ standardized test scores to meet a pre-determined “College Ready” benchmark. In short, we don’t want these students to have to waste a bunch of money taking remedial classes in college.
In my first few weeks, I met seniors Bethany, Paige, Jenny, and Briana and we started going through writing and reading exercises. Their capabilities and interest in the subject matter varied widely and even though their attendance was fairly sporadic, I was happy to think of them as my “regulars.” Writing was a struggle to get through for all of us – my kiddos didn’t enjoy putting forth the effort required for such a subjective subject and after all, who wants to sit down and write an essay in front of your tutor during your advisory when you could have easily have skipped the class? Yeah, exactly. Reading was better although I didn’t get to be as much a part of this process because I was blessed with such a tremendous amount of time off for Christmas break. I can only hope that the other tutors in my classroom provided good instruction for my girls.
With less than 3 weeks left before the next standardized testing opportunity, our group moved onto math today. As I grabbed the math binders from the bookshelf, one of the other tutors commented, “So you’re braving math today?” to which I happily responded, “Oh, I love math actually, Calculus was my favorite subject in high school!” As I walked to the back table, Bethany was waiting for me. Just as I thought it would be a one-on-one session, I noticed that Paige and Briana were sitting across the room. I tried to ignore the scowl I got from Briana (who has generally been the least interested participant) as I made them move to the back, all the while acting as enthusiastic as possible. A young man who I didn’t recognize was sitting a little ways off asked me if we were doing math. When I affirmed and invited him to the table, he shuffled over in his chair. I was thrilled to work with 4 students on my favorite subject. We worked through problems involving fraction conversions and operations, with all the students working at slightly different paces. All of my grade school training for these types of problems came back to me as I worked with them and I was able to demonstrate and teach certain processes and methods that worked well for me when I learned. At several points, I had the whole table smiling, and even laughing over my witty comments on their behavior (e.g. their tendency to whisper answers to each other when one of them was stuck). We worked all the way to the bell. Not surprisingly, Briana darted out as quickly as possible. Paige and Tyson actually stopped to quickly thank me before leaving. Bethany put her pencil down, thanked me as well and proudly declared, “Wow, I learned something new today!” My heart swelled with joy and pride. In that moment, I felt affirmed that every bit of my time spent with these students has been worth it. You know those times that God chooses to demonstrate His love in a very tangible way, by allowing you to see the fruit of your labor? For me, today was one of those days.
In my first few weeks, I met seniors Bethany, Paige, Jenny, and Briana and we started going through writing and reading exercises. Their capabilities and interest in the subject matter varied widely and even though their attendance was fairly sporadic, I was happy to think of them as my “regulars.” Writing was a struggle to get through for all of us – my kiddos didn’t enjoy putting forth the effort required for such a subjective subject and after all, who wants to sit down and write an essay in front of your tutor during your advisory when you could have easily have skipped the class? Yeah, exactly. Reading was better although I didn’t get to be as much a part of this process because I was blessed with such a tremendous amount of time off for Christmas break. I can only hope that the other tutors in my classroom provided good instruction for my girls.
With less than 3 weeks left before the next standardized testing opportunity, our group moved onto math today. As I grabbed the math binders from the bookshelf, one of the other tutors commented, “So you’re braving math today?” to which I happily responded, “Oh, I love math actually, Calculus was my favorite subject in high school!” As I walked to the back table, Bethany was waiting for me. Just as I thought it would be a one-on-one session, I noticed that Paige and Briana were sitting across the room. I tried to ignore the scowl I got from Briana (who has generally been the least interested participant) as I made them move to the back, all the while acting as enthusiastic as possible. A young man who I didn’t recognize was sitting a little ways off asked me if we were doing math. When I affirmed and invited him to the table, he shuffled over in his chair. I was thrilled to work with 4 students on my favorite subject. We worked through problems involving fraction conversions and operations, with all the students working at slightly different paces. All of my grade school training for these types of problems came back to me as I worked with them and I was able to demonstrate and teach certain processes and methods that worked well for me when I learned. At several points, I had the whole table smiling, and even laughing over my witty comments on their behavior (e.g. their tendency to whisper answers to each other when one of them was stuck). We worked all the way to the bell. Not surprisingly, Briana darted out as quickly as possible. Paige and Tyson actually stopped to quickly thank me before leaving. Bethany put her pencil down, thanked me as well and proudly declared, “Wow, I learned something new today!” My heart swelled with joy and pride. In that moment, I felt affirmed that every bit of my time spent with these students has been worth it. You know those times that God chooses to demonstrate His love in a very tangible way, by allowing you to see the fruit of your labor? For me, today was one of those days.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
