Volunteer Journal
This was my second semester volunteering at the Minnesota Internship Charter School. Last semester, I was an after-school tutor, but this semester I was put in two classrooms to help the teachers. I would love to say that my time there was endlessly wonderful, but the one I really learned a lot from my students happened last semester. I was tutoring a girl I often worked with, when we started talking about our families. She told me that she had been married in Somalia when she was fourteen. They'd had two children, then her husband died. She came to America after that and left her children with her mother. She was going to school at MNIC and working at Target to save up enough money to bring her children over to America. The story broke my heart. I will never forget hearing that story told to me personally. At nineteen, she had gone through far more than I will ever expect to go through in life, and she was so brave. She graduated in January, so I haven't seen her in months, but she had a major impact on me.
This semester, I was placed in an Art class with a charismatic Mexican teacher, Mr. Veyez. He often stumbled through the English language and would ask me how to say certain words. There was never anything to do in those classes except do silly art projects with the students. They conversed among themselves for the most part, but once in a while I could chat with them. I observed bullying last time I was there, so ended up sitting with the bullied girl and hopefully I improved her day a little. I wish there had been more around-the-classroom things for me to help out with. With the few supplies they had, there were never many dishes to rinse or papers to sort. I tried asking the teacher if he had anything for me to do, but often I felt like I was a burden more than a help. The students were very unenthusiastic. The art class was obviously a requirement none of them wanted to fulfill. The teacher often had to raise his voice at the disrespectful students. It made me sad that these mostly Somalian students, who were spending a good amount of their family's money on getting a high school degree, treated their education with such disrespect.
After that hour in art, I would go to a class that was sometimes math and sometimes grammar. Like before, the students were badly behaved, especially for high schoolers. I did help out a lot in this class, though. I usually helped them get through their assignments. I was exhausting, teaching the students the same things over and over again. After I left every day, though, I felt that maybe I had put in some worthwhile work. The teachers were obviously overworked in that school, so whatever I could do was appreciated.
So my experiences volunteering this semester had rewarding parts and aggravating parts. Like all volunteer work, though, it does give you a sense of accomplishment in the end. I definitely will remember some of the students I tutored over the year. However, I think my volunteer job as a campus tour guide will be the one that suits me the best.